Hope Is Not a Method: What Business Leaders Can Learn from America's Army - Paperback

by Gordon R. Sullivan (Author), Michael V. Harper (Contribution by)

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States Army has been reengineered and downsized more thoroughly than any other business. In the early 1990s, General Sullivan, army chief of staff, and Colonel Harper, his key strategic planner, took the post-Cold War army into the Information Age. Faced with a 40 percent reduction in staff and funding, they focused on new peacetime missions, dismantled a cumbersome bureaucracy, reinvented procedures, and set the guidelines for achieving a vast array of new goals.

Hope Is Not a Method explains how they did it and shows how their experience is extremely relevant to today's businesses. From how to stay on top of long-range issues to how to maintain a productive work force during times of change, it offers invaluable lessons in leadership and provides proven tactics any business can implement.

Front Jacket

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States Army has been reengineered and downsized more thoroughly than any other business. In the early 1990s, General Sullivan, army chief of staff, and Colonel Harper, his key strategic planner, took the post-Cold War army into the Information Age. Faced with a 40 percent reduction in staff and funding, they focused on new peacetime missions, dismantled a cumbersome bureaucracy, reinvented procedures, and set the guidelines for achieving a vast array of new goals.

"Hope Is Not a Method explains how they did it and shows how their experience is extremely relevant to today's businesses. From how to stay on top of long-range issues to how to maintain a productive work force during times of change, it offers invaluable lessons in leadership and provides proven tactics any business can implement.

Author Biography

Gordon R. Sullivan was the 32nd chief of staff of the U.S. Army from 1991 to 1995, culminating a distinguished military career. He is the author of Hope Is Not a Method: What Business Leaders Can Learn from America's Army. Born in Boston, MA, he studied at both Norwich University and the University of New Hampshire.

Michael V. Harper is the co-author of Hope Is Not a Method: What Business Leaders Can Learn from America's Army. Harper was director of the CSA Staff Group, the Army Chief's policy planning group. In this role, Harper helped develop the Army's strategic plan for the twenty-first century. He has an MA from the Naval War College and an MBA from the University of North Carolina. He is a fellow of Boston University's CEO Leadership Forum. Harper left active military duty in 1995. Today he is president of the Harper Group, a business consulting and executive development organization based in Springfield, Virginia.