Deliver What You Promise

Essential business lessons from the maverick who helped make LEGO the biggest toy brand in the world.

Bali Padda is the operations maverick behind LEGO's remarkable turnaround from a business basket-case, struggling to deliver on its orders, to the biggest toy brand in the world.

As Chief Operations Officer at LEGO, Bali overhauled the toy company by shaking up its operations and instilling essential business fundamentals. He resolved issues across the supply chain and forged close partnerships between functions. He cut unpopular product lines and diverted the company's attention on hero items. He developed a relentless focus on customer service - of delivering what was promised - and he instituted weekly performance briefings known as the Visual Factory, which ultimately spread throughout the whole organization and transformed culture and performance. The result was that LEGO not only survived but became the biggest toy manufacturer in the world.

In Deliver What You Promise, Bali distils his methodology at LEGO into ten essential, fundamental lessons. From how to reduce complexity to why prize reliability over agility. Why a business should be treating like a living organism and how to bring everyone together under a shared sense of purpose. On when to use soft and hard managerial skills and the hidden risks of success.

Illustrated by insider stories from LEGO, these are enduring principles that both young starters and established leaders alike need to know and can implement straight away, to deliver on what is promised.

About the Author

As Chief Operations Officer at LEGO from 2005, and in earlier operational roles from 2003, Bali Padda played a decisive role in the recovery and growth of this iconic toy firm. Bali and his colleagues executed a remarkable turnaround, from a near-terminal crisis to a return to profit within 18 months. In 2016, Bali was asked to step in as CEO of the LEGO Group while a search for a new CEO was initiated, becoming the company's first non-Danish CEO.

Currently, Bali Padda is a highly sought-after business adviser, appointed by tech entrepreneur Tony Fadell as mentor to CEOs of start-up companies in which he has invested.