Hot Groups: Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization [Paperback]

Jean Lipman-Blumen (Author), Harold J. Leavitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 7, 2001

Many corporations, in their attempt to create innovative products and services, have focused on the concept of building teams. While many groups fizzle, on rare occasions the members of a group will experience an extraordinary eruption of excitement, transcending an organization's rigid confines to achieve astonishing results. These individuals are lucky enough to be members of a "hot group," a phenomenon lucidly and enthusiastically described in this groundbreaking book.

Drawing on decades of research and experience with groups and organizations throughout the world, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt have written an intensely engaging book about a phenomenon that will become increasingly important in our rapidly changing world. Expertly carving a path through this unmapped terrain, they lucidly demonstrate how managers and executives can ignite hot group sparks in their own organizations. The inspiring case studies found throughout Hot Groups illustrate that well-nourished hot groups can profoundly transform any type of organization.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

You can't plan for a collection of employees to become a hot group. It's not a committee or a task force. Governments can't legislate them into being. Employers may not even want them around, since they tend to be egalitarian and disordered--the opposite of a hierarchical structure. A group of young computer programmers could get together and work for days at a time, both for the love of computer programming and because they feel they're on the verge of an important moment, and the result could be Microsoft. A collection of writers, producers, directors, actors, and camera operators could get hired to work on a TV show, realize that show has the potential to be something different and special, and end up with Hill Street Blues. A team of middle-aged white males in suits and starched military uniforms could gather in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, ultimately preventing any missiles from being fired.

The authors believe that hot groups are the antidote to lumbering, inflexible organizations, whether they be corporations, military chains of command, or government bureaucracies. They're what gives individuals in those organizations a chance to find meaning and fulfillment in their work, and they're what breaks through logjams and deadlocks and achieves what others had thought to be impossible. Along with lots of examples of hot groups in action, the authors provide concrete steps employers can take to form, manage, and get the most out of them. There's also a valuable cautionary chapter on how the dynamics of a hot group can be changed for the worse--a change in management, or a disturbance in team chemistry with the addition or withdrawal of a member. The point managers can take away from this book is that once you get such a dynamic team going, you have to let it run. Hot Groups, as much as any book can, shows how. --Lou Schuler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Captures the attributes of intense, task dominated teams that energize both individual and organizational effectiveness in doing what han't been done before."

"Jean Lipman-Blumen and Hal Leavitt take the reader into the world of 'hot groups', a world they know so well but remains allusive to most of us. Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt dissect the inner workings of 'hot groups' with their boundless energy, creativity and crystal clear sense of mission. This book will drive most readers to search for their own 'hot group' experience, whether it's to be found in their work, community or family. An extraordinarily relevant book for our dynamic but chaotic times." --Robert C. Fisher, Schroder & Co. Inc.

"Hot Groups makes a passionate case for injecting strategic disorder into disciplined organizations. Packed with information, it is clearly written, superbly organized and entirely original. Anyone who has an interest in fostering quick and real organizational change to confront a rapidly transforming world will want to read it and refer to it." --Barry Munitz, The J. Paul Getty Trust

"A new buzz term has just been spawned. It's called "hot groups" and was coined by Jean Lipman-Blumen and Harold J. Leavitt in their recently published book.... A hot group is a group that is totally passionate about a task...Although unnamed until now, hot groups have always existed. But, with a marked demand for innovation and new products and technology, they're more important than ever."--Bob Weinstein, The Washington Times

"Drawing on decades of research and experience working with groups and organizations s throughout the world, these renowned authors have written a provocative book detailing how small, egalitarian, disordered "hot groups" can bring about revolutionary change. Essential reading for senior executives, managers responsible for bringing about organizational change, and business scholars."--Social & Behavioral Sciences

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195144058
• ISBN-13: 978-0195144055
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,563,951 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Organizational Ignition, February 1, 2000

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hot Groups : Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization (Hardcover)

In the Preface, the reader is told: "The time is ripe for large, hierarchical, well-ordered organizations to make room for small, egalitarian, disordered hot groups. That is the first thesis of this book....The book's second and ultimately more important thesis is that hot groups are not good just for organizations. They are also good for people. They offer individuals opportunities to find meaning and ennoblement through their work. In our fast and impermanent new organizational world, those who work in organizations -- and that includes most of us -- both expect and deserve such opportunities." Here is how the book is organized:

Part I Hot Groups: What They Are and Why They're Hot

Part II Who Needs Hot Groups? And Who Seeds New Ones?

Part III How Do Hot Groups Operate?

Part IV An Optimistic View of What's Ahead

At this point early in my review, I want to stress that a "hot group" should be the logical, indeed inevitable result of a way at looking at organizational renewal. Think of the "hot group" concept as precisely that: a concept which affirms the value of a process by which individual members of any organization (regardless of its size or nature) can effectively collaborate. These members are "task-obsessed and full of passion." They share a style which is "intense, sharply focused, and full bore." Moreover, members of a "hot group" feel engaged in "an important, even vital and personally ennobling mission"; their task is "dominates all other considerations"; and although a "hot group" tends to remain intact only for a relatively short period of time, it is "remembered nostalgically and in considerable detail by its members."

Such groups require effective leadership. In Chapter 6, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt address this issue, suggesting a number of specific "options" when "hot group" is assembled and then charged with its mission. For example: "To develop a hot, task-obsessed group, think about people before you begin laying out a flow chart. Bring on the people. Getting the task done is not your solo job. It's the whole group's job." The leader is urged to "recruit wild ducks", then help the group to bring the right people in, to get the wrong people out, and with unexpected departures. According to the authors, there are two kinds of c"wars" and "races." In wars, the goal is to destroy the enemy; in races, the goal is not to destroy but to out-perform others. Also, "at least as much", to have members outperform themselves, to exceed their personal best.

In my opinion, this brilliant book makes two immensely important contributions to our understanding of what it takes to achieve superior organizational performance. First, it explains what the members of a "hot group" can themselves accomplish if given the leadership, freedom, and resources needed. Second, it explains what the positive impact of such a group can have on all others within the same organization. Paradoxically, a "hot group" is most effective within an organization that has stability, solid and enlightened management, and sufficient resources to support the group's efforts. That is certainly true of those associated with Xerox PARC, the Manhattan Project, Lockheed's "Skunk Works", and the Disney studios which produced the first full-length animated films.

If an organization is unwilling and/or unable to tolerate a "small, egalitarian, disordered" but NOT disorganized "hot group", it probably has problems which even the hottest of "hot groups" cannot solve.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good overview for newbies, not much new for the experienced, March 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Hot Groups : Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization (Hardcover)

I've just finished Hot Groups and am somewhat disppointed. Since this book is well written and does give a good overview on the need for hot groups and how to use them effectively in organizations, I'm assuming I wasn't very impressed because I didn't realize it's absolutely an introductory book. I imagine it might be helpful for people who have never had experience creating or working on ad-hoc groups or on short-term critical projects. Additionally, it might help people working in very large and bureacratic organizations. However, for anyone who has experience in working on short-term projects or crisis management, this book doesn't offer much that's new. I work in an Internet startup on short-term projects and the authors suggestions to "build a sense of community in your hot group; be aware your team will need downtime so as not to burn out; be aware communication is important, be aware of the political sensitivities within your organization..." are simply too obvious for anyone with experience working on important short-term projects. If you have such experience, this book isn't for you.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, March 20, 2001

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hot Groups : Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization (Hardcover)

This book is about using and encouraging intense teams at work. Jean Lipman-Blumen and Harold J. Leavitt make it clear that hot groups are not a new management phenomenon. They have existed since the beginning of time. The ability of hot groups to respond to problems quickly with innovative solutions will make them an essential component of organizations in the future. Many of the techniques mentioned in this book can be used without instituting major changes in your organization. While the book offers many organizational case studies as evidence of the effectiveness of hot groups, it lacks hard numerical data showing the bottom-line results organizations get when they support hot groups. Despite that, we at getAbstract recommend this book to managers and leaders who want to introduce or use hot groups or are already using groups in their organization.