CEO Playbook for Strategic Transformation: Four Factors That Will Make or Break Your Organization

There is no CEO task more significant than leading change in an organization whose old business model needs updating. Large-scale change involves rethinking how to engage customers, partners and suppliers with new technology and hard decisions about how to reorganize internal operations—plus the challenges of executing the transformation.

The stakes are high, filled with risk and reward obvious to all...and it often fails. Why? Most organizations aren't built for change—they're designed for stability, scale, and repetition. Too many things can go wrong, from natural organizational resistance and inertia, to lack of strategic focus, to execution problems. And yet, organizations today must be more dynamic than ever before. Strategy is dynamic, not static, and requires agility, nimbleness, rapid resource deployment, and organizational change.

This practical playbook helps CEOs and other key leaders reduce the risks and see through the overwhelming complexity of a major change in organizational strategy. Unlike many other books on leading change that focus narrowly on overcoming resistance, The CEO Playbook for Strategic Transformation offers a comprehensive framework involving 4 major tasks for leaders:

1) Establish and Communicate the Urgent Need;

2) Engage Stakeholders;

3) Mobilize the Organization; and

4) Develop Organizational Agility. Leaders who guide their organizations through these stages are far more likely to succeed than those who lack a playbook.

Endorsements

Johnny C. Taylor, CEO, SHRM
Scott Snell’s “Playbook” is more important today than ever before as the CEO community struggles to transform their businesses in this ultra-competitive environment marked by constant change and volatility. The book strikes a very nice balance between principles and practice.

Scott Price, CEO, DFI Retail Holdings Group, Ltd.
Every company in the world faces a fast-changing competitive landscape. "The CEO Playbook for Strategic Transformation" frames a great approach to mapping future success.

Betty Thompson, EVP and Chief People Officer, Booz Allen Hamilton
This is an invaluable resource for every CEO driving transformation in their organization. HR leaders should utilize this playbook to create a powerful partnership with the CEO and other executives to design and execute a winning strategy.”

About the Author

Professor Scott Snell is the Eleanor and Philip Rust Professor of Business Administration and former Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business. He teaches courses in strategic management and works internationally with senior executives to help their companies align strategy, execution capability, and organizational transformation.

His research has been published in a number of top journals, and he is an author of several books, notably The CEO Playbook for Strategic Transformation (Stanford Press, 2024), Strategic Execution: Driving Breakthrough Performance in Business (Stanford Press, 2019), and Managing Human Resources (Cengage, 2022).

He currently serves on the board of directors for SHRM, and has served on the boards of the Strategic Management Society’s Human Capital Group, HRPS, the SHRM Foundation, the Academy of Management’s HR Division, the Academy of Management Journal and the Academy of Management Review.

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