Long-cycle Strategies for a Short-cycle World: Build Enduring Value in Your Enterprise - Paperback

by Ed Friedrichs (Author)

Today's financial marketplace, driven by quarterly performance metrics, demands short-cycle actions, often to the detriment of the long-term value of your organization. Compounding this, playing people and facilities like chess pieces loses the embedded value of human networks and institutional knowledge, especially after a merger or acquisition. These patterns, common in publicly traded companies, have found their way into creative industries like architecture, design, and advertising as well. Using a personal journey through his 42-year career as an architect, interior designer and planner, 8 of which were spent as President of Gensler, one of the world's most influential design enterprises, Ed Friedrichs presents a model for business design in the 21st century. Drawing on strategies that created the world's largest architectural practice, an archetypal long-cycle business, he makes the case for a quantum shift in thinking about organizational design in today's creative business environment. This book contains numerous case studies illustrating how to develop strategies and culture to achieve a sustainable advantage in a highly competitive marketplace.What you'll learn: 1. How to develop a unique sustainable advantage for your enterprise by designing it to adapt to rapidly changing markets in real time.2. Where the true value to your clients resides.3. How rich networks and a deep culture will differentiate you from your competitors.4. How to overcome the loss of knowledge through turnover by building a sense of ownership and a career orientation into your enterprise.5. Why a deeply embedded design focus builds value into everything you do.

Author Biography

Ed Friedrichs, a California native, completed his undergraduate degree in pre-architecture at Stanford University in 1965 and received his Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He joined Gensler, Architecture Design and Planning Worldwide, in San Francisco in 1969, opening the firm's Los Angeles office in 1976. During his tenure at Gensler he established the firm's successful practice areas in entertainment, transportation, urban and master planning and strategic facility consulting. In 1995 he was appointed President and, in 2000, Chief Executive Officer of the firm, leading its development as one of the most successful and influential design firms in the U.S. Ed had responsibility for the firm's strategic development efforts as well as business operations in 24 Gensler offices around the world. As President & CEO, Ed helped transform Gensler's offices into a seamless platform for global delivery. He co-created the firm's management structure, an Executive Council comprised of the next generation of leadership. In addition to mentoring this core leadership team, Ed led the integration of the four components of the Gensler community, offices, practice areas, design and delivery teams, and firm wide supporting resources to harness their full power to deliver high value to the firm's clients. He and his wife Pat formed Friedrichs Group in 2003 to pursue their interest in guiding the development of high performance organizations and places, focusing on strategy, culture and values, organizational issues, sales and marketing design. In addition to strategic consulting, he continues to provide planning and design leadership on selected building and planning projects around the country.