Good, the Bad, and the Obvious , livre ebook

Dennis White - A White Dennis

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29 pages

English

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"In our rush to employ technology and "systems" to guide us in our organizational travels, we have lost sight of what should be our primary navigational tool - obviousness..." -The AuthorIn this book you'll learn:- How a short story written in a popular magazine more than 100 years ago can benefit you and your organization today.- The difference between Innovation and Creativity, and why one is the greatest key to organizational success.- Why failure to identify and execute certain tasks may be dooming your organization.- The leadership failure that is the Achilles' heel of most contemporary organizations.- How simple solutions are the best approach to complex problems.

Sujets

Gestion et management

Informations

Publié par	Dennis White
Date de parution	29 mars 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780692090060
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

2018 by Dennis A. White
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews, without prior written permission of the publisher.
Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book, we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN Paperback: 978-0-692-08545-5 ISBN eBook: 978-0-692-09006-0
Editing: Priscilla D Alessio, M.S., RN Cover and Interior Design: Ghislain Viau
Dedicated to you if you ve ever had a leader who failed to do the obvious.
Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious
George Orwell
It s not very hard to be clever. It s far harder to be simple, obvious, and meaningful
Jake Barton
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply
Kahlil Gibran
I deal with the obvious. I present, reiterate and glorify the obvious, because the obvious is what people need to be told
Dale Carnegie
It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obscure
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Contents
I. Introduction
II. Obvious Adams
III. Key Points and Takeaways
IV. The Role of Critical Tasks in Organizations
V. Obvious Action Steps for Organizations
VI. Summary
Section I
Introduction
I f you search the word Leadership and then the word Management in Amazon.com books, you ll find a combined total of more than 1,000,000 entries. Compare this to a paltry 400,000 pertaining to God.
In light of these staggering numbers, I hope God forgives me for writing yet another leadership book and for further contributing to this sinful imbalance. However, like legions of authors before me, I am driven to opine about these indispensable topics and to offer my observations about them.
I didn t come to this writing overnight. In 1966 my father handed me a $20 bill and I left Hartford, CT to enlist in the U.S. Army. In the intervening 50+ years I have been a soldier, police officer, skydiver, emergency medical technician, salesman, entrepreneur, candidate for political office, college teacher, civil servant, fraud examiner, consultant, and a few other things I ve tried to forget. During my half-century journey through both the public and private sectors, inside diverse organizations large and small, I ve been exposed to hundreds of people in positions of authority. Unfortunately, I must somberly report that only a handful could rightfully claim the title of Leader.
Today, we live in an exceptionally complex and increasingly competitive global economy. In our attempts to thrive (or should I say survive?) in this environment, we have developed ever more complex systems, procedures, programs, software, and measurements to analyze and improve our organizational performance. These include benchmarking, best practices, Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, big data, data-driven decision making, data base mining, matrix-driven environments, learning management systems and artificial intelligence. These tools and concepts have become an integral part of our organizational lexicon and practice. However, the performance of many organizations continues to decline - despite these sophisticated tools. How can that be? I believe the answer is simply poor leadership. In fact, I often hear people say, Where are all the leaders? We used to have so many, but now we have few or none. Where did all the leaders go? To answer these questions we need to review some history.
At the rise of the Industrial Revolution a little more than a century ago, people began moving off farms and into cities. They moved there seeking strange new creations called jobs . These new work paradigms were almost too good to be true. Suddenly, instead of being responsible for one s own economic well-being and personally accepting all the associated risks (and rewards), these new creations allowed people to make sure money by simply exchanging hours for dollars. The pay was guaranteed and economic risk was transferred from individuals to employers. Furthermore, workers didn t have to worry about the activities they needed to engage in each day, organize and prioritize their work, or agonize over the many other details that self-directed work had previously involved. The result was predictable - there was a mass migration of people from rural areas to cities and to this new other-directed work arrangement. The historic economic model of self-employment as farmers, shop-keepers, artisans, craft and guild workers, etc. was gradually replaced by jobs in factories, corporations, and in time, in expanding government employment.
This other-directed work world didn t require workers to think, but rather to carry out instructions given to them by others. In this milieu leadership became the prerogative of only a few people at the top of the organization. Middle managers communicated instructions from the top and insured that these directives were followed. This top-driven leadership/management paradigm has continued in essentially the same form for the past century and is the one under which most of us still work today. It should be noted however, that an increasing number of organizations are reducing their need for middle managers by using technology to communicate with workers and to monitor their activities. If this trend continues, soon our organizations will consist of only two groups - directors and minions.
Even though globalization, technology, changing demographics, and a host of other factors have created enormous challenges for 21st century organizational leaders, the 20th century hierarchical, industrial/corporate leadership paradigm remains in place. No wonder today s leader/manager looks out for his or her own welfare first, mindlessly carries out orders from above that are driven mostly by short-term financial considerations like bonuses and quarterly stock price, and workers feel essentially powerless to positively impact the organizations they toil for.
So, the answer to our question about where all the leaders have gone is twofold. First, they are still here but are trapped in a hierarchical, industrial structure that is outdated and unresponsive to the challenges faced by modern organizations. Second, they are focused on satisfying the internal demands of their organizations rather than the external imperatives that are critical for their organization s survival and success.
No single treatise, including this one, can address every aspect of a subject as vast and nuanced as leadership. In the pages that follow, I ll suggest a simple framework to focus organizational leaders on the critical tasks essential for their organization - a back to basics model that leaders in all kinds of organizations, and at all levels of responsibility, can employ in their daily work lives. In many ways it is the organizational equivalent of the famous This is a football approach espoused by the legendary coach Vince Lombardi to impress upon his players the importance of executing basic tasks to win games. When asked how he won two Super Bowls, Vince responded, Blocking, tackling, running, passing, catching, and kicking.
In the pages that follow, I share some practical ideas and strategies to improve the performance of organizational leaders and to help their organizations reach full potential. Toward this end, I ll introduce a story titled Obvious Adams, The Story of a Successful Business Man, which appeared in the April 1916 edition of The Saturday Evening Post. Written by Robert R. Updegraff, this timeless business gem provides wisdom and insight that still has much to say to us today. Over the years I ve shared it with family, close friends, and business associates. I re-read the story frequently and each reading reveals new insights and perspectives.