BACKGROUND Charlotte Beers became Ogilvy & Mather's first outsider CEO following its acquisition by WPP Group Plc in 1991. According to her memo dated May 19, Beers' goal was to "reinvent" the mega-agency, whose inertia and complacency had eroded its competitiveness since the 1980s. In fact, Beer's tenure at Ogilvy was a re-creation of the agency, redefining its goals, processes, people and structure in response to the demands posed by the evolving advertising industry. ANALYSIS The main problem that Beers faced was initiating and instituting organizational change at the central level. He took over Ogilvy at a time when the organization was bleeding internally. The resignation of charismatic founder David Ogilvy as CEO in 1975 had created a leadership vacuum that none of the subsequent leaders had been able to fill. Furthermore, the economic boom of the 1980s had created a false sense of security that left the company stagnant, unable to either anticipate or react to changes taking place in the advertising industry. Even more significantly, the absence of a strong leader caused the organization to decentralize from "One Indivisible Agency" to individually governed "fiefdoms". The company's shortcomings came to light in 1989-91, when it lost more than $100 million in advertising accounts from large corporations who had grown tired of Ogilvy's highly politicized organizational environment. NEED FOR CHANGE Because Ogilvy's vision at the time was limited to "just keep doing the same thing, better," rebuilding the company was necessitated by external factors and events. For example, the corporate office had been unwilling to rein in the spending of its autonomous local offices after the 1987 stock market crash even though... half of paper... understanding and commitment to the Brand Stewardship philosophy . by lower level employees. To provide this support, Beers should better leverage the management team that developed the Ogilvy philosophy in the first place. The problem in 1993 is that CEO Beers and perhaps WCS director O'Dea appear to be the only executives pushing for change. However, change should not be “pushed” to the regions by the central office, nor to subordinates by management. This would be counterproductive and would result in mere conformism. Instead, Beers should establish and train senior managers and local leaders as extensions of his leadership. By gaining some degree of objective empowerment to achieve symbolic empowerment, local managers could then help Ogilvy's lower-level employees redefine their roles and responsibilities to advance the brand stewardship strategy.