Pat Parenty is senior vice president general manager of Redken US, a leading manufacture of professional beauty products sold through the professional salon industry. Parenty recently spoke with GDSI about ratcheting up performance at Redken.

Take us back before the Redken high-performance revolution. What prompted the change?
Back in 1997, Redken Fifth Avenue was a dying brand. Once number one in hair color, it had slipped to third or fourth place. Younger customers thought of Redken as "what my mother used." Internally, the company was siloed, with Sales and Education--the department that trains hairdressers to use Redken products--constantly at loggerheads. Roles and responsibilities were unclear, and important tasks began to fall through the cracks.

Do organizations, leaders, and teams display a way of communicating that marks them as high performers? Tucked away in Pat Parenty's interview in this issue are some of the trigger words for high performance: "horizontal," "alignment," "accountable," "driven to get results," "no functional boundaries," and "engaged."

Based on the research for our forthcoming book, we have distilled 10 elements that make up a consistent pattern of high-performance communication.

Barbara E. Weber, GDS consultant and account manager, shares learnings from a global, multi-year engagement with a key client.

Presenting Situation: New president of a multi-billion-dollar global consumer goods corporation wants to shift from top-down, centrally controlled organization to culture where employees feel "at stake," empowered, and accountable . . . Survey of employees indicates that only 18% are committed enough to achieve maximum performance. . .

EXECUTIVE COACHING CONFERENCE:
SPECIAL DISCOUNT FOR GDS CLIENTS AND FRIENDS

The Conference Board's Leading the Way in Developing Excellence will be held in NYC January 29-30, 2008. Howard Guttman will kick off the conference with a panel discussion, Coaching: View >From the Top, featuring Larry Allgaier, president and CEO, Novartis Consumer Health, Inc.; Helen McCluskey, group president, Intimate Apparel and Swimwear, Warnaco, Inc.; and Grant Reid, president, Mars Drinks, Mars, Inc.

Get the GDS special discount of $300 on conference registration and $100 on pre-conference workshop registration by using Discount Code DE.

NEW BOOK ALERT!

Howard Guttman's second book is in the works. Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout Performance has been scheduled for publication by John Wiley & Sons in June 2008. If you haven't read his first, When Goliaths Clash, it's available on Amazon.com.