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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Judgement: Boring, December 1, 2008
I bought this book expecting it to be at least somewhat entertaining. After finishing the first 44 pages, I cannot bring myself to continue reading the rest: it is totally boring. Here are some quotes that illustrate the predominant tone of the book:
"In all three of our domains, people, strategy, and crisis, good judgment calls involve a process that starts with recognizing the need for the call and continues through to successful execution." (p. 29)
"Good judgment depends on how you think as much as what you know." (p. 31)
"There is nothing more important to an institution than who is going to be its leader." (p. 31)
"The quality of a person's judgment depends to a large degree on his or her ability to marshal resources and to interact well with the appropriate constituencies." (p. 39)
Not that there is anything wrong with these statements; it's just reading paragraph after paragraph of such banal truths gets tiresome. I gave this book two stars (instead of one) because the authors included a few real-life stories, but even these illustrations eventually turn into boring repetitions.
As a side note, I wondered why out of 19 reviewers, 15 gave this book a five-star rating, so I checked their other reviews. Interestingly, all reviews I checked are also five-star. Maybe this is just a group of people with different taste in writing, I don't know.
If you are not sure whether to buy this book, I would recommend you to read the positive reviews first and if what they say seems appealing to you, read a few pages from the book (you can peek inside the book using the "Search inside this book" link, just enter some word, like "leadership" or "judgment" and open a random page from the returned matches). Then make your own judgment.
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42 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why a great leader "is the Copernican pivot at the center of the decision-making process", November 10, 2007
This is the first book on which Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis have collaborated. Separately, each has already authored or co-authored several of the most influential business books, including Tichy's The Cycle of Leadership: How Great Leaders Teach Their Companies to Win and The Leadership Engine as well as Bennis' Geeks & Geezers (later reissued as Leadership for a Lifetime) and On Becoming A Leader: The Leadership Classic.
In the first chapter, Tichy and Bennis assert that what really matters "is not how many calls a leader gets right, or even what percentage of calls a leader gets right. Rather it is important how many of the important ones he or she gets right." They go on to suggest that effective leaders "not only make better calls, but they are able to discern the really important ones and get a higher percentage of them right. They are better at a whole process that runs from seeing the need for a call, to framing issues, to figuring out what is critical, to mobilizing and energizing the troops."
Of special interest to me are the different perspectives on the decision making process preferred by a number of exemplary CEOs who include Brad Anderson (Best Buy), Steve Bennett (Intuit), A.G. Lafley (Procter & Gamble), James McNerney (Boeing), and David Novak (Yum! Brands). For example, Immelt's "Boom, I make the decision" comes after he has obtained all the input needed. "There is a moment when, based on his view of time horizon for the judgment and sufficiency of input and involvement, the leader makes the call."
According to Tichy and Bennis, there is a framework of three "critical domains" within which all decisions are made. Judgments about people are the most difficult, and most critical; the others involve strategy and crisis. They stress that good judgment calls are a process, not an event. Each begins when a leader recognizes a need and frames the decision to be made, with the process continuing through execution and adjustment. They also stress the importance of possessing sufficient self-knowledge because making a right call "isn't a solo performance; support teams are vital." I appreciate the fact that Tichy and Bennis employ a framework of their own when presenting the material concerning the "framework of leadership judgment." Specifically, they anchor several exemplary, real-world decisions in terms of their storyline and then their preparation, judgment, execution, and evaluation phases.
For example, Tichy and Bennis provide this excerpt from CEO Magazine in which A.G. Lafley explains the storyline for the future success of P&G, one that created the stage to make critical judgments:
"Everything begins here with our purpose. It's very simple. We provide branded products that improve everyday lives. The values of the company are integrity, trust, ownership, leadership, passion for service and winning...Then we turn to strategy which is choices. Our whole focus has been to grow and profit from the core - and that means core businesses, core capabilities, core technologies...Then (the other piece of this) is selecting, developing, training, teaching, and coaching the leadership team. They are the leadership engine...It's one team with one purpose and one dream and one set of strategic choices."
Many of those who read this book will especially appreciate a substantial value-added benefit: the "Handbook for Leadership Judgment" that follows the concluding chapter. In it, Chris DeRose and Tichy provide what I view as an operations manual that will enable a reader to apply what she or he has learned in ways and to an extent that are appropriate to achieving her or his own organization's specific objectives. DeRose and Tichy make an important distinction between judgment and decision making. "Much of the academic literature and popular notions of decision making culminate in a single moment when the leader makes a decision. In this handbook, we focus on judgment as a process that unfolds over time."
Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis have provided a brilliant explanation of how winning leaders make great calls and suggest that the greatest among them also help others to do so. (It is worth noting that Immelt spends approximately 25% of his time helping to develop leadership skills in GE's middle managers.) Although their book will be of interest and value to C-level executives, I think it will also be of substantial benefit, especially to others now preparing for a business career or who have only recently embarked on one. It is imperative for them to understand as soon as possible that the process of making "great calls" requires a parallel, on-going process of increasing knowledge about one's self, one's social network, one's organization, and finally, about the context within which each "call" is made.
The framework that Tichy and Bennis provide gives structure to the process of knowledge acquisition and evaluation; they also suggest a frame-of-reference within which to consider various options when making a decision. As the dozens of real-world examples they citer clearly indicate, all decisions have consequences. Obviously, the more difficult a decision is, the more serious its consequences can be...and usually are. The great leader possesses the judgment to make the "right call." That is why she or he "is the Copernican pivot at the center of the decision-making process."
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cracking the Code on JUDGMENT, December 5, 2007
Hurrah for Noel and Warren. At the very prime of their careers, these distinguished scholars have pooled their knowledge and research to wade in to the deep end of the pool on the murky but critical subject of management judgment. This has been a domain in which many others have feared to swim because of the inherent ambiguity and almost certain exposure to criticism associated with such an interdisciplinary construct.
Both authors have worked in tight with some of the most powerful transformational leaders on the planet. The sheer access these scholars were able to create to high-profile leaders embroiled in some of the major business crises of recent times is quite impressive. Less established scholars would have had to sit on the sidelines as distant observers or head for the basement to run yet another round of experiments on college sophomores. Yet, despite their clear association with these industry titans, Tichy and Bennis make a strong fact-based case against the "superman" idea, focusing instead on the critical information and influence that resides in the members of the team and among the stakeholders surrounding a great leader during times requiring major judgment calls.
Here are some their more important insights into the phenomenon of judgment:
- Judgment is not a discrete event or point decision. It is a process that embedded in and influenced by a set of relationships and a network of stakeholders.
- Judgment should not be evaluated on the basis of taste or idealized style, but on the outcomes it produces. This squares well with a recent empirical study of leadership effectiveness at the University of Chicago, which has made a compelling case that successful leaders are not always the "nice" guys that many social scientists hope to find when they tour the leadership hall of fame.
- Judgment is so important that it can't wait to be framed and developed until it is needed; leaders must make the time to create a point of view and align and engage their team and stakeholders around it before the moment arrives when a judgment call is needed.
- The framework developed to make good judgments in high profile situations is just as relevant for general managers anywhere in an organization facing any major judgment call.
- Of all the classes of judgment calls, the ones involving people are the most critical, from those involving the selection of an organization's new executive leader to those involving who should be on the leader's team.
Perhaps the most important message of the book is that leaders must focus on creating a point of view and align their team and stakeholders around it well in advance of the immediate need for touch personnel, strategic and crisis calls. This book and the grounded insights it provides elevate leadership judgment to the level of other traditionally important general management disciplines.
The bottom line on Judgment, and that is precisely where the authors fix their interpretation of a successful call, is that if more executive leaders and general managers used the framework developed in this book the quality of their judgment calls would certainly improve significantly. Indeed, Tichy and Bennis not only have been able to crack the code of judgment at the most strategic level and involving some of the more critical judgments calls in recent business history, but also to translate these insights into a practical framework that is accessible and useable by general managers at all organizational levels and facing a very wide variety of challenges.
As an active thought and practice leader in the field of corporate transformation, I will never look at or treat the subject of management judgment quite the same as a result of reading this courageous and impressive book.
Robert H. Miles
President, Corporate Transformation Resources
Author of Leading Corporate Transformation and co-author of BIG Ideas to BIG Results (forthcoming from Financial Times (FT) Press).
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