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Here are five choice articles from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms to start off your work week. I'm pointing you to articles about creating real organizational change, Toyota's crisis management, changing your organization and strategy in a rapidly changing environment, Tata's social entrepreneurism, and leadership as a choice.

From Entrepreneur: Creating a Culture of Excellence
"In the end, it turns out the quest for excellence is a little like stopping smoking--there are hundreds of plans, but in reality none of them work very well, at least without a strong commitment from the top. According to research by IBM and others, between 60 and 90 percent of organizational change initiatives fall flat. It's no wonder. Making the changes that lead to excellence is not an overnight pursuit--it's a long process that often means rewiring a company's fundamental DNA."

Wally's Comment: Organizational change is hard. It takes time. It takes more time than most Americans are willing to concentrate. This article covers most of the bases in short and readable form.

For more good stuff on change, review John Kotter's classic, Leading Change. Check out my post, "Light Bulbs, People, and Change." And repeat my change mantra: "Technology changes rapidly. Organizations change slowly. Human nature doesn't change."

From HBS Working Knowledge: Tragedy at Toyota: How Not to Lead in Crisis
"Toyota's ever-widening problems are a tragic case study in how not to lead in crisis."

Wally's Comment: Bill George offers some insightful analysis on the Toyota crisis, which he sees as a crisis of leadership. Some things at Toyota will have to change.

From Wharton: 'Don't Hide in the Corner': A Page from the Life and Career of Hearst's Cathie Black
"For Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazines, new approaches to delivering content strike at the core of her business, which for generations has been built around text, graphics and full-color photography on thick, glossy paper."The media business is in an unbelievable swirl right now. It's very exciting," said Black in a keynote address at the recent Wharton Women Business Conference."

Wally's Comment: Sometimes you don't get a choice about whether to change. That's true for media companies right now. One of the biggest is Hearst. Cathie Black outlines her company's challenges and responses and shares her view of what's just over the horizon.

From Strategy + Business: Too Good to Fail
"When India’s Tata Tea Ltd. purchased Britain’s Tetley Tea Company for US$450 million in early 2000 — at the time the largest sum ever paid by an Indian company for a foreign acquisition — the rationale for the deal was clear. Tata Tea would not just gain one of the world’s most iconic brands. It would also transform itself from a sleepy farming operation with a core business of barely profitable tea plantations to a high-margin global distributor of specialty teas and other healthy beverages. Soon after the acquisition, Tata made another logical move. It sold its vast plantations in Munnar, a mile-high, economically underdeveloped community in the Western Ghat mountains of South India, where Tata had been the largest employer for a century."

Wally's Comment: The Tata Companies are unique. They've been around for almost 150 years. The founder went into business because he felt he could do more for people that way than as a priest. The principles of social entrepreneurship they live by come from the tiny Zoroastrian (remember the Wise Men?) religion. And they are probably the most diversified group of companies in the world.

From Forbes: Leadership Is Something You Decide To Do
"A conversation with the psychologist Robert Jeffrey Sternberg."

Wally's Comment:  This is a good piece about one psychologist's view of leadership. It made me think. Even though I wound up deciding that Dr. Sternberg leaves out some important and thorny issues, his concepts provided some weekend mind stretching.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.