Daryl Conner
Chairman/Co-Founder - Conner Partners

Executing Strategic Change to Realize Success

Asked about shifts in short-term vs long-term thinking he has observed over his 35 years of research and experience supporting senior executives through transformational change, Daryl Conner replied that his most notable observation relates to what has not changed - the scary infrequency in which executives demonstrate long-term planning.

During his keynote address at the Association for Strategic Planning's National Conference, Daryl R. Conner, chairman of Conner Partners, the Atlanta based consulting firm specializing in strategy execution and organizational transformation, will distinguish the short-term "installation" of initiatives from the long-term "realization" of their strategic intent. In keeping with the conference theme, "Positioning for Long-Term Success in a Short-Term World," Daryl will challenge practitioners and executives to attend to short-term realities without losing sight of desired long-term outcomes.

"Executives are event driven, and this is not a dysfunction but rather inherent to their positions. However, the most successful executives address short-term events in the context of their longer-term objectives." During his presentation, Daryl will address two essential questions to internal and external strategic planning practitioners: 1) "To what degree is your client predisposed to realization?" and 2) "To what degree can you raise their level of consciousness and prepare them for realization?"

Daryl sees organizations as concentrated groups of people undergoing change. He is committed to helping executives and individuals learn how to be architects of their own futures, not victims of them. When strategic transformation is necessary, he advocates for organizational leaders to be prepared for the challenge and to also ask themselves fundamental questions about who they are and what they will stand for in the future.

Daryl's approach to strategic change is based on his educational background in psychology and over three decades of experience both researching organizational change and advising some of the largest and most successful organizations in the world. He focuses on guiding organizations and their leaders to recognize and overcome the most critical risks to realizing strategic change objectives. His two books, Managing at the Speed of Change (Random House, 1993) and Leading at the Edge of Chaos (John Wiley & Sons, 1998) are standard references for those in the field of strategy execution and change management.

Daryl has recently launched a professional blog, http://changethinking.net, through which you can access a wealth of information on installation vs realization and join a community of strategic change practitioners.

Books by Daryl Conner

Managing at the Speed of Change By Daryl Conner Random House, 1993 Buy at Amazon or Barnes & Noble

Leading at the Edge of Chaos: How to Create the Nimble Organization By Daryl Conner John Wiley & Sons, 1998 Buy at Amazon or Barnes & Noble