Customer Reviews

Great Boss Dead Boss

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If you only read one book this year, it has to be this one! I saw Ray Immelman speak at the TOC ICO Word Conference in Miami last October. His work came highly recommend from a mutual friend. So I thought there had to be something in it worth learning.

What I didn't expect was that this book would change the way I thought about organization and communication down, across and up. If management is about two things then organizational structure and communication are perhaps the two most basic. Great Boss, Dead Boss has made me rethink both of those. I'm deliberately not telling you what the book is about because that would spoil it for you. What I can say is that it takes the form of a novel similar to Eli Goldratt's The Goal. However, despite the fact that Ray Immelman is part of the TOC community and works for Realization Software. This is not a TOC book. It's a book about people, about relationships, about affiliation, motivation, loyalty and leadership. It's a book which is very applicable to the agile software community. If agile's unique contribution to software development was the inclusion of people related factors then Great Boss, Dead Boss offers us that same contribution for management.

And finally, if you are going through a merger or acquisition then this story of the merger of two leading silicon chip manufacturers is required reading.

Great Boss Dead Boss is a great novel that follows a new fictional manager through his trials in trying to change an organization. Through the novel you are introduced to various concepts (call dimensions and attributes) and dynamics that make a strong team or organization. As the character works with the dysfunctional organization he struggles to identify and apply various concepts to get them back on track, bond as a team, and overcome the common challenges they face. This is a very good book if you are looking at ways to build a better team within as a group or company.

The logic and deep understanding of this book is incontestable, and it has implications well beyond the limits of the business world. Yet will those who read this dare to implement its iconoclastic observations? This is the most credible formula I have ever seen for creating the conditions necessary to extract the very best performance, individually and collectively, from any group of individuals. Let us hope, at this time when we drastically need to re-appraise the way that we interact with each other in business and other environments, that books as important as Immelman's are given the widespread respect and utilisation that they deserve...

Ray has done every organisational leader a great service by providing a framework for understanding the riddle wrapped in an enigma that is leadership. His insights into our tribal behaviour and how the dynamic of individual and collective security and value can not only be understood, but practically applied to the betterment of all, raises the bar for all interested in the field of group dynamics. His decision to use the form of a novel as the vehichle for the explanation of his insights makes them accessible and easily understood, whilst not diluting the power of the ideas themselves. I have always wondered how you can get a group of people with different and varied affiliations to not only work for the common good, but actually want to excel at doing so. In Great Boss Dead Boss, Ray shows the reader some high leverage answers to the question. The book, written in a captivating prose style, follows the protagonist Greg's journey of discovery, mentored by the crusty, wise Butch. In the storyline are countless nuggets of wisdom and insight which would serve well anyone who aspires to a position of leadership.

This book has excellent materials, and some very good common sense ideas which seem to be not so common.

I would say however that the story line did not seem very realistic given the time line. When a company has significant cultural issues, it seems that a realistic turn-around could easily take two to three years, not weeks. Certainly after several weeks, a certain percentage of employees might start to recognize a change; however it is my experience that the vast majority will take a wait and see attitude.

Another aspect of the book which seemed a bit misleading was how smoothly the physical transformation of the facility seemed to go. The success of the organization was based on everything going smoothly with the physical transformation, yet the problems were minimal; this is not typical of this kind of transformation.

Finally, the author seemed to downplay other business tools like Six Sigma, Lean Enterprise, TQM and more, suggesting that they all lowered employee morale. I would disagree and say instead that all of these programs, including the ideas presented in this book are nothing more than tools. A good Change Agent should learn as many tools as possible and use the appropriate tool for the problem at hand. If none of the tools in his or her box fit the problem, he or she should seek out another tool. When various initiatives fail, it is often the result of someone trying to force his tools to fit the situation, rather than determining which tool will work best for the organization.

In spite of my comments, I still recommend this book. Read it and learn the tools, then combine what you have learned from this book together with the other tools in you box.

Just finished reading this book and I am overwhelmed by both the simplicity and the depth of the story and the message. There are just too many situations in real life that reflect the events in this book. The "tribe" is still alive and well and here to stay. Whoever is able to apply the concepts in this book skilfully will surely reap benefits as a great boss. Hope to become one of those people soon.

For the last few years I've been building my company to have a specific type of self-reinforcing corporate culture. There is still authority, there is still people with assigned roles, but I wanted my group to feel truly energized about working on our products and projects.

I have noticed over the years that management books recommend a lot of activities but the subtext was always this: communication is the heart of a good environment.

My psychological training (sorry tom cruise) has also given me great insights into what motivates and what demotivates people. But those mechanistic models of action and reaction were always searching for a unifying construct.

Ray's construct is tribal behavior and balancing our need to feel good about ourselves and the groups to which we belong.

In essence, people tend to gravitate toward groups that reinforce their self-worth. Traditional business structures tend to rigidly group people and, by doing so, people identify with smaller groups of their own design rather than their larger corporate or office group. The results are seldom good.

When I was working for a large consulting company, I was initially part of and later the lead of their Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Group. We had millions of dollars in contracts every year and, despite the work we put into educating the planners and engineers of what we did - they would routinely sub out ITS work.

At first we thought they were not getting what it was we were doing. But in reality what was happening was that they got much more value from subbing out our work. This value came from raising their stature in planning / engineering by being the "Prime" and maintaining their relationships with other companies thereby ensuring future work for their group.

Their tribal needs (engineering or planning tribes) were better served outsourcing the work, when our tribal needs (ITS tribe) would have been better served by keeping the work in house?

Who was right? Well, we both were. But in the end, the lack of communication between our groups created an adversarial atmosphere which impacted relationships and quality of work throughout the firm.

I find some holes in Ray's model - for example I find it a bit weak on the outside issue front. There are people out there who have issues outside the office that directly impact their response to things inside the office. Ray does cover this, but compared to his attention to detail on the rest of his model - this part seems a little weak.

Having said that, his model is sound and a great construct to help diffuse otherwise tense situations. You can be told that angry people have an unfulfilled need and that the proper response is to find out what that need is and discuss it all day ... but when someone is yelling in your face that's pretty hard to zero in on.

With Ray's model, there is a short cut to analyze the type of threat (as opposed to the specific threat) the person or group feels and then deal with that.

We're in the process of creating an employee manual and it's been bothering me for quite a while. It's rigid, dictatorial, and top-down. Great Boss Dead Boss has given me an inkling of how I'd like to re-create the concept of an employee manual. ... but it's just an inkling.

Lastly I'll note one other element of this model: when you think of your organization as an entity - as a tribe or whatever - it's important to give that entity substance. Substance that comes from a strong definition (not a mission statement) and a good sense of self.

Oddly, I had been working on that for the last few months. Gathering up the lore of Gray Hill Solutions, identifying why our processes work, and incorporating those two things into a single narrative to better explain why we do the things we do.

Suffice it to say, I'd highly recommend you read Ray's book.

Oh, and it's a narrative. But don't let that stop you.

While I've finished reading this book for the first time, I'm just now going back and digesting some of the tastier nuggets Ray has offered up. This isn't a book I'll read once, but one I'll dig into as my own perspective grows. As a fellow ToC person, I was expecting a novel in that vein, and, to be honest, there were several respectful nods to Eli's _The Goal_ but the similarities stopped there.

I've enjoyed looking at several organizations (business, congregations, etc.) through the lenses he proposes and am impressed by the clarity I've gained. To paraphrase George Box, one of the most influencial experimental scientists of our time, "All models are wrong, but some models are useful none the less." Certainly there will be people who find fault in Ray's model, but I would be certain that many, many more will recognize the usefulness of the ideas he set forth and that this book will attract the readership it so richly deserves.

Bravo & Thanks!

There are few books that change the way you view the world. Great Boss Dead Boss is one of those books. I have seen many situations where the strategic and tactical plans in an organization appear optimal on the surface, but the team still fails to achieve its full potential. Ray Immelman has managed to pull to the surface and describe the undercurrent of tribal behavior running through every organization that, if ignored, is the primary reason for the failure to achieve the organization's goals and objectives. After reading this book, I can look back and see how management inadvertently directed the competitive focus of various teams internally against each other, rather than focusing the teams externally at the true competitors. In the future, I am confident that I can use the attributes and dimensions Ray describes as a competitive advantage to unify and focus my organization in the future.

Written as a business novel, this must is a must read for every business owner. I'm adding this book to the "Dr Lisa must read list"!

Theory of Constraints implementations typically results in substantial results in a short amount of time. However, there are occasions where the results are not so big and/or not so fast. I believe Ray has captured the reasons why.