Praise for Wide Angle Vision "In this book, Wayne Burkan shows us that the vantage points from which we view and act can earn us critical advantages if we are willing to stretch our thoughts and practices beyond the edge of conventional thinking." - Robert W. Galvin Chairman of the Executive Committee and former CEO of Motorola "Wayne Burkan's Wide-Angle Vision is a very pragmatic and useful guide to dealing with and implementing change. His concept of 'edge' as it relates to customers, employees, and competitors should help many organizations struggling with the rapidly changing marketplace and the endless panaceas being promoted." - David R. Stamper Vice President and General Manager, Hitachi Data Systems, Latin American Division "At Southwest Airlines, we redefined air transportation by utilizing 'edge thinking.' Wayne Burkan is offering a 'flight plan' that if studied, understood, and followed, will improve your bottom line for the long term. If you really want to be on the 'leading edge' for your product or service, this is the place to begin." - Howard Putnam Speaker, author, and former CEO of Southwest Airlines "Wayne Burkan has brought our attention to a great source of potential opportunities for profitable growth if we take his advice and really listen to those challenging customers, potential customers, small competitors, and unhappy employees whom we often want to dismiss as difficult." - D. H. Davis President and Chief Operating Officer, Rockwell International Corporation "Strategically thought-provoking! It's just what busy leaders need to ensure they are focused on gaining a competitive edge. An easy-to-read wake up call for organizations and managers. Wayne Burkan challenges us to confront the perils of tunnel vision and the promise of a wider perspective. So simple, so clear, so right!" - Donald Himelfarb President, Thrifty Rent-A-Car System, Inc. Conventional business wisdom says to get close to your best customers, watch your biggest competitors, and reward your model employees. This controversial book offers a contrarian viewpoint and introduces a dynamic new way to compete-by broadening your focus beyond mainstream thinking to spot the critical opportunities at the edge of your core business. Wide-Angle Vision opens your eyes to the "edge," from "little guy" competitors preparing to take over the market to disgruntled customers and maverick employees whose complaints can lead to great ideas for change. Listening to complaining employees pays off. That's where the idea for Java(r) , Sun Microsystems' successful Internet programming system, came from. With Wide-Angle Vision, now you can learn how to use "edge" groups to sharpen your competitiveness by reducing surprise, increasing innovation, and satisfying customers. Filled with compelling examples from a range of industries and drawing on Wayne Burkan's extensive consulting experience with IBM, Ford, and others, Wide-Angle Vision equips you with specific action techniques that can enable you to: * Anticipate crises before they occur by using "splatter vision," scenarios, and benchmarking * Find breakthrough solutions to difficult problems by looking outside your field * Create powerful, flexible teams that work-from "edge" teams to ideal teams * Reduce resistance to organizational change through skillful timing, finding perfect change agents, and more * Reengineer with lower risk and greater efficiency, using an effective seven-step plan for change * Avoid tunnel vision by broadening your perspective-to the edges of what's happening in the mainstream In today's rapidly changing marketplace, opportunities are all around you. Wide-Angle Vision gives you the power to look them in the eye and develop the daring skills you need to be a leading-and lasting-"edge" competitor.

Table of Contents:
1 Diamonds Beneath Your Feet 1 A Force within Reach 3 Introducing the Edge 5 Forklifts Fall Flat 5 The Curse of Success 7 Protecting the Crown Jewels 8 Finding Your Achilles’ Heel 9 Help Comes Knocking 10 2 Why Those on Top don’t Stay There 14 Invisibility 16 Impossibility 17 Transferability 21 3 Disgruntled Customers 25 The Five Percent Winner’s Circles 25 The Nature of the Edge 27 Meet Your Customers on the Edge 28 Invisible Customers 29 Complaining Customers 32 Lost Customers 35 Listening to Your Edge Customers 37 Case Study: Customers on the Edge 40 Expanding Market Share through Disgruntled Customers 44 4 Fringe Competitors 48 Looking at the Wrong Competitors 49 Creating Your Competition 51 Competitors at the Gates 52 5 Rogue Employees 59 Case Study: Miles Apart from the Rest 60 Java – The One That Almost Got Away 62 Case Study: Dissidents within Professional Organizations 64 Case Study: The Wiz That Woz 66 Suppliers on the Edge 67 Knowing Who to Listen To 67 6 Avoiding Crisis, Reducing Surprise 71 The See, or Not to See . . . 72 The End of Forecasting 74 Selecting Your Target 76 Breaking the Pattern 76 Learning from the Future 77 Four Powerful Anticipation Skills 78 Searching the Future 80 Why Don’t You Hear about Anticipation? 87 7 What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You 90 Signals from the Future 90 Identifying People working on Your Hardest Problems 91 Evaluating the Rule Breakers 94 Recognizing Your Diminishing Return 101 Looking for the Bandwagon 103 Learning from the Language We Use 104 Tracking Historical Patterns 105 8 Creating Sizzling Teams 110 The Benefits of Brain Damage 110 Teams That Blast through Problems 111 How Do Edge Teams Differ? 116 The Disbelief of Teams 118 Your Working Team 119 9 The World at Your Fingertips 121 Virtual Reality at Work 122 Creating an Ideal Team 123 Investing in Change 128 Designing Your Own Ideal Team 130 Creative Solutions with Your Ideal Team 132 Uses for Your Ideal Team 135 10 working with Those on the Edge 138 Plugging Your Innovation Leak: Employees on the Edge 138 How to Attract the Edge 142 My Most Painful Lesson 143 Altering Patterns 145 Benign Neglect 147 Predicting Resistance to Change 148 Take Me to Your Leader 150 11 Truly Delighting Your Customer 152 Why Focus Groups and Survey Fail 154 Be Careful Where You Walk 155 Your Customers’ Customers 157 The Bleeding Edge 158 12 Breakthroughs for Your Toughest Problems 161 The Art of the Impossible 161 Knowl-edge for the Asking 162 Finding Your Savior on the Edge 164 The Consolation Prize 171 Simulating Saviors 173 13 Why Organizational Change Is So Hard 176 Beyond Leadership 177 Ford Follies 178 The Secret to Organizational Inertia 181 Training’s Fatal Flaw 182 The Limitation of Leadership 183 14 Change – Fast and Efficient 186 The Ford Solution 187 Top-Down or Bottom-Up Change 189 Government in Revolt 190 15 Beyond Reengineering 192 The Illusion of Reengineering 193 What Is Right with Reengineering? 194 What Is Wrong with Reengineering? 195 Blistering Fast Reengineering 200 A Powerful Alternative to Traditional Reengineering 200 The Seven Steps to Streamline Reengineering 201 16 Dealing with Your Ever-Present Detractors 207 “There Are a Lot of Crazy Ideas Out There” 207 “We Don’t Have Enough Resources or Time” 212 “Salespeople Should Not Take Their Eyes Off the Ball” 213 17 Leading on the Edge 215 Falling through the Cracks 215 Your Organization’s Business Theory 216 Disaster Plucked from the Jaws of Success 217 Planning: Back to the Future 218 How I Destroyed Two Companies 219 Planning on the Edge 225 Core Competency or Core Deficiency 227 Examining Business Theory 233 Executive Information Delivery 233 18 Surefire Ways to Reduce Resistance 236 Predicting Resistance 236 Time: The Double-Edged Sword 237 Becoming Superman 239 Proaction and Reaction 245 The Change Agent’s Fatal Flaw 247 The Perfect Change Agent 252 Breaking Down the Walls 253 The Insult of Change 258 Notes 262 Index 268