About the Author

Noel M. Tichy

Dr. Noel M. Tichy is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at the University of Michigan Business School, where he is the director of the Global Business Partnership, which for over a decade ran the Global Leadership Program, a 36-company consortium of Japanese, European and North American companies who partnered to develop senior executives and conduct action research on globalization in China, India, Russia and Brazil.  He now heads up the Global Leadership in Healthcare Program working with CEOs and their senior teams from major medical centers in the U.S. along with teams in Europe and India. Professor Tichy also conducts the CYCLE OF LEADERSHIP executive program at the University of Michigan. Most recently, he led the launch of the Global Corporate Citizenship Initiative in partnership with General Electric, Procter & Gamble and 3M, designed to create a national model for partnership opportunities between business and society emphasizing free enterprise and democratic principles.

In the mid 1980s, Dr. Tichy was head of GE’s Leadership Center , the fabled Crotonville, where he led the transformation to action learning at GE.  Between 1985 – 87, Dr. Tichy was Manager of Management Education for General Electric where he directed its worldwide development efforts at Crotonville.  Prior to joining the Michigan faculty, he served for nine years on the Columbia University Business School faculty.

Professor Tichy is the author of numerous books and articles. His most recent book is THE ETHICAL CHALLENGE: How to Lead with Unyielding Integrity (Jossey-Bass 2003, with Andrew McGill).  He also authored, THE CYCLE OF LEADERSHIP: How winning Leaders Teach their Organizations to Win (Harper-Collins 2002, with Nancy Cardwell) and THE LEADERSHIP ENGINE: How Winning Companies Build Leaders at Every Level (with Eli Cohen), named one of the top 10 business books in 1997 by BusinessWeek.  He is co-author of EVERY BUSINESS IS A GROWTH BUSINESS (with Ram Charan), published October 1998 (Random House).   In addition, Tichy is also the co-author of CONTROL YOUR DESTINY OR SOMEONE ELSE WILL:  How Jack Welch is Making General Electric the World’s Most Competitive Company (with Stratford Sherman).  Tichy has long been regarded as a staple of management literacy as noted by his rating as one of the “Top 10 Management Gurus” by BUSINESSWEEK and BUSINESS 2.0.  He has served on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Review , Organizational Dynamics , Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Business Strategy and was the founding editor and chief of HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT.

Noel Tichy consults widely in both the private and public sectors.  He is a senior partner in Action Learning Associates.  His clients have included: Best Buy, GE, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, GM, Nokia, Nomura Securities, 3M, Daimler-Benz and Royal Dutch Shell.