Effective Multi Unit Leadership

Multi-Unit Leadership is the best-selling book used in over 170,000 businesses worldwide. Managing multiple units requires significantly different skills than managing just one. This book details those skills in seven distinct stages and shares the best practices from successful multiunit leaders worldwide. Perfect for regional managers and franchisees who need to know the difference between hands-on management and indirect influence. Written in a detailed and fun format perfect for today's Digital Age leaders, Multiunit Leadership examines the unique role and requirements of managers who are responsible for two to forty units. Our research with over 500 successful Multi-Unit Leaders (MULs) reveals the best practices and unique expertise that differentiates high-performing mulitunit leaders from average ones. Chockablock-full of specific examples, expert opinion and case-study scenarios, the seven leadership stages outlined in the book include: Brand Ambassador, Servant Leadership, Marketing Guru, Head Coach, Talent Scout, Synergist and Goal-Getter. You'll learn how to better manage time and projects, how to develop stronger teams, how to get maximum impact from your store visits, and how to consistently build sales by working smarter, not harder. Readers can assess their own strengths and challenges compared to the industry's best MULs at the end of each chapter and compile their own best practices relative to people, performance, and productivity. Companies using the book include McDonald's, American Express, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Target, Jiffy Lube, Supercuts, Applebee's, and Sam's Club.

There is a growing recognition of the increasing importance of ’local leadership’ practice within multi-unit service contexts, given the threat to costly land-based retail infrastructures from smart technologies. Multi-site organizations are economically significant, but currently under-researched and poorly understood. In Effective Multi-Unit Leadership, Chris Edger looks at that key managerial cohort in the retail, hospitality and service sectors operating between the centre and unit - the Multi-Unit Leader (MUL). This district, area or regional manager, is tasked with maximising revenue and profit from a complex and ambiguous positional space, being sandwiched between the centre and unit, facing the MUL paradox: how do they motivate unit managers and team members to provide great service whilst simultaneously fulfilling the Centre's compliance agenda? Based on extensive case study research across a range of multi-unit service organisations, Edger advances an Integrated Model of MUL that elucidates how key activities (sales-led service, systems and standards - 3Ss) are driven through behavioural practices (commitment, control and change - 3Cs) underpinned by MUL personal characteristics (expertise, emotional intelligence and energy - 3Es). Central to this model is the notion of ’portfolio optimisation through social exchange’ (POSE) where MULs apply ’local leadership’, leveraging their portfolios through the deft application of exchange-based currencies. Replete with case studies, Effective Multi-Unit Leadership will appeal to high potential unit managers; existing multi-unit leaders who want to improve their performance levels; and retail/service directors wishing to train and coach their direct reports; as well as business educators and those with an academic interest in organisational studies.

Chris Edger looks at that key managerial cohort in the retail, hospitality and service sectors operating between the centre and unit - the Multi-Unit Leader (MUL). Sandwiched between the centre and the unit they need to motivate unit managers and team members to provide great service whilst simultaneously fulfilling the Centre's compliance agenda.Based on extensive case study research across multi-unit service organisations in developed economies this first book is an essential guide to practitioners and academics on the art and science of Effective Multi-Unit Leadership. Edger provides an Integrated Model of MUL that explains how key activities are driven through behavioural practices underpinned by MUL personal characteristics.The second book, International Multi-Unit Leadership, takes a broader cross-border perspective on 'leading from the middle' in international service-based subsidiaries that are committing significant capital to emerging markets and addresses how MULs generate commitment amongst unit managers and team members, whilst coping with their firm's country of origin-based control agendas.

There is a growing recognition of the increasing importance of ’local leadership’ practice within multi-unit service contexts, given the threat to costly land-based retail infrastructures from smart technologies. Multi-site organizations are economically significant, but currently under-researched and poorly understood. In Effective Multi-Unit Leadership, Chris Edger looks at that key managerial cohort in the retail, hospitality and service sectors operating between the centre and unit - the Multi-Unit Leader (MUL). This district, area or regional manager, is tasked with maximising revenue and profit from a complex and ambiguous positional space, being sandwiched between the centre and unit, facing the MUL paradox: how do they motivate unit managers and team members to provide great service whilst simultaneously fulfilling the Centre's compliance agenda? Based on extensive case study research across a range of multi-unit service organisations, Edger advances an Integrated Model of MUL that elucidates how key activities (sales-led service, systems and standards - 3Ss) are driven through behavioural practices (commitment, control and change - 3Cs) underpinned by MUL personal characteristics (expertise, emotional intelligence and energy - 3Es). Central to this model is the notion of ’portfolio optimisation through social exchange’ (POSE) where MULs apply ’local leadership’, leveraging their portfolios through the deft application of exchange-based currencies. Replete with case studies, Effective Multi-Unit Leadership will appeal to high potential unit managers; existing multi-unit leaders who want to improve their performance levels; and retail/service directors wishing to train and coach their direct reports; as well as business educators and those with an academic interest in organisational studies.

In International Multi-Unit Leadership, Chris Edger builds on his earlier Effective Multi-Unit Leadership. First - showcasing up-to-date, contemporaneous case studies of market-leading international organisations - the book takes a cross-border perspective on leading from the middle in international subsidiaries that are committing significant capital to land-based multi-unit infrastructures. Secondly, it captures the zeitgeist of internationalizing hospitality, retail, service and leisure organizations facing challenges in relation to multi-channel/smart technology spread, divergent national cultures and emergent, imitative local competition. Thirdly, it addresses the conundrum that most subsidiary multi-unit leaders (regional, area and district managers) face, generating commitment amongst their unit managers and team members, whilst coping with their firm’s country of origin-based control and change agendas. Continuing the themes that emerged in his earlier book, particularly around how multi-unit leaders (MULs) and directors are expected to expedite a number of competing and contradictory functions, the author finds that in subsidiary-based international situations, complexity and ambiguity escalates due to 'distance decay' and the level of internal and external contextual turbulence. Based on exemplary case studies, the author examines how high-performance MULs manage paradox and ambiguity within an international context and how organizations can deliver local effectiveness within a strategic framework determined by a policy-making centre hundreds or thousands of miles away. The research and case studies in this book will appeal to managers within international multi-unit enterprises, service directors wishing to train and coach others, students on any of the increasing number of multi-unit management programmes being run in business schools, and academics with an interest in internationalizing service-based enterprises.

“It’s not the magic that makes it work; it’s the way we work that makes it magic.” The secret for creating “magic” in our careers, our organizations, and our lives is simple: outstanding leadership—the kind that inspires employees, delights customers, and achieves extraordinary business results. No one knows more about this kind of leadership than Lee Cockerell, the man who ran Walt Disney World® Resort operations for over a decade. And in Creating Magic, he shares the leadership principles that not only guided his own journey from a poor farm boy in Oklahoma to the head of operations for a multibillion dollar enterprise, but that also soon came to form the cultural bedrock of the world’s number one vacation destination. But as Lee demonstrates, great leadership isn’t about mastering impossibly complex management theories. We can all become outstanding leaders by following the ten practical, common sense strategies outlined in this remarkable book. As straightforward as they are profound, these leadership lessons include: Everyone is important. Make your people your brand. Burn the free fuel: appreciation, recognition, and encouragement. Give people a purpose, not just a job. Combining surprising business wisdom with insightful and entertaining stories from Lee’s four decades on the front lines of some of the world’s best-run companies, Creating Magic shows all of us – from small business owners to managers at every level – how to become better leaders by infusing quality, character, courage, enthusiasm, and integrity into our workplace and into our lives.

Widely acknowledged as the world's foremost authority on leadership, the author provides a collection of his acclaimed "Harvard Business Review" articles.