Several years ago, Google ran a study to determine what made teams effective, and later published the results, including sharing a summary in a New York Times article. While one might think that an effective team depends on having the most capable individuals, Google’s researchers discovered that the members of the team mattered far less […]
Category: organizations
The New Psychology of Leadership, by Haslam, Reicher and Platow
Amazon link Reading this book articulated concepts that changed how I view and talk about leadership. The authors start the book by debunking several conventional theories of leadership (e.g. the “Great Man” theory where it’s about the leader’s innate qualities, or a transactional or power approach where people follow leaders in exchange for something) and […]
Leading Systems, by Barry Oshry
Amazon link In 1969, Barry Oshry decided to run a simulation on institutional racism called “the Society of New Hope” so that people could take on different roles in society and see how that unfolded. To his surprise, it quickly spun out of his control, as the “Have Not”s disabled the cars in the parking […]
Building a Community of Alignment
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead In my first post on alignment, I wrote “Alignment is the art and craft of creating or identifying a unifying purpose and a set of elements or parts, and then […]
Creating Alignment with Others
I’ve described leadership as the art of identifying gaps between what is and what could be, and mobilizing others to address them. In the alignment series thus far, I have been addressing the identifying gaps part of leadership in identifying your own gaps for personal development, identifying an aspiration to orient your actions, and identifying […]
Alignment
I’ve been developing a leadership and development model, and plan to share it for discussion and feedback over the next couple posts. I’ll start today by sharing my thoughts on alignment. One model I have for alignment is a laser. Normal light is “incoherent” in that the photons are not aligned in phase or direction. […]
Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows
Amazon link This is a remarkably readable introduction to systems thinking, a method to understand the inherent behavior of a system, and design appropriate interventions to change what the system is doing. Meadows starts by defining a system as “an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something. … […]
7 Rules for Positive, Productive Change, by Esther Derby
Amazon link Book site Subtitled “Micro Shifts, Macro Results”, Esther Derby’s short but powerful book shares her wisdom on how to enable change in organizations. I first met Esther ten years ago at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference, and then got to know her better in 2015 while attending the Problem Solving Leadership workshop that […]
Play to win, or play to include?
I’ve been thinking about different ways to approach situations in life. One is to play to win – look at the rules the way they are, and figure out how to exploit those rules to your advantage to the maximum extent possible. James Carse calls this playing the finite game. Examples include: Figuring out how […]
Radical Candor, by Kim Scott
Amazon link Book site Kim Scott starts this book with the story of how she once had an employee Bob, who was really nice and had great credentials, but who did not deliver great results when he started working for her. At the first big review of his work, she was worried about being too […]