SwitchPoints

On a railroad, there are many decision points where trains are switched from one track to another to ensure they take the best route. These are switchpoints. Like a train in motion, corporate cultures encounter many switchpoints along the way—points where executive decisions create watershed change and define the organization’s future route.

SwitchPoints is the inspiring story of how Canadian National Railway (CN) advanced from good to great in a few short years, becoming North America’s top-performing railroad—a favorite with both corporate customers and investors. Decisions by CN’s leaders at critical switchpoints were key, as was the commitment of CN’s dynamic CEO in leading the change.

In SwitchPoints, the authors share how company-wide culture change propelled this aging transportation giant to become the profitable powerhouse it is today. Rich with anecdotes, SwitchPoints offers lessons learned and demonstrates the powerful behavioral tools used to change the culture to drive outstanding results in any organization.

The authors—two CN executives and two consultants from The Continuous Learning Group, Inc. (CLG)—describe their first-hand experiences of applying behavioral science to change CN’s culture. They also share how they clarified CN’s vision, selected critical switchpoints, employed management tools for change, assessed their impact on profitability, and “spiked the switches” to sustain the new culture.

The leadership practices presented here are directly applicable to any business. Even if your enterprise is non-industrial, or your company’s culture is very different from CN’s, what worked for CN will work for you too—because behavioral tools apply to all people in any culture, country, language, or industry worldwide. The methods in SwitchPoints apply to any organization and will help enlighten leadership that seeks to improve the bottom line by improving culture.

© 2009 CLG