Book Description
In the years following the publication of Patrick Lencioni’s best-seller The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, fans have been clamoring for more information on how to implement the ideas outlined in the book. In Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni offers more specific, practical guidance for overcoming the Five Dysfunctions—using tools, exercises, assessments, and real-world examples. He examines questions that all teams must ask themselves: Are we really a team? How are we currently performing? Are we prepared to invest the time and energy required to be a great team? Written concisely and to the point, this guide gives leaders, line managers, and consultants alike the tools they need to get their teams up and running quickly and effectively.
Download Description
"In the years following the publication of Patrick Lencioni’s best-seller The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, fans have been clamoring for more information on how to implement the ideas outlined in the book. In Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni offers more specific, practical guidance for overcoming the Five Dysfunctions—using tools, exercises, assessments, and real-world examples. He examines questions that all teams must ask themselves: Are we really a team? How are we currently performing? Are we prepared to invest the time and energy required to be a great team? Written concisely and to the point, this guide gives leaders, line managers, and consultants alike the tools they need to get their teams up and running quickly and effectively. "
Customer Reviews:
managementtrainer.......2007-09-24
This field guide is execellent. It is practical and helpful. Improving teamwork is difficult, to say the least, especially for highly dysfunctional teams. Patrick Lencioni's book is essential to working through these challenges.
Easy to use and very helpful.......2007-08-13
This field guide is extremely useful for working with teams - from dysfunctional teams to those that are running smoothly. The exercises are practical and get to the heart of team dysfunctions.
I am a pastor who also works in the corporate world. I will use the ideas and exercises in this book with teams in the office and in the church.
Outstanding Complement to The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.......2007-07-21
Teamwork really is the one sustainable advantage that a group or company can have. Patrick Lencioni has put together a prescriptive method of bringing a group of people together to form a team. He walks through a step by step approach of breaking down the levels of teamwork in a narrative format in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable which really builds the case for why you would want to follow this method. In this book, he all but builds your team for you. It'll be imperative that you can foster the right levels of communication and potentially have someone with you to help as you rebuild your team; however, this method does give critical insight into how groups of people become a team.
Great toolkit and field guide.......2007-07-05
This is a very useful book that has lots of gold nuggets for team training facilitators. Well worth the money and then some.
Guy Plano, Texas
got it for work.......2007-06-27
Leaders are using it in team development and finding it helpful. Good as an HR Professional to guide the manager in how to develop the team.
Amazon.com
Once again using an astutely written fictional tale to unambiguously but painlessly deliver some hard truths about critical business procedures, Patrick Lencioni targets group behavior in the final entry of his trilogy of corporate fables. And like those preceding it, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is an entertaining, quick read filled with useful information that will prove easy to digest and implement. This time, Lencioni weaves his lessons around the story of a troubled Silicon Valley firm and its unexpected choice for a new CEO: an old-school manager who had retired from a traditional manufacturing company two years earlier at age 55. Showing exactly how existing personnel failed to function as a unit, and precisely how the new boss worked to reestablish that essential conduct, the book's first part colorfully illustrates the ways that teamwork can elude even the most dedicated individuals--and be restored by an insightful leader. A second part offers details on Lencioni's "five dysfunctions" (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results), along with a questionnaire for readers to use in evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome these common shortcomings. Like the author's previous books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, this is highly recommended. --Howard Rothman
Book Description
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams.
Kathryn Petersen, Decision Tech's CEO, faces the ultimate leadership crisis: Uniting a team in such disarray that it threatens to bring down the entire company. Will she succeed? Will she be fired? Will the company fail? Lencioni's utterly gripping tale serves as a timeless reminder that leadership requires as much courage as it does insight.
Throughout the story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the very heart of why teams even the best ones-often struggle. He outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome these common hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team. Just as with his other books, Lencioni has written a compelling fable with a powerful yet deceptively simple message for all those who strive to be exceptional team leaders.
Customer Reviews:
5 stars for 5 dysfunctions.......2007-10-10
My business partner and I made this required reading to all employees. We started with the management team and quickly found that establishing trust (the first step) across the team was the hardest. Once we accomplished this first step, the rest came much easier. Implementing and using the exercises in this book have helped align our company across all levels. It has helped catapult our growth in 2007.
Definition of Team ?.......2007-10-02
While the model would be beneficial in training a group on team fundamentals, the writing and the story actually hinder the message.
"Relieved, Kathryn was more than happy to give Mikey everything she asked for. But she knew better than to say so right there. "I'm not sure about all of that, but I will see if I can make it happen."
I am not so naive that I think lies and manipulation doesn't happen from management to employees. I am surprised when it is from the hero in the model who touts team trust and commitment, then lies and pretends that she will work hard and go to bat for the employee being asked to leave. People who are honest when it works for them and not honest when that works for them aren't trustworthy. I lost respect for Kathryn right there on page 159.
How about: "Yes, I'm sure we can." Or "Let me give that to HR and have them get in touch with you" or "I will get back to you on the severance agreement." Those are truthful and authentic, not pretending that you are going to pull strings or go the extra mile when it's not true and you're actually relieved with what little the employee asked for. Does the end justify the means?
The author references a basketball team as the analogy of how teams work together. Sports Teams are about performance and not personalities that get along with everyone else on the team. Does every man on a professional football team get along with every other male on the team? If the team member they all dislike for whatever reason they dislike him, continually catches the football and scores... the team keeps him.
I believe a better definition (or even a better word) of the term `conflict' would have helped. Conflict carries such a negative connotation and even personal undertones that it really begs for separation from those. The book attempted to demonstrate this, but I don't think it succeeded at all.
My opinion is that instead of telling people not to be "Afraid of Conflict" is to define the difference between conflict between the person and a discussion of conflicting ideas, methods or views.
A more specific definition of what a work team consists of would make a stronger case for the five functions/dysfunctions.
There are several instances where the writer sets the stage for some dramatic event. They never happen. The chapters involving the CEO Kathryn and the executive Mikey are anti-climatic.
The storyteller tries to build Mikey up with sentences like: "But Mikey was cleverer than the average executive." (Really, that's the sentence.) The story goes on to explain that the CEO thought Mikey was coming to terms with the dismissal.... and ends the chapter with "But she was wrong."
I was waiting for something "dramatic" to happen, here it is:
Mikey then says her husband is an attorney and it won't be easy to make a case for termination. The CEO explains then your behavior would have to change, because you don't like to be criticized, don't apologize, roll your eyes and called a team member an SOB. Mikey was "stunned" and "Confronted with stark evidence, she realized the weight of her dilemma." She resigns and leaves before any co-worker could see her.
Yea, that's cleverer. Stark evidence of what? Not having "artificial harmony?" (One of the five dysfunctions)
I understand this was to be a simple story to illustrate the Five Functions of a workgroup or team. I agree the five functions are valuable and foster a place of safety and creativity. Seeing them spelled out and discussed could benefit a team.
Education View.......2007-09-30
I bought this book because it is required for a graduate level education class that I am enrolled in. Although the story is set in the business world, the strategies suggested are also applicable to the educational setting as well.
This is a quick and easy read. I like that it is not preachy...it just tells a story and allows the reader to take what he/she needs to take from it.
Can't Say Enough!.......2007-09-29
This is an easy read -- but the concepts are powerful.
I took a highly disfunctional group of talented people -- and using the concepts presented, now have a high performance team.
Ok, it took several years -- and some effort -- but this book gave us a roadmap.
Go to their website -- and use the on-line Team assessment to measure you're progress.
Seriously, this book really helped us -- and we are really doing great! No lie...
Engaging Story, Powerfully Simple Ideas.......2007-09-11
Patrick Lencioni's book The Five Disfunctions of a Team is a simple read with powerful ideas for how we need to evaluate and reshape teams. I like his use of fables in business literature to give you a good story backed by common-sense organizational development advice that isn't so common-sense.
Read it!
Book Description
This updated best-selling, comprehensive resource book provides everything you need to create high performing teams. In addition, book purchasers will be able to download electronic versions of forms and templates found in the book for use within their organization! The third edition provides information on the context teams need to be successful. Organizations using teams to improve efficiency and better serve customers will find information on how to start quality initiatives such as Six Sigma or Lean. New information on different types of teams, and new tools and strategies for leading change are covered as well. Several new tools have been added to help teams work well together: affinity diagrams, prioritization matrixes, effort/impact grids, new planning tools, and additional information on effective presentations. The Team Handbook Third Edition contains a brief description of the Six Sigma improvement method DMAIC, and highlights the methods and strategies that are useful in Lean. Also included is a new strategy for using designed experiments to identify and control sources of process variation. The book includes tools and techniques that go beyond the basics such as creativity tools, force-field analysis, and information to help leaders manage project pipelines.
Customer Reviews:
Moderately useful book used in my MBA course!.......2007-01-16
Moderately useful book used in my MBA course!
Of Limited Use to Defense Industry.......2006-09-12
While this book contains a great deal of useful information on team dynamics and tools, it does not cover the Integrated Process and Product Development (IPPD) framwork which is the basis of co-located Integrated Product Teams (IPTs). Due to this omission, its applicability to the defense industry is very limited.
Dog-earred, highlighted, and still going strong!.......2006-08-27
Like all good improvement tools, this guide for teams has evolved over the years. I began with the original, moved to Edition Two and now have Edition Three. Along with THE LEADER'S HANDBOOK, the TEAM HANDBOOK is probably the most useful and used book I own. Whether you are leading a project team, facilitating your own workgroup, or just want to be a better team member yourself, THIS is the tool you need. Every chapter is jammed pack with helpful tips, traps to avoid, notes and templates to help you be successful. Invest in this book, invest in YOURSELF!
Cal Poly student review, Brian Leininger.......2006-06-03
This book was well written and easy to understand. It gave a lot of information that would be useful for anyone attempting to use teams for projects.
Cal Poly student review Ben Wallace.......2006-06-01
This book was very informative, it covered a wide range of useful information for anyone attempting to improve upon a process. It is well written and easy to understand
Average customer rating:
- Great read
- A timeless software classic, a must read for every manager, and a source of inspiration for practitioners (software developers)
- So good, a must have
- Highly Recommended - Software is about people
- everyone should read, not just the manager
|
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
Tom DeMarco , and
Timothy Lister
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ASIN: 0932633439 |
Amazon.com
Peopleware asserts that most software development projects fail because of failures within the team running them. This strikingly clear, direct book is written for software development-team leaders and managers, but it's filled with enough commonsense wisdom to appeal to anyone working in technology. Authors Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister include plenty of illustrative, often amusing anecdotes; their writing is light, conversational, and filled with equal portions of humor and wisdom, and there is a refreshing absence of "new age" terms and multistep programs. The advice is presented straightforwardly and ranges from simple issues of prioritization to complex ways of engendering harmony and productivity in your team. Peopleware is a short read that delivers more than many books on the subject twice its size.
Customer Reviews:
Great read.......2007-10-20
Fortunately I found a company that already practices a lot of this, so the momentum against change is not high. If you're at a company that doesn't, their ideas do really work.
A timeless software classic, a must read for every manager, and a source of inspiration for practitioners (software developers).......2007-07-08
Peopleware: Productivity Projects and Teams [Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister] was first published in 1987 - three decades later it is a revered classic. DeMarco and Lister focus on the human factor of software development (managing people). Through their 30 years of project management experience and consulting they share what went right, and more importantly, what went wrong - so we can learn from their mistakes.
This series of essays cover a wide variety of topics ranging from: office environments that encourage work, the importance of the closed door (read: "cubicles are BAD"), the significance of "flow" and creativity, the dangers and hidden cost of turnover, the importance of hiring and keeping the right people, how to retain employees, how to encourage productivity, the importance of a "jelled team", the dangers of teamicide, how not to manage people, and many other equally interesting topics.
Some quotes I found interesting:
"No one can really work much more than forty hours, at least not continually and with the level of intensity required for creative work." Chapter 3
"the process of improving productivity risks worsening turnover" (Chapter 3)
"People under time pressure don't work better; they just work faster." (Chapter 3)
"People who had ten years of experience did not outperform those with two years of experience." (Chapter 8)
"people who perform better tend to gravitate towards organizations that provide a better workplace." (Chapter 8)
"the total cost of replacing each person is the equivalent of four-and-a-half to five months of employee cost or about twenty percent of the cost of keeping that employee for two years on the job." (Chapter 16)
This book continues to change the way I view my job, organization, and career. Practitioners and authors like: Steve McConnell, Robert L. Glass, and Joel Spolsky heavily cite the industry-shattering truths originally exposed by Marco and Lister. This book should be on every professional's shelf along side other classics like: The Mythical Man-Month, and Code Complete.
So good, a must have.......2007-04-17
I think this book opens your mind in how to manage people as a book about SOA opens it in how to architecture an application. It gives no answers, but you will see how you would like to work after reading it.
Very impressive.
Highly Recommended - Software is about people.......2007-04-11
A must-read for managers especially, but useful for developers as well, who may be wondering why they don't enjoy their job as much as they would like. Clearly spells out the oft-hidden costs of development and why some teams work well and are enjoyable to be part of and why some are demotivating.
This book is relevant not just for software development, but for any team environment where the work entails thinking for a living.
I found this book a breathe of fresh air amongst the talk of productivity enhancements, out-sourcing and the latest must-use technologies.
everyone should read, not just the manager.......2007-03-14
I would recommend anyone to read this book for project (task, mission) that is going to be carried out by a team or an organization. It is a humanistic (and not lazy) way of carrying out things. We all know that when the profession of management digress itself from keeping a close eye on human psychology, troubles are looming on the horizon.
Wonderful collection of thoughts and many gems. Hey.. does Amazon come with a six starts? :)
Average customer rating:
- Not a Project Management Guide
- real world pm
- project management with your feet on the ground and your heart on it
- highly practical and thorough coverage
- Great book
|
The Art of Project Management (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly))
Scott Berkun
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
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ASIN: 0596007868 |
Book Description
The Art of Project Management covers it all--from practical methods for making sure work gets done right and on time, to the mindset that can make you a great leader motivating your team to do their best. Reading this was like reading the blueprint for how the best projects are managed at Microsoft... I wish we always put these lessons into action!" --Joe Belfiore, General Manager, E-home Division, Microsoft Corporation
"Berkun has written a fast paced, jargon-free and witty guide to what he wisely refers to as the 'art' of project management. It's a great introduction to the discipline. Seasoned and new managers will benefit from Berkun's perspectives." --Joe Mirza, Director, CNET Networks (Cnet.com)
"Most books with the words 'project management' in the title are dry tomes. If that's what you are expecting to hear from Berkun's book, you will be pleasantly surprised. Sure, it's about project management. But it's also about creativity, situational problem-solving, and leadership. If you're a team member, project manager, or even a non-technical stakeholder, Scott offers dozens of practical tools and techniques you can use, and questions you can ask, to ensure your projects succeed." --Bill Bliss, Senior VP of product and customer experience, expedia.com
In The Art of Project Management, you'll learn from a veteran manager of software and web development how to plan, manage, and lead projects. This personal account of hard lessons learned over a decade of work in the industry distills complex concepts and challenges into practical nuggets of useful advice. Inspiring, funny, honest, and compelling, this is the book you and your team need to have within arms reach. It will serve you well with your current work, and on future projects to come.
Topics include:
- How to make things happen
- Making good decisions
- Specifications and requirements
- Ideas and what to do with them
- How not to annoy people
- Leadership and trust
- The truth about making dates
- What to do when things go wrong
Customer Reviews:
Not a Project Management Guide.......2007-10-14
I guess I expected more after reading some of the reviews, but was disappointed to find out that it is a high level project management supplemental book. If you are a beginning PMer looking for a good book about the fundamentals of PM, this is not the book. The level of the content is for those who simply want a book that is more a novel than a help book.
real world pm.......2007-06-29
An easy and fun to read book, based on real life examples and experiences. While reading it, I got many tips from the book and apply them in my onw work.
project management with your feet on the ground and your heart on it.......2007-05-24
I really love this book!! I've read many books about how to run projects, to keep teams motivated, to be an effective leader, and I think this book compiles all of the above, plus it gives you a grounded point of view. There are no promises, only hard work and ways to improve your performance.
I've used some of the recommendations included in chapter 13: How to make things happen and, although is not a guarantee of success, I have accomplished some of my most difficult projects with it and the ones I didn't, at least I know why.
[...].
highly practical and thorough coverage.......2007-05-12
Reading this book is almost as good as having a highly experienced mentor help you manage a project. The book provides very thorough coverage with sound, practical advice. There is a good list of reference material as well. I have been a software developer for more than 25 years and have managed several projects and still found I learned a lot from this book. I wish it had been available years ago. The book also provided confirmation for many of my beliefs about which I disagree with my current project manager. I hope to use this book to help convince him to change. I will be managing my own project again soon and plan to use use this book to help me succeed. Every software developer should read this book even if they are not a project manager. My only very slight criticism is that the book is most helpful to software product projects, but I think even internal development projects should be run as this book explains.
Great book.......2007-05-09
This is a great book.
Filled with real-world wisdom, it prepares you for what to expect in the world of project management as a career option.
Especially usefull for people from software development background.
Average customer rating:
- Years of Knowledge in One Neat Package
- COMPREHENSIVE, CLEAR AND CONCISE.
- Insightful!
- Facilitating With Ease!
- From one facilitator to another...
|
Facilitating with Ease!, with CD: Core Skills for Facilitators, Team Leaders and Members, Managers, Consultants, and Trainers
Ingrid Bens
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
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ASIN: 0787977292 |
Book Description
Facilitating with Ease! is an updated version of the best-selling resource that offers easy-to-follow instructions, techniques, and hands-on tools that team leaders, consultants, supervisors, and managers have used to learn the basics of facilitation. Complete with worksheets on CD-ROM that can be customized to fit your personal needs, it's a complete facilitation workshop in a take-home format. Facilitating with Ease! shows you how to run productive meetings with skill and authority and includes the information needed to train others in your organization to become confident facilitators as well. The book is filled with dozens of exercises, surveys, and checklists that can be used to transform anyone into an effective facilitator.
Customer Reviews:
Years of Knowledge in One Neat Package.......2007-07-08
As a Human Performance Technologist, I am constantly running into situations where I need to use facilitating skills. I have acquired such skills and knowledge over years of experience and practice. This book, Facilitating With Ease!," neatly packages the knowledge components required of a Facilitator and provides useful tools to be used in practice. I am planning to use this book with a client in training new facilitators to facilitate discussions of ethical business leadership. I wish I had this book 10 years ago!
COMPREHENSIVE, CLEAR AND CONCISE........2005-02-27
Details core facilitation tools and techniques. Chapters cover: understanding facilitation; facilitation stages; assessing and understanding participants; creating participation; effective decision making; facilitating conflict; meeting management; process tools for facilitators (e.g., visioning, exit surveys, brainstorming) and process designs. This is a well organized 'soup to nuts' reference including worksheets on CD-ROM that can be customized. Comprehensive, clear, and concise.
Insightful!.......2001-10-16
Companies that embrace work teams quickly discover a basic truth: More teams mean more meetings. Management experts laud the benefits of enlightened teamwork, but they spend much less time dwelling on the often long, sometimes pointless and nearly always inefficient meetings that teams breed. With teams fast becoming a fixture in the corporate world, meeting management, or facilitation, is becoming a critical skill for anyone with executive ambitions. Author Ingrid Bens' definition of a facilitator is quite specific - someone who guides a meeting without actually participating in discussion or decision making - but her book is filled with practical advice that any professional can apply when running a meeting. A host of charts, examples and worksheets (not to mention the accompanying CD) help illustrate her process for steering meetings without controlling or directing the outcome. We [...] recommend this hands-on how-to guide to anyone motivated to minimize the waste of meeting-creep.
Facilitating With Ease!.......2000-11-08
I have had the privilege of participating in workshops taught by Ingrid Bens: this is like having her in your own training room! The information in this book is both relevant and concise. I use the book to lead my facilitation team through all of their group dynamics training. The CD-ROM allows me the freedom to customize the worksheets to meet our needs. This is a great book that I highly recommend to all individuals who work in teams, lead meetings, or need assistance in group dynamics
From one facilitator to another..........2000-07-07
As a failitator of a process using storyboards, I am always looking for new twists on facilitation in general. As a compact, to the point resource on facilitation and basic meeting management, I think Ingrid's is at the top of the list. While, like any such work, you truly gain the value when you attend a workshop, this book is worth the price in things anyone can adapt and use in any organization. You can never become "good enough" at facilitation and I am glad someone referred me to this book. Two thumbs up......Oh, and one other nice thing. Everything in here is to-the-point instruction - no big ego trips with the author's name dropped into war story after war story...
Book Description
Completely Updated and Revised
This revised edition of Peter Senge’s bestselling classic, The Fifth Discipline, is based on fifteen years of experience in putting the book’s ideas into practice. As Senge makes clear, in the long run the only sustainable competitive advantage is your organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition. The leadership stories in the book demonstrate the many ways that the core ideas in The Fifth Discipline, many of which seemed radical when first published in 1990, have become deeply integrated into people’s ways of seeing the world and their managerial practices.
In The Fifth Discipline, Senge describes how companies can rid themselves of the learning “disabilities” that threaten their productivity and success by adopting the strategies of learning organizations—ones in which new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, collective aspiration is set free, and people are continually learning how to create results they truly desire.
The updated and revised Currency edition of this business classic contains over one hundred pages of new material based on interviews with dozens of practitioners at companies like BP, Unilever, Intel, Ford, HP, Saudi Aramco, and organizations like Roca, Oxfam, and The World Bank. It features a new Foreword about the success Peter Senge has achieved with learning organizations since the book’s inception, as well as new chapters on Impetus (getting started), Strategies, Leaders’ New Work, Systems Citizens, and Frontiers for the Future.
Mastering the disciplines Senge outlines in the book will:
• Reignite the spark of genuine learning driven by people focused on what truly matters to them
• Bridge teamwork into macro-creativity
• Free you of confining assumptions and mindsets
• Teach you to see the forest and the trees
• End the struggle between work and personal time
Customer Reviews:
Insightful and Informative Book.......2007-10-20
The Fifth Discipline is a seminal book by the famous author Peter M. Senge. The book teaches the concept of the learning organization namely that the successful organization must continually adapt and learn in order to respond to changes in the environment effectively and therefore to grow and prosper. I have read the book a number of times and keep on referring to it as is filled with a lot useful knowledge and wisdom. System thinking and learning is critical to organisational growth and development in the present highly dynamic operating environment.
According to Peter Senge, "real learning gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning we reperceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life. There is within each of us a deep hunger for this type of learning"--powerful advice indeed from a real learning guru.
This revised and updated edition includes the thoughts and ideas of some successful practitioners, taking into account developments since the first edition was published about 15 years earlier. Do not be intimidated by the length of the book, over 450 pages, as it is very informative, insightful and interesting to read.
I recommend this book for individuals interested in understanding the nature of how organizations develop, how behaviours are formed, and how organizations achieve growth and augment their capabilities. You will learn how to improve the way your organization or department functions, how to review and improve systems and how to develop shared visions, create long term goals among other critical insights.
Fifth discipline.......2007-09-29
I have not read the book yet, but it came to me very fast. I was pleased with the service and I enjoy using Amazon.
Katrius
Must read.......2007-09-17
Any manager who wishes to develop the organization he works for must read this book. It is an excellent introduction to systems thinking within any type of organization.
The World is Knowledge Intensive.......2007-09-06
In addition to being a fan of Peter Senge, I'm also a great fan of the ultimate management guru, Peter Drucker, who got me thinking about "the learning organization" in his book, The Age of Discontinuity, when he said: "The world is becoming not labor intensive, not material intensive, not energy intensive, but knowledge intensive." I believe it, and thus, I was very receptive to Senge's thoughts in this book.
The central premise of my latest book, The Three Pillars of Sustainable Profit & Growth The Three Pillars of Sustainable Profit and Growth is this: the only sustainable advantage any firm can achieve in the future is the quality of the human talent it is able to recruit and retain. The knowledge they bring with them, and continue to acquire, is the key to their company's future growth and success.
Senge put it this way: "The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage."
Bottom line: I believe that managing knowledge in the contemporary business world is just as important as managing money. Successful companies of the future will clearly be seen as learning organizations, which Senge aptly defined as "a group of people who are continually enhancing their capability to create their own future."
Thought Leadership, and Breakthrough ideas.......2007-08-27
I found this book highly simulating but required heavy study to transfer the ideas into the working environment. I found the framework was incomplete especially around the issues of creating a learning environment. Senges' framework for Systems is best described in terms of 'systems dynamics' which leads onto a more developed theory by others on system complexity and emergence.
He describes what might be an end state without detailing how to get there, the later follow up field book on tools and methods now fills this gap neatly. Both books together are perfect.
This book sets out theory very well, it also provides Thought Leadership, Breakthrough ideas and Inspiration. Its well written and enjoyable.
Book Description
Senge's best-selling The Fifth Discipline led Business Week to dub him the "new guru" of the corporate world; here he offers executives a step-by-step guide to building "learning organizations" of their own.
Customer Reviews:
Tools for creating a Learning Culture.......2006-09-11
Peter M Serge, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook
To quote the first few paragraphs at beginning of book:
Among the tribes of northen Natal in South Africa, the most common greeting, equivalent to "hello" in English, is the expression: Sawu bona. It literally means, "I see you." If you are a member of the tribe, you might reply by saying Sikhona, "I am here." The order of the exchange is important: until you see me, I do not exist. It's as if, when you see me bring me into existence.
This meaning, implicit in the language, is part of the spirit of ubuntu, a frame of mind prevalent among native people in Africa below the Sahara. The word ubuntu stems from the folk saying Umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu, which from Zulu, literally translates as: "A person is a person because of other people."
"I bow in honor and reverence that place within you where to the Universe resides, when you are in that place within you, and I am in that place within me, there is One." ~namaste
The five disciplines are at the CORE of a Learning Organization
1) Personal Mastery: expand your personal capacity and ability
2) Mental Models: see how our internal pictures of the world shape action and decision
3) Shared Vision: group commitment
4) Team Learning: group ability is greater than the sum of individual talents
5) System Thinking:
"When we try to bring about change in our societies, we are treated first with indifference, then with ridicule, then with abuse and then with oppression. And finally, the greatest challenge is thrown at us: We are treated with respect. This is the most dangerous stage." --A. T. Ariyaratne (Speech made at International Community Leadership Summit, Winrock, Arkansas, March 1983. This quote paraphrases and expands upon a well-known statement made by Mahatma Gandhi in his book Satyagraha in South Africa, 1982, 1979, Canon, Me.: Greenleaf books)
"An [organization] is not a machine but a living organism." --Ikujiro Nonaka /****
Fundamentals of epistemology: what is knowledge, the nature of knowledge, and what constitutes learning.
understanding is achieved after internalization.
Without experience, we cannot truly understand.
Internalization: transformation from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge, habits and culture that we do not recognize in ourselves.
Innovation is a process to capture, create, leverage, and retain knowledge.
What is your belief? A belief about images of the world - you may call it a mental model - is a very subjective thing
information is the flow of a message, while knowledge is created by accumulating information. Thus, information is a necessary medium or material for eliciting and constructing knowledge.
The second difference is that information is something passive. When we switch on a TV set, information comes regardless of my commitment. But knowledge comes from my belief, so it's more proactive.
And the organizational knowledge or intellectual infrastructure of an organization encourages its individual members to develop new knowledge through new experiences.
This dynamic process is the key to organizational knowledge creation - that is, socialization (from individual tacit knowledge to group tacit knowledge), externalization (from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge), combination (from separate explicit knowledge to systemic explicit knowledge), and internalization (from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge) [...].
[...]
Three Guiding Ideas
1) The Whole. When you are pointing a finger at the problems, notice how many fingers are pointing back at you. If you fixed the symptoms and ignore the root causes, the problems have not gone away. Another way to look at this is treat the person, not the disease. Of course treat the disease if the patient is dying, but know that the patient will get sick again because the "root causes" are stil there.
2) Community. The self is "a point of view." "The essence of being a person is being in a relationship [with] other people." You will not believe this, but each person before you is there for a reason. The reason this person is there at this moment is for you to learn something about yourself. If you ignore the person, do not ignore or forget the lesson.
3) Language. The map is not the territory. We cannot contain every bit of information that comes to us in the world, so we have to create a "map of the territory" and then refer to the map for our information. By changing a person's map, we change their reality. Language is the map, not the reality.
enlightening concepts about leadership.......2005-10-26
It seems to me that The Fifth Discipline (the previous publication of the series) is more attacting to me. The second book can be more precise and concise in content. Generally speaking I still like these two books as a foreign reader.
The Fifth Discipline.......2003-02-08
This book is a collection of theoretical summaries, reports, analyses, and strategies all quite useful to anyone interested in generating some thinking and action around change. The team of five writers (Peter Senge, Richard Ross, Bryan Smith, Charlotte Roberts, and Art Kleiner) provide some original work, but also serve as editors to a vast quantity of material drawn from practitioners, theorists, and writers in the field of organizational improvement. According to Senge, "great teams are learning organizations - groups of people who, over time, enhance their capacity to create what they truly desire to create." (p.18) This book is really about creating and building great teams. The learning organization develops its ability to reflect on, discuss, question, and change its current and past practices. To do this, people and groups in the organization need to meaningfully pursue the study and practice of the five disciplines - personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.
The learning organization - Senge's vision for the productive, competitive, and efficient institutions of the future - is in a continuous state of change. Four fundamental questions continuously serve to check and guide a group's learning and improvement (see page 49): (1) Do you continuously test your experiences? ("Are you willing to examine and challenge your sacred cows - not just during crises, but in good times?") (2) Are you producing knowledge? ("Knowledge, in this case, means the capacity for effective action.") (3) Is knowledge shared? ("Is it accessible to all of the organization's members?") (4) Is the learning relevant? ("Is this learning aimed at the organization's core purpose?") If these questions represent the organization's compass, the five disciplines are its map.
Each of the five disciplines is explained, and elaborated in its own lengthy section of the book. In the section on "Systems Thinking" (a set of practices and perspectives, which views all aspects of life as inter-related and playing a role in some larger system), the authors build on the idea of feedback loops (reinforcing and balancing) and introduce five systems archetypes. They are: "fixes that backfire", "limits to growth", "shifting the burden", "tragedy of the commons", and "accidental adversaries". In the section on "Personal Mastery", the authors argue that learning starts with each person. For organizations to learn and improve, people within the organization (perhaps starting with its core leadership) must learn to reflect on and become aware of their own core beliefs and visions. In "Mental Models", the authors argue that learning organizations need to explore the assumptions and attitudes, which guide their institutional directions, practices, and strategies. Articles on scenario planning, the ladder of inference, the left-hand column, and balancing inquiry and advocacy offer practical strategies to investigate our personal mental models as well as those of others in the organization. In "Shared Vision", the authors make the case for the stakeholders of an organization to continually adapt their vision ("an image of a desired future"), values ("how we get to travel to where we want to go"), purpose ("what the organization is here to do"), and goals ("milestones we expect to reach before too long"). The section offers many strategies and perspectives on how to move an organization toward continuous reflection. In "Team Learning", the authors rely mostly on the work of William Isaacs and others, and make a case for educating organization members in the processes and skills of dialogue and skillful discussion.
This book is enlightening and informative. It has already found a place on my shelf for essential reference books.
A follow up to the legend.......2003-01-27
The Fieldbook attempts at making the esoteric concepts of the fifth discipline more down to earth and contains a treasure trove of strategies, tools, methods and explanations on how to make the learning organization into a reality.
Thus people who have read The fifth discipline will gain the most from this book. It's a must read for people who want to make their organizations transition into a 'learning organization'
A second dose of Inspiration..........2002-02-09
Senge's second serving of the Learning Organization is filled with practical tips and real-life examples from companies and organizations that have embraced the teachings of the Learning Organization successfully.
The Book is a collaboration of several writers who do a superb job of unraveling the web that is the learning organization. At times, it may seem to the reader that the book is a labyrinth of disjointed concepts and ideas. However, if you have read `The Fifth Discipline' you will find no problems following the concepts introduced. In fact, you will even understand why the writers have chosen to introduce them in that fashion. If you have not read "The Fifth Discipline', do not despair, it will take a little longer to get `the whole picture'.
The Book is divided into 8 main sections:
1) Getting Started addresses the basic concepts and ideas of the Learning Organization.
2) Systems Thinking (the fifth discipline) - Many people have argued that Senge should have delegated the fifth discipline until the end, however, without Systems Thinking, your vision is disjointed and incomplete.
3) Personal Mastery covers the area of individual development and learning. The chapters here are among the most valuable in the area of self-growth and self-improvement.
4) Mental Models - These are the pictures that you have in your head which represent reality.
5) Shared Vision - You've seen the whole picture, you've developed and you understand how you see the world. Now you need to find a common cause with the rest of the people in your organization, something that you all work for.
6) Team Learning - As you work with other people in teams or groups, you need to pass the stuff that you have learnt and the wisdom you've acquired to others. At this stage, the learning is no longer that of the individual, but the group.
7) Arenas of Practice - (Self explanatory)
8) Frontiers - Where do we go from here.
If you are interested in development, learning, growth, leadership, gaining a competitive edge whether at an organizational or personal level, then this book is for you. In fact, I'd venture to say that this is book is for everyone.
Amazon.com
The key to building a superior company, an increasing number of observers now agree, is the ongoing ability to recruit and retain superior personnel. In Topgrading, industrial psychologist and global consultant Bradford Smart expands upon this idea by examining in great detail exactly how today's premier organizations have assembled such top-level employees, and then showing precisely how others can do it, too. "Simply put, topgrading is the practice of packing the team with A players and clearing out the C players," Smart writes. "'A players' is defined as the top 10 percent of talent available at all salary levels--best of class. With this radical definition, you are not a topgrader until your team consists of all A players. Period." Essentially a best-practices manual for developing this outstanding personnel pool, the book is based on more than 4,000 interviews and case studies conducted by Smart at major corporations like General Electric as well as fast-growing high-tech companies and small family-owned firms. He further bolsters its effectiveness by including his extensive "Chronological In-Depth Structured Interview Guide," along with other assessment tools and hands-on strategies for assembling an ideal work team. --Howard Rothman
Book Description
Great companies don't just depend on strategies—they depend on people. The more great people on your team, the more successful your organization will be. But that's easier said than done. Statistically, half of all employment decisions result in a mishire: The wrong person winds up in the wrong job. But companies that have followed Bradford Smart's advice in Topgrading have boosted their successful hiring rate to 90 percent or better, giving them an unbeatable competitive advantage.
Now Smart has fully revised his 1999 management classic to reintroduce the topgrading concept, which works for companies large and small in any industry. The author spells out his practical approach to finding and managing A-level talent—as well as coaching B players to turn them into A players. He provides intriguing case studies drawn from more than four thousand in-depth interviews.
As Smart writes in his introduction, “All organizations, all businesses live or die mostly on their talent, and any manager who fails to topgrade is nuts, or a C player. . . . Those who, way deep down, would sooner see an organization die than nudge an incompetent person out of a job should not read this book... Topgrading is for A players and all those aspiring to be A players.”
Customer Reviews:
disappointed.......2007-10-17
I was under the impression that this was a paperback version of the book but instead it was a summary of the book. It gave a lot of generalities but was not specific at all. If you are looking for a "Cliff's Notes" version then this book will probably serve the purpose. If you want specifics, then you need to buy the hard cover book.
Stop looking for magic bullets.......2007-06-08
While Brad Smart offers some good advice for the hiring manager, we must keep in mind that the purpose of TogGrading is to make money for, uh, Brad Smart. It is every hiring manager's responsibility to select the best candidate for a position. Some instinctively do a good job at this, while others are simply clueless. Dr. Smart presents his methodology with a zen-like religious furvor. He insists that if everyone in the organization adopts his methodology and becomes a zealot, the organization will become wildly successful. Isn't pretty to think so. My company jumped on the TogGrading bandwagon three years ago, because we had high turnover in a two departments. Now our hiring process is adruous, time-consuming and expensive. The results? Those managers who had low turnover rates still have low turnover rates. Those who had high turnover rates still have high turnover rates. The bottom line: TopGrading doesn't work any better than any other of the various magic bullet methods hawked to managers over the years. There is no one-size-fits-all methodology for selecting top performers. If your company is failing at attracting and retaining "A players" you'd do better to carefully examine your corporate culture than to jump on the latest fad method. If one manager excels at hiring and retaining good employees, allow him to mentor the managers who don't. This is cheaper and far more effective than turning your HR process upside down and hoping for a miracle cure.
Be objective with your experiences.......2007-03-15
I have been through interview processes with multi-billion dollar firms that were surprisingly casual and not as "hard-hitting" as I would expect. From observing others and recognizing my own experiences and shortcomings, you can tell who are "C" and "A" players. This does not make the "C" player a bad person. Michael Jordan was a "C" in minor league baseball.
Just because someone is a CEO of a Fortune 500 company does not make that same person infalliable. Sometimes CEOs do things that make us scratch our heads, and subsequent events prove us right. (William McCormack at CMS Energy being one.)
Other CEOs bring great growth and enhanced shareholder value. They are worth the big bucks. How much would you pay to someone who increased your company's value by $1 billion?
I was so impressed with this book that I have begun to implement these principles into my suppliers for our company's procurement chain. I'm constructing my own "CIDS" interview, and will seek to have "A" suppliers, removing the "C"s.
The anecdote in the book says it best. A firm will invest a lot of time, effort and energy in buying a $500,000 piece of equipment. But hiring an employee whose impact on the firm can be millions of dollars? "Ah, he interviewed well, so we'll hire him."
Kick the tires during the interview phase. Talk to others for "scuttlebutt". Invest the time up front for big pay-offs later.
Read This Book Today.......2007-03-15
There are many books on the market focused on interviewing techniques and talent selection. Topgrading is the best in this category and I have read many of them. The reason why it is the best is that it takes the reader past "what to do" and teaches them "how to do it". If you are someone like me, looking for a way to hire and coach A players right now, this is the book for you.
It really works!!!.......2007-03-06
Not only have I read both releases of this book, but my colleagues and I have been practicing Topgrading at my company for some time now. By using Dr. Smart's process, we have had significant success in hiring A players and have reaped the rewards of having these high powered recruits on our staff. This is a "must read" for those leaders that want to significantly improve the quality of their workforce.
Book Description
Based on
Patrick Lencioni’s extraordinarily successful leadership fable The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, this Facilitator’s Guide provides everything needed to create a high-impact half- or full-day workshop for intact teams. Beginning with an introduction to the model and instructions for administering and debriefing a 38-item team assessment, the dynamic material guides trainers, facilitators, and team leaders through The Five Dysfunctions of a Team:
1. Absence of Trust
2. Fear of Conflict
3. Lack of Commitment
4. Avoidance of Accountability
5. Inattention to Results
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- Patent It Yourself
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- Raintree: Inferno (Silhouette Nocturne)
- Reverse Mergers: Taking a Company Public Without an IPO
- Rich Dad's Advisors®: The ABC's of Real Estate Investing: The Secrets of Finding Hidden Profits Most Investors Miss (Rich Dad's Advisors)
- Rio for Partiers: The visual travel guide to Rio de Janeiro
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- Shakespeare's Secret
Books Index
Books Home
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The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business
Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors
The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable
Crucial Confrontations
