Book Description
Leading Minds and Landmark Ideas In An Easily Accessible Format
From the preeminent thinkers whose work has defined an entire field to the rising stars who will redefine the way we think about business, The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series delivers the fundamental information today's professionals need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world.
From the seminal article, "Leading Change," by John Kotter to Paul Strebel on why employees so often resist change,
Harvard Business Review on Change is the most comprehensive resource available for embracing corporate change--and using it to your company's greatest advantage. A Harvard Business Review Paperback.
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The Harvard Business Review paperback series is designed to bring today's managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. Here are the landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for ambitious business people in organizations around the globe. From the seminal article "Leading Change" by John Kotter to Paul Strebel on why employees so often resist change, Harvard Business Review on Change is the most comprehensive resource available for embracing corporate change--and using it to your company's greatest advantage. Articles include: Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail by John P. Kotter; Building Your Company's Vision by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras; Managing Change: The Art of Balancing by Jeanie Daniel Duck; The Reinvention Roller Coaster: Risking the Present for a Powerful Future by Tracy Goss, Richard T. Pascale, and Anthony G. Athos; Changing the Mind of the Corporation by Roger Martin; Why Do Employees Resist Change? by Paul Strebel; Reshaping an Industry: Lockheed Martin's Survival Story by Norman R. Augustine; and Successful Change Programs Begin with Results by Robert H. Schaffer and Harvey A. Thomson.
Customer Reviews:
Adapt or Perish.......2007-05-31
This is one in a series of several dozen volumes that comprise the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." Each offers direct, convenient, and inexpensive access to the best thinking on the given subject in articles originally published by the Harvard Business School Review. I strongly recommend all of the volumes in the series. The individual titles are listed at this Web site: www.hbsp.harvard.edu. The authors of various articles are among the world's most highly regarded experts on the given subject. Each volume has been carefully edited. Supplementary commentaries are also provided in most of the volumes, as is an "About the Contributors" section that usually includes suggestions of other sources that some readers may wish to explore.
In this volume, the reader is provided with eight articles whose authors provide a variety of perspectives on how to strengthen an organization by making necessary changes while minimizing fear, frustration, and resistance. All of the articles first appeared in the HBR from January-February, 1992, to May-June, 1997; some but remarkably little of the material is dated. Here are some of the important business issues to which the contributors direct their (and our) attention:
Which seem to be the most common mistakes made by executives? ("Leading Change" John P. Kotter)
Comment: Kotter identifies eight and suggests how to avoid or repair them.
How to avoid a vague and fuzzy vision concept? ("Building Your Company's Vision," James C. Collins and Jerry I Porras)
Comment: Collins and Porras offer a framework that has two principal parts: core ideology and envisioned future. It was in this article that they introduced their concept of the "Big Hairy Audacious Goal" (BHAG).
How to focus only on what is most important? ("Managing Change: The Art of Balancing," Jeanie Daniel Duck)
Comment: When managing change, "the challenge is to innovate mental work, not to replicate physical work. The goal is to teach [everyone involved] how to think strategically, recognize patterns, and anticipate problems and opportunities before they occur."
Why is context so important to beneficial reinvention? ("The Reinvention Roller Coaster: Risking the Present for a Powerful Future," Tracy Goss, Richard Pascale, and Anthony Athos)
Comment: The authors assert that reinvention is not changing what is, but creating what isn't. They explain the importance of assembling a critical mass of key stakeholders, completing an organizational audit, creating urgency while discussing the "undiscussable," harnessing contention, and effectively engineering organizational breakdowns [i.e. what Joseph Schumpeter characterizes as "creative destruction].
What can be learned from the experiences of troubled companies that have fallen victim to "a syndrome with four discernible stages"? ("Changing the Mind of the Corporation," Roger Martin)
Comment: Martin explains what the syndrome is, and, how to avoid or escape from it.
How to accommodate the fact that employees and those who supervise them see change differently? ("Why Do Employees Resist Change?," Paul Strebel)
Comment: Strebel explains what "personal compacts" are, and, how they can they help to reduce resistance to change initiatives.
What to do when an organization seems to be on "death's door"? ("Reshaping an Industry: Lockheed Martin's Survival Story," Norman R. Augustine)
Comment: Augustine offers various "sometimes painful" lessons he learned about best practices when attempting to restructure an endangered organization. He served as chairman and CEO of Martin Marietta for eight years until it became part of Lockheed Martin where he also served as chairman and CEO.
What do results-driven improvement programs involve? ("Successful Change Programs Begin with Results," Robert H. Schaefer and Harvey A. Thomson)
Comment: Early in this article, Schaefer and Thomson observe that most improvement efforts "have as much impact on company performance as a rain dance has on the weather." Then on page 195, they provide an especially informative graphic by which to compare and contrast activity-centered programs with results-driven programs. They then
Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out other volumes in the Harvard Business Review Paperback Series, especially HBR on Leading Through Change and HBR on Becoming a High Performance Manager. Also, James O'Toole's Leading Change, Enterprise Architecture As Strategy co-authored by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson, Ram Charan's Know-How, Richard Ogle's Smart World, and Seeing What's Next co-authored by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony, and Erik A. Roth.
Good book! Just don't buy the eBook copy!.......2003-09-17
It's a decent book that outline the necessary steps and precautions that need to re-engineer your company. However, I made a mistake by buying the eBook copy of this book because I needed it right the way. However, for this eBook, I cannot print any of the pages and, worse yet, I can't view the book on another PC. So my suggestion is that DON'T BUY eBOOK, it's the worst investment you can make.
Very good, and in addition........2003-06-19
This is a very good series of articles. In addition, I strongly recommend "Strategic Organizational Change" by Beitler. It is time and money well spent.
A positive goldmine.......2002-03-08
In the nicest possible sense, this book isn't exactly what the title claims. All to often discussions of change management tend to concentrate on the people side of things and ignore the less glamerous topics such as re-tooling, revised administrative and reporting procedures and so on.
So, just to keep the record straight, this book is primarily concerned with the personnel aspects of change, with all other aspects of the overall process taking a very secondary part in the proceedings.
And now, on with the review:
One of the ways I judge a book like this is by the number of highlights I've made (makes it so much easier to refer back to the key points).
Sometimes I'll go through an entire book and be lucky to have half a dozen highlighted passage.
NOT here, though.
Without a hint of exaggeration I found numerous points worth highlighting in every one of the eight reprinted articles.
Of course this is not entirely surprising given the list of contributors, which includes such "leaders of the pack" as John Cotter ("Leading Change"), Richard Pascale and Anthony Athos ("The Reinvention Roller Coaster"), and Jerry Porras (Building Your Company's Vision").
I'd also like to commend the article "Managing Change : The Art of Balancing", by Jeanie Daniel Duck, (which ended up with highlighting on nearly every page!).
So, whilst the material is not exactly new (the various items appeared in the Harvard Business Review between 1992 and 1998), I'd suggest this well-chosen set of articles is as important now as when the articles were first published.
Tight, Concise and Has Executive Summaries.......2001-05-23
Do you prefer tight, concise articles compared to eloquent tomes, simply because you don't have the time to read as much as you might like? If that's the case, then here is a great book on change management just for you. This collection is one in a series from the Harvard Business Review, and is just about the most wide-ranging printed resource that this writer has found available for taking on corporate change.
There are articles from such leading authorities on change management as John Kotter (Leading Change), Paul Strebel, and more. Each article opens with an executive summary, helping you decide if you want to tackle that article then and there, or move on to another that fits your interests of the moment.
Sooner or later, change is about people altering the status quo, and those in charge often turn a blind eye to the fact that leadership is singularly the most important issue when an organization has to implement major changes. This is followed closely by teamwork, of which there won't be any without leadership.
Inside the covers you'll find the collected knowledge, opinions and counsel of those executives and consultants who have dealt with change at all levels. If your schedule doesn't permit you to leisurely meander through hundreds of pages to find a few workable ideas upon which to build some change solutions, then this collection should be highly recommended for you.
Book Description
In today's ever-changing economic landscape, innovation has become even more of a key factor influencing strategic planning. This helpful volume will help the reader recognize and seize innovation opportunities.
The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series
The series is designed to bring today's managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. From the preeminent thinkers whose work has defined an entire field to the rising stars who will redefine the way we think about business, here are the leading minds and landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for ambitious businesspeople in organizations around the globe.
Customer Reviews:
Good Collection of Articles.......2007-08-13
With a good collection of articles and case studies, the book helps us to recognize and seize innovation opportunities. I certainly recommend this book for executives. Another one that I recommend is Eightstorm: 8-Step Brainstorming for Innovative Managers.
Fair.......2007-06-21
I found little of interest in these articles. I would start in any number of other books if you are interested in innovation.
another book of cute little bits and pieces--where is the forest?.......2007-06-15
First, I apologize for the mixed metaphor in the title above.
Second, all the articles in this collection are "good".
Third, however, you may, as I, be more than a little tired of academics from the world's greatest universities, for decades, on topics like innovation, publishing little bits and pieces.
Fourth, I recently bought 200 books with innovation or its synonyms in their titles or blurb descriptions, grouped them in groups, and ordered books from best to junk within each group. Then I surveyed the whole thing asking myself "what, overall, are all the theories of innovation that are out there and which of them have been tested?"
It turns out there are 27 theories of innovation out there and none of them have been tested, as a whole theory, but bits, extremely small bits, of some of them have been nibbled at by the world's greatest academics from the world's greatest universities. I counted full coverage of NONE of these 27 approaches to innovation, in this particular book. NONE. What is in this book is nibbles of two of the 27--wowie!!! Harvard has nibbled 2 of 27 theories around on innovation--what a powerful research effort! I am sooooo impressed. My friend in Reuters just emailed me complaining how naive I am--professors do not do comprehensive things because they hate the good ideas of their competitors! I am naive. I thought professionals learned to respect and admire the good ideas of their peers and competitors--I am too naive!
Conclusion: if you want some more little bits about innovation, here is another, one of a series of 200 books presenting disconnected little bits about innovation. If you want, however, more what the world's best scholars should be capable of--that is, a comprehensive, thorough survey of all the theories and approaches to innovation in our world, ordered, analyzed, compared, and made sense of, so you have both a mental feel and a practical repertoire of the diversity in doing innovation there to be tried, then this book will sorely disappoint you, not only in its contents but also in the quality of mind that today gets tenure at the "world's best universities".
If these are the world's best minds on innovation--then we live in a more pitiable world than I ever imagined before. Pity us, poor pitiful us!
Honestly, I cannot fault these guys for their bits--each little tiny bit article is cute, nice in its own way, and impressive sounding. However, when I add them all up, I get a sense that this book covers approximately 1/200th of innovation overall. Why string us readers out and make us buy 200 books like this before we get a thorough, grounded, comprehensive, useful overview of all the theories of and approaches to innovating around? I am tired of bits and pieces. I am a little angry at the "world's best professors" from the "world's best universities" stringing me and millions of others along with bits and pieces. Without a forest and a deep thorough understanding of a forest, interest in any one tree is not only unwise, but in real markets run by real people, quite dangerous. The bit of innovation you got from this sort of book and masterfully applied gets run over by 19 other bits, not in this book, that you never heard of till they mashed your project/company. This is not myth--it happened to three global corporations I managed. Bits are dangerous--however clever they make their authors, for a tiny moment, look. I am no longer able to develop any enthusiasm for them.
I could review each bit in this book but to tell you the truth, it does not matter what the bits in this book are--they are all so very very tiny and bit-sized, isolated and cute, that you know, as you read each article, there are 1000s of similar bits in similar books out there. You can sell an awful lot of books this way without conveying a useable understanding of a field like "innovation". Derek Bok, in his earlier incarnation as head of Harvard used to declaim in books on higher education how professors are so very very very narrow and how what they publish is so very very very sliverish in journals that are so very very very unread. I love every five years or so when the Academy of Management journals and reviews get a new editor, to read his/her article declaiming, with the subtlest whimper in his/her tone, how "nobody reads all this great research we publish". They do not read it because it is "bits and pieces".
This book is "great" by the criteria of modern "torture assistant professors for 7 years" American-esque academics--but by the criteria of people like me trying to get 10,000 people to stop being bureaucratic and do what they must do to survive Chinese and other competition, these bits are increasingly useless, cute, and decorative. I do not look forward to the next bits from any of these authors. I fear their entire lives will be consumed in bit-ness. If I read books like this, my own life will be thusly consumed. These professor guys need to do some work, stop publishing the smallest fastest possible bit, and COVER a topic not nibble it. We need people with heftier minds in these pompous over priced elitist universities our media worship.
If you want to know the kind of book I like on innovation--try Van de Ven's Minnesota Studies on Innovation (not the exact title--a big black covered book of about 800 pages). That whole body of longitudinal work following a dozen innovations through 20 years of ups and downs dwarfs what you learn from these cute little assistant-professor style bits and pieces books. It is statistically much better and more powerfully grounded, the research questions are framed profoundly not opportunistically for tenure, and the richness of real lived history of each followed innovation undoes nearly all that cute little assistant-professor books by authors like these, says.
Good reading.......2007-01-07
Well written and presented with interesting examples/case studies. Definitely worth a read.
Am not an expert in the subject area but some of the concepts did appear dated or jaded to me.
A good "door" to be opened by those interested for Innovation.......2006-08-07
A collection of reviews in Innovation Strategies/Policies/Theories/Practices some of them related with case studies in big companies.
It can help those who want a reflexive and comprehensive look into Innovation.
Book Description
Seventy percent of all change initiatives fail. Yours won’t have to—when you apply the practices provided in HBR on Leading Through Change. In this vital new resource, today’s leading thinkers offer suggestions for articulating a compelling vision of an organization’s future, overcoming employee resistance to change, and surmounting other challenges that come with leading change.
Customer Reviews:
Why some change initiatives succeed...and others fail.......2007-06-02
This is one in a series of several dozen volumes that comprise the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." Each offers direct, convenient, and inexpensive access to the best thinking on the given subject in articles originally published by the Harvard Business School Review. I strongly recommend all of the volumes in the series. The individual titles are listed at this Web site: www.hbsp.harvard.edu. The authors of various articles are among the world's most highly regarded experts on the given subject. Each volume has been carefully edited. Supplementary commentaries are also provided in most of the volumes, as is an "About the Contributors" section that usually includes suggestions of other sources that some readers may wish to explore.
In this volume, the reader is provided with eight articles whose authors provide a variety of perspectives on how to lead an organization through a process of significant change while minimizing fear, frustration, and resistance. All of the articles first appeared in the HBR over an extended period of time, from March-April, 1992, to October, 2005; some but remarkably little of the material is dated. Here are some of the important business issues to which four contributors direct their (and our) attention:
Which seem to be the most common mistakes made by executives? ("Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail," John P. Kotter)
Comment: Kotter identifies eight and suggests how to avoid or repair them.
How to focus only on what is most important? ("Tipping Point Leadership," W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne)
Comment: The co-authors of Blue Ocean Strategy explain how "tipping points" can result in fundamental changes when a sufficient number of people embrace and support a powerful idea. They examine how a newly appointed police commissioner, in less than two years, turned New York into the safest large city in the nation by following a four-step process to bring about rapid, dramatic, and lasting change with limited resources.
Why is follow-through "the DNA of decisive cultures"? ("Conquering a Culture of Indecision," Ram Charan)
Comment: In all of his various books and articles, Charan stresses the importance of making correct decision and then taking effective action to achieve desired results, whatever they may be. To change a culture of decision, he insists, leaders must ask hard questions such as "How robust and effective are our social operating mechanisms?" GE has forged a system of ten tightly linked operating mechanisms that, Charan suggests, comprise its "secret weapon."
Why are leaders sometimes "on" and other times Not? (""Moments of Greatness: Entering the Fundamental State of Leadership," Robert E. Quinn)
Comment: Quinn identifies four "awareness-raising questions" which leaders must ask and then answer honestly so that they can challenge themselves to have a positive impact on their own lives and on those around them. These questions "often lead to high-performance outcomes, and repetition of high-performance outcomes can eventually create a high-performance culture."
Which factors correlate with the success or failure of change initiatives? ("The Hard Side of Change Management," Harold L. Sirkin, Perry Keenan, and Alan Jackson)
Comment: Based on their research on change initiatives at 225 companies, the co-authors of this article concluded that it is possible to predict the probable results of such initiatives by considering what they characterize as four "DICE factors" within a diagnostic framework. Once the evaluation has been completed, the executives involved can then "shine a spotlight on the interventions that would improve their chances of success."
As I indicated earlier, at least some of the material in this volume is dated. However, the insights shared in these articles as well as in the other remain relevant. Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out the recently published Harvard Business Review on Making Smarter Decisions as well as other series titles in the Harvard Business Review Paperback Series such as those Effective Communication, the Innovative Enterprise, Leadership at the Top, and Measuring Corporate Performance.
Also Michael George's Authentic Leadership and True North, Jack Welch and Suzy Welch's Winning, Michael Ray's The Highest Goal, Ram Charan's Know-How, and Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman's X-Teams, Richard Ogle's Smart World, and James O'Toole's The Executive's Compass.
Highly Recommended for Executives Leading Organizations Through Change.......2007-03-24
I picked this book up at an airport to have something to read on my flight, and I was not disappointed in the least. It provides excellent information and insight on leading organizations during times of change.
In Kotter's essay, "Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail", he analyzes common errors of leading through change, and converts them into 8 steps for transforming an organization: (1) establishing a sense of urgency, (2) forming a powerful guiding coalition, (3) creating a vision, (4) communicating the vision, (5) empowering others to act on the vision, (6) planning for and creating short-term wins, (7) consolidating improvements and creating still more changes, and (8) institutionalizing new approaches. Kotter shows how these 8 principles can lead to either the downfall or the success of an organization.
I also found Ram Charan's essay, "Conquering a Culture of Indecision", to be extremely helpful. He outlines the steps for creating greater communication, turning that into action, and providing follow-through and feedback.
Also of great interest to me was Eric Abrahamson's "Change Without Pain". He defines the difference between "tinkering" and "kludging" (tinkering with a college education). He also offers helpful operating guidelines that make quite a bit of sense.
Different essays will be more relevant for different individuals, but all in all, this compilation of essays provides excellent insight, and should be required reading for executive teams in the midst of major periods of change.
Book Description
The business environment has become increasingly precarious, thus raising the stakes for nearly every managerial move. This cutting edge collection includes articles on how to lead in a downturn economy, overcome a growth crisis, stay resilient through difficult periods, and more.
The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series
The series is designed to bring today's managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. From the preeminent thinkers whose work has defined an entire field to the rising stars who will redefine the way we think about business, here are the leading minds and landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for ambitious businesspeople in organizations around the globe.
Book Description
This unique collection looks at the often messy and difficult process of changing workplace culture. The articles examine why there is resistance to change on the corporate and individual level and explains the effect of passive aversion to cultural problems on company performance.
Customer Reviews:
Rigorous, Practical, and Eloquent.......2006-08-28
In this volume, one of a series of anthologies of articles previously published in the Harvard Business Review, the reader is provided with eight brilliant analyses of how to establish and then nourish innovative thinking enterprise-wide. No brief commentary such as this can do full justice to the rigor and substance of these articles. It remains for each reader to examine the list to identify those subjects which are of greatest interest to her or him. My own opinion is that all of the articles are first-rate. One of this volume's greatest benefits is derived from sharing a variety of perspectives provided by a number of different authorities on the same general subject. In this instance, "culture and change."
Readers will especially appreciate the provision of an executive summary which precedes each article. They facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of key points which - presumably - careful readers either underline or highlight. Also of interest is the "About the Contributors" section which includes suggestions of other sources to consult. All but one of the4 eight articles appeared in HBR in 2001. Here are questions which suggest key issues to which their autghors respond:
When and why do good teams go wrong? (Paul F. Levy)
How to change a "culture of face time"? (Bill Munck)
What is the "radical reason" people won't change? (Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey)
How can radical change be achieved "the quiet way"? (Debra E. Meyerson)
Why do good companies go bad? (Donald L. Sull, 1999)
How to transform a conservative company "one laugh at a time"? (Katherine M. Hudson,)
When does a culture need a makeover? (Carol Lavin Bernick)
How to conquer a culture of indecision? (Ram Charan)
I was especially interested in reading Charan's article, written prior to his co-authorship with Larry Bossidy of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (2002) And Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business: 10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning (2004). In this article and in his later work, Charan asserts that the single greatest cause of organizational underperformance is the failure to execute. Of course, reasons for that failure vary from one organization to another. However, Charan's rigorous research (especially his rigorous examination of GE's culture under Jack Welch's leadership) revealed which specific actions which leaders can take to conquer a culture off indecision. To those with a special interest in this common problem, I highly recommend two books by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton: The Knowing-Doing: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action (2000) and Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management (2006).
Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out other "Harvard Business Review on..." volumes such as those on Change, Effective Communication, Innovation, Knowledge Management, and Organizational Learning. Also Robert Kaplan and David Norton's The Strategy-Focused Organization and James O'Toole's Leading Change as well as The New American Workplace which O'Toole co-authored with Edward E. Lawler III, David Maister's Practice What You Preach, Dick Grote's Forced Ranking, Brian Becker, Mark Huselid, and David Ulrich's The HR Scorecard, and The Work Force Scorecard which Becker and Huselid co-authored with Richard Beatty.
A Good Supplement!.......2003-05-14
I recommend this book in addition to my own, "Strategic Organizational Change." The combination of the two books works well for my students (and clients).
Book Description
From a new performance management plan that wreaks havoc on the workforce to a new CEO whose change initiatives receive a cool response from employees—this volume helps executives and managers decide what to do when their initiatives backfire or simply don’t work.
These thought-provoking guides present common managerial dilemmas and offer concrete advice from experts on how to resolve them—and help managers improve their own decision-making skills by encouraging them to come to their own conclusions.
Book Description
Harvard Business Review on Building Personal and Organizational Resilience
Why do some people bounce back from life's hardships while others despair? This collection of articles looks at the nature of individual and organizational resilience, an issue that has gained special urgency in today's unstable world environment. In the business arena, resilience has found its way onto the list of qualities sought in employees. This collection provides readers with the ability to solve problems without the usual or obvious tools and prepares them to improvise rapid responses to crisis.
The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series
The series is designed to bring today's managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. From the preeminent thinkers whose work has defined an entire field to the rising stars who will redefine the way we think about business, here are the leading minds and landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for ambitious businesspeople in organizations around the globe.
Customer Reviews:
Just another Leadership book far from "Resilience" specific.......2007-02-03
This book has little to do with resilence nor the building of it, but descriptive accounts of trauma/change/disaster handling (911 is frequently mentioned) that are normally grouped under "Leadership". Perhaps the only exception is Chapter One "How Resilience Works" by Diane Coutu, which discusses that "Resilience is a reflex, a way of facing and understanding the world, that is deeply etched into a person's mind and soul. Resilient people and companies face reality with stauchness, make meaning of hardship instead of crying out in despair, and improvise solutions from thin air. Others do not. This is the nature of resilience, and we will never completely undestand it." In short, this may be a good book on management. However, if you want to read something specific about resilience and how to build it, please look somewhere else.
As usual, below please find some of my favorite passages for your reference.
Multiple backup sites seemed like an incredible extravagance on 910. But on 912, they seemed like genius. - Robert G Scott, President and COO, Morgan Stanley pg 9
When people know they can bring their pain to the office, they no longer have to expend energy trying to ignore or suppress it, and they can more easily and effectively get back to work. pg 25
It's better to think through the Sunday game on Saturday than to kick the corpse on Monday. pg 129
Several uncomfortable truths about organizational life:- pg173
- there's no such thing as a private conversation
- there's no such thing as a casual conversation
- people sometimes hear what they most fear
- trauma has a long half-life
- no good deed goes unpunished
- Newton's third law doesnt always apply
"Champions get up when they can't." (Jack Dempsey).......2005-11-10
This is one in a series of several dozen volumes which comprise the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." Each offers direct, convenient, and inexpensive access to the best thinking on the given subject in articles originally published by the Harvard Business School Review. I strongly recommend all of the volumes in the series. The individual titles are listed at this Web site: www.hbsp.harvard.edu. The authors of various articles are among the world's most highly regarding experts on the given subject. Each volume has been carefully edited. Supplementary commentaries are also provided in most of the volumes, as is an "About the Contributors" section which usually includes suggestions of other sources which some readers may wish to explore.
In this volume, the reader is provided with eight articles. Given when they first appeared in the HBR, some but remarkably little of the material is dated. Here are brief excerpts from the executive summaries with precede four of them:
How Resilience Works (Diane L. Coutu): She "looks at the nature of individual and organizational resilience, issues that have gained special urgency in light of recent terrorist attacks, war, and recession." Three fundamental characteristics seem to set resilient people and companies apart from others. "The first is the capacity to accept and face down reality. In looking hard at reality, we prepare ourselves to act in ways that allow us to endure and survive hardships. Second, resilient people and organizations possess an ability to find meaning in some [especially painful] aspects of life. The third building block of resilience is the ability to improvise." (May, 2002)
Crucibles of Leadership (Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. Thomas): Bennis and Thomas believe that there is no simple formula to explain how great leaders come to be but suggest "that its has something to do with the ways people handle adversity. [Their most research for a book published later, Geeks and Geezers] suggests that one of the most reliable indicators and predictors of true leadership is the ability to learn from even the most negative experiences. An extraordinary leader is a kind of phoenix rising from the ashes of adversity stronger and more committed than ever." They call these shaping experiences "crucibles, after the vessels medieval alchemists used in their attempts to turn base metals into gold" and suggest that great leaders possess four essential skills, "the most critical of which is `adaptive capacity' -- an almost magical ability to transcend adversity and emerge stronger than before." (September, 2002)
A Survival Guide for Leaders (Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky): "Let's face it, to lead is to live dangerously." Heifetz and Linsky offer a number of techniques -- relatively straightforward in concept but difficult to execute -- "for protecting yourself as you lead" change initiatives which threaten, indeed disrupt the status quo. Their article has two main parts. "The first looks outward, offering tactical advice about relating to your organization and the people in it. It is designed to protect you from those who would push you aside before you complete your initiatives. The second looks inward, focusing on your own needs and vulnerabilities. It is designed from keeping you from brining yourself down." (June, 2002)
The Enemies of Trust (Robert Galford and Anne Seybold Drapeau): "Any act of bad management erodes trust, so the list of potential enemies is endless. Among the most common enemies of trust, though, are inconsistent messages from top management, inconsistent standards [and/or inconsistent application of specified standards], a willingness to tolerate incompetence or bad behavior, dishonest feedback, a failure to trust others to do good work, a tendency to ignore painful or politically charged situations, consistent corporate underperformance, and rumors. Fending off these enemies must be at the top of every chief executive's agenda." (February, 2003)
Hopefully these four brief excerpts encourage those with whom I now share them to obtain a copy of this volume and then read all of the eight articles.
From trust to combat zones: a few nuggets of wisdom.......2003-10-22
In today's unstable global environment we appreciate more than ever the virtue of resilience in both individuals and organizations. This collection promises to provide you with the ability to solve problems without the usual or obvious tools and prepares them to improvise rapid responses to crisis. You *will* find enough solid contributions here to justify the purchase, unless you already have the original HBR articles. The pieces range from Robert Galford and Anne Siebold Drapeau's February 2003 "The Enemies of Trust" back to William Patagonis's "Leadership in a Combat Zone" from late 1992.
These two pieces also hint at the diversity of the collection hidden under the title. Patagonis writes about how he directed the logistics of the 1991 Gulf War. He explains that leading successfully requires a person to demonstrate expertise and empathy - which can be systematically learned and true leaders create organizations that support the cultivation of leadership. Galford and Drapeau analyze the role of trust, finding a disparity between managers beliefs about their own and their colleague's trustworthiness and their lack of confidence in their ability to build trust within the organization. In explaining the disparity, the authors distinguish three kids of trust: Strategic trust, personal trust, and organizational trust.
Two of the strongest pieces are Diane Coutu's "How Resilience Works" and "A Survival Guide for Leaders" by Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky. Coutu explains resilience at its toughest as consisting of a staunch acceptance of reality, a deep belief, often bolstered by strongly held values, that life is meaningful, and a well-developed ability to improvise. One weakness of this piece is that the reader is left to figure out how to go about the development process if no crisis forces the issue. Heifetz and Linsky draw on their book Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading to explain risk management for leaders in two parts: An externally-focused part offers tactical advice about relating to your organization and the people who comprise it. The internally-focused part focuses on your human needs and vulnerabilities to help you from defeating yourself.
The other pieces included are: "Leading in Times of Trauma" by Jane E. Dutton, Peter J. Frost, Monica C. Worline, Jacoba M. Lilius, and Jason M. Kanov; "Crucibles of Leadership" by Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. Thomas; "The Toxic Handler: Organizational Hero - and Casualty" by Peter J. Frost and Sandra Robinson; and "September 11, 2001: A CEO's Story" by Jeffrey W. Greenburg.
Book Description
In 15 articles and interviews, Fast Forward considers the future of organizations, the process of accelerating change, and the new role of management. It features contributions from Peter Drucker, Michael Hammer, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, and John P. Kotter, as well as two original essays written especially for this collection by Champy and Nohria. A Harvard Business Review Book.
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A Critical Guide to Management Training Media (Harvard Business Review Book Series,)
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ASIN: 0875847684 |
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Identifying which business ideas have real commercial potential is fraught with uncertainty, and even the most admired companies have stumbled. In this article, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne introduce three tools that managers can use to help strip away some of that uncertainty. The first tool, "the buyer utility map," indicates how likely it is that customers will be attracted to a new business idea. The second, "the price corridor of the mass," identifies what price will unlock the greatest number of customers. And the third tool, "the business model guide," offers a framework for figuring out whether and how a company can profitably deliver the new idea at the targeted price. Applying the tools, though, is not the end of the story. Many innovations have to overcome adoption hurdles--strong resistance from stakeholders inside and outside the company. The authors conclude by discussing how managers can head off negative reactions from stakeholders.
Customer Reviews:
Worth it.......2002-11-16
Presents an excellent framework for brainstroming and categorizing business ideas. Worth having in your reference library. You may not use the framework directly, but it does help you think about the *entire* value chain and where your idea fits in.
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