Christopher Meyer
What Works
For over thirty years, I've helped companies get faster intelligently. From startups to international Fortune 500 companies, I've seen the success patterns and exceptions that separate effective acceleration efforts from frustration. This experience saves you time and insures you'll sidestep common errors. Here's a quick glance at some key principles I've learned along the way.
- Strategy guides speed; without it, speed quickly becomes dangerous, dumb or both
- Execution and change are much easier when goals, process and structure are aligned
- People are more important than process or structure
- Good design and technology enable scale, reduce grunt work and contain errors
- Having balanced metrics is essential but how you use them is most important
- Relentless, disciplined experimentation and learning is superior to flawless planning
- Speed leadership paces with caring and curiosity
- Everyone feels better when they're moving and winning!
Nothing changes until people change their behavior. Technology helps BUT unleashing people's potential separates winners. Every effort needs a change strategy that stretches without breaking the definition of what is realistic. This typically achieves 50% cycle time reductions in 2 years; sometimes less.
Professional Background
Christopher Meyer, Ph.D. is the Chairman of the Strategic Alignment Group, Inc. and an academic affiliate of PRTM. Dr. Meyer is internationally recognized as an expert in creating competitive advantage through fast cycle time, innovation and customer experience management. He is also a recognized leader in designing performance management systems, emphasizing metrics that support creativity, prediction, balanced with managerial control.
For thirty years, he has served as an executive, consultant and academic. Dr. Meyer’s most recent article, Understanding Customer Experience, was published in the Harvard Business Review, February 2007. His last book, Relentless Growth: How Silicon Valley Innovation Strategies Can Work in Your Company, (The Free Press 1998) outlines how to design growth strategies that are relevant to today’s high-speed, global knowledge economy. Based on research of successful Silicon Valley firms, Relentless Growth illustrates how growth values and methods must be as robust and clear as everyday operating practices.
Dr. Meyer is also the author of Fast Cycle Time: How to Align Purpose, Strategy & Structure for Speed. Firms such as Johnson & Johnson, Cisco Systems, Applied Biosystems, Genzyme and Hewlett-Packard have reduced time to market, improved service responsiveness and increased operating effectiveness using Fast Cycle Time as their roadmap. His Harvard Business Review article, How the Right Measures Help Teams Excel, is a standard in the performance management literature. Dr. Meyer’s executive experience includes serving as vice-president for Human Resources at Silicon Graphics Computer Systems and organizational effectiveness advisor at Zilog, Inc. He has served on the faculty of the University of Southern California, University of Minnesota, and as academic director of Fast Cycle Time Strategy and faculty for the Innovation Management program at Stanford University. He is currently an instructor at the California Institute of Technology Industrial Relations Center. He received his Ph.D. and masters in organization strategy and design from the University of Southern California, and holds a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce.
Contact us
Call 650-851-4750 or email info@fastcycle.com