CHAPTER 3
Match Strategy to Situation

If Karl Lewin knew anything, it was how to manage in times of crisis. In fact, he’d recently overseen a quick and successful turnaround of European manufacturing operations at Global Foods, a multinational consumer products company. He was less sure, however, that the same sort of approach would be effective in his new role at the firm.

A hard-driving, German-born executive, Karl had acted decisively in Europe to restructure an organization that was broken because of the company’s overemphasis on growth through acquisition and its focus on country-level operations to the exclusion of other opportunities. Within a year, Karl had centralized the most important manufacturing support functions, closed four ...

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