A Good Book, Part I

In this article from Fast Company, a good book for leadership is noted, and though from the private sector, good leadership advice is universal.

An excerpt.

“As the cofounder of a magazine called Fast Company, I've always been struck by the slow-going rate of change inside most organizations. In the earliest days of the magazine, after we had a business plan but before we published the premiere issue, we convened a conference around the theme, "How Do You Overthrow a Successful Company?" It wasn't a gathering of hotshots eager to take on the corporate establishment. It was a gathering of big-picture thinkers and change agents from illustrious big companies who sensed that there were massive shifts on the horizon, but that there wasn't a commitment among their colleagues to reckon with what was coming.

“It was a great conversation, ahead of its time in many ways (this was 1994), and the outlook was grim. Roger Martin, now dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, warned that "the role of big companies is to turn great people into mediocre organizations." Richard Pascale, the best-selling author and sought-after consultant, compared knowledge about how organizations renew themselves to the quality of medieval medicine. "We are," he said of people leading change programs inside big companies, "like earnest doctors with willing patients engaged in utter bullshit." Mort Meyerson, the much-admired CEO and philanthropist, then at the helm of Perot Systems, compared leading an organization in fast-changing times to "floating in lava in a wooden boat." His plea to the group: "We need a new model to reach the future."

“What a difference 15 years don't make. Are those misgivings any less relevant today than they were back then--or the prospects for genuine transformation any less bleak? My goal in Chapters One and Two has been to present a range of settings in which troubled organizations figured out how to learn from the past, and break from convention, to make deep-seated change. I hope you'll agree that these organizations are unleashing innovations that will shape their future, and the future of their fields, for years to come. But the real value of exploring stories of transformation at these organizations is that they can equip you to write a more compelling story for your organization.

“If what you see shapes how you change, and where you look shapes what you see, then my hope is that seeing what these leaders have achieved will help you achieve your agenda for reform and renewal. Specifically, my hope is that it will allow you to reckon with the five truths of corporate transformation. Because the truth is, the work of making deep-seated change in long-established organizations is the hardest work there is.

“Here, then, in an effort to steel your resolve and distill the book's major themes and core messages, is a Practically Radical Primer--ten questions that define the challenges of change at a time when change is the name of the game. The organizations and leaders with the most persuasive answers are the ones most likely to win. Good luck as you work to change the game.”