Customer Reviews

Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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."

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).

There a numerous books in the marketplace about management and leadership, but this one is unique. It takes a different perspective by examining leadership judgment. I highly recommend this book for current and wannabe leaders and those who develop, coach, and influence them.

In the end, we evaluate leaders by the quality of the decisions they have made during their tenure. We've always thought judgment was something either you have or you don't have...not something you could learn. It was something that evolved over time. Tichy and Bennis have found a way to help leaders sharpen their ability to make good judgment calls and they have articulated it in an easy-to-understand process.

Leaders of all levels make decisions about people, strategy, and crisis. Knowing what types of knowledge are needed to make successful calls, and how to successfully execute those decisions are the components of good judgment. Tichy and Bennis show us how.

If you are a manager who wants to develop the skills of executive management, this book is for you. The authors provide a methodology that is not simple, but still quite understandable. It would be ideal for a course of MBA or Executive MBA students wanting to get a framework for decision making.

The book has 13 chapters and then a handbook. The handbook is designed to help you take the material learned in the book and apply it to your personal situation. The chapters start by showing you the connection between judgment and leadership. They then provide a framework (a matrix) for "leadership judgment". This process is used heavily throughout the book, so pay attention to this chapter.

Chapters 3 through 6 are key to understanding the personal aspect to leadership and judgment. The authors want you to have a story line that you can not only communicate, but teach to others and in that way lead. The connection between character and courage is explored including where courage becomes foolhardy and takes you off the rails. The two chapters on the importance of people judgment are very important and you should pay close attention to them.

Chapters 7 and 8 focus on judgments regarding strategy while chapters 9 and 10 deal with judgments in times of crisis (and how to prepare for it and how to prevent most of it). Chapter 11 shows the connection between good judgment and continuous learning and chapter 12 talks about teaching leadership. I wasn't particularly wowed by this material.

The concluding chapter is a two page summary of the book and notes that the dimensions in which the complex process of judgment unfolds are time, domain (people, strategy, crisis), and constituencies (being aware of your audience, who is and needs to be involved, and how to interact effectively). Tichy and Bennis also reiterate the four types of knowledge a leader must have to make good judgments: Self-knlowedge. Social Network Knowledge, Organizational Knowledge, and Contextual Knowledge.

The book is full of great examples from real companies and real people. They illustrate the points of the text quite aptly. However, they are the one bone I would pick with the authors. It is easy to intentionally or unintentionally mislead readers with stories of success and say that these successes were the results of this method or demonstrate that our principles work because they worked in these instances. However, the positive connection to them is not proven beyond the sheer number of them. But leaders with good judgment also fail at times because a certain amount of randomness is built into the system.

Jack Welch is quoted as saying that he gets his people decisions right about 80% of the time. OK, I don't want to argue with him about his perceptions, but what exactly does "getting it right" mean? Jeff Immelt is heralded in the book, but recent events show him able to make huge mistakes as well. Does this mean he wasn't prepared to lead? Or that he turned stupid? Or is it that sometimes reality overtakes even the best preparations and plans? You can make your own judgments. However, I would love to see the book where the authors look at current events at the time they are writing the book and make strong and precise PREDICTIONS as the do in analysis of past events. If they can get those right, I will trust their analyses more.

Still, quite a good and useful book.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

Here's an important book on judgment and decision-making--and how leaders focus on the consequential. The authors write, "Jack Welch used to say at GE that if he wasn't careful with his time, he could spend days at the company's headquarters knee deep in bureaucratic crap and add no value to the company."

Another customer reviewer here nailed the importance of this book. He called it a "gem among a sea of brain-dead business books." I agree on both counts. When Warren Bennis speaks, people listen. Normally, hot books create their own buzz, but my circles are not talking about this one yet. It's a weighty topic (392 pages) and a slim-jim novelette wouldn't do it justice.

Judgment, preach the authors, is "the essence of effective leadership." It involves three domains: people, strategy and crisis. Interestingly, those are three of my 20 management buckets: the People Bucket, the Strategy Bucket and the Crisis Bucket in my book, Mastering The Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Non-profit. They call judgment the proverbial elephant on the table--because it's rarely addressed. "Without a deeper and more compelling understanding of how leaders exercise judgment, the study of leadership can never be complete," they write.

"Take any leader, a U.S. president, a Fortune 500 CEO, a big league coach, wartime general, you name it. Chances are you remember them for their best or worst judgment call." Examples: Harry Truman (atom bomb), Nixon (Watergate), Bill Clinton (Monica), Coca-Cola's Robert Goizueta (New Coke), and Carly Fiorina ("for destroying HP's redoubtable culture").

The stories and anecdotes are rich, sometimes page-turning (wow--they do not like Fiorina). The 100-page "Handbook for Leadership Judgment" is a model for what's missing from other brain-dead business books. Buy it. Read it. Study it. You'll enhance your judgment and decision-making. Guaranteed.

Good leadership is essential, but it is difficult, sensitive and time-consuming, which is why so many aspiring managers find that it is not for them. Yet as the authors of this book point out, leadership is not only an innate ability, some aspects of it can be learned.

The book is based on the authors' experience as consultants and research that included interviews with a number of top CEOs that included Jeffrey Immelt from General Electric, Jim McNerney from Boeing and A.G. Lafley from Proctor and Gamble, as well as a number of other executives from different parts of corporate America, as well as non-profits.

The first point that they make is that good leaders make sound judgments about:
People
Strategy
Dealing with crisis

They then define some key qualities of leaders:
1. They are teachers: a term that the authors use is TPOV: Teachable Point of View. Noel Ticky ran General Electric's leadership center in Crotonville, New York, so not surprisingly Jack Welch is used as an example of a CEO who was also a master teacher who fostered a culture of continuous teaching by other executives in the company
2. They are inclusive: The book spends some time examining the way in which programs at Best Buy and Intuit have provided intense training of front-line workers in the basics of good business practices
3. They are effective storytellers: The authors describe a series of employee workshops conducted by Circuit City, in which teams were given an hour to write a story that they would like to see on the front page of Business Week two years from now. The stories had to be remarkably specific narratives, not only describing where the company would be in two years time, but also the company culture, leadership and challenges that they had faced.
4. They are self-aware: The effective leaders had for the most part overcome whatever impediments stood in their way, including themselves. Most had dissolved those blocks by a regular practice of ruthless self-scrutiny.
5. They are usually courageous: The authors picked Eleanor Josiatis, who runs the non-profit Focus: Hope in Chicago, whose mission is to combat racism and poverty. The organization grew out of the ashes of the Detroit riots of 1967, and over the years has carried on its work despite hate mail and threats.

There is also a fascinating interview with Kathleen Gallo, who is the chief learning officer at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Hospital System, and whose work has become well known in the field. Leaders are taught to manage crisis by studying the methods employed by triage nurses, who are required to make life-or-death decisions every day. As Kathleen says, "You cannot plan for everything, so you plan for anything."

A recent research study has suggested that leaders are often just the people who were not afraid to express an opinion, and they did so clearly and repeatedly. Eventually most other people would go along with them. That may well be correct, but in the long term it is essential to have mastery of a number of other skills, and this book provides us with some very clear guidelines for areas that that any of us can focus upon, examine and in which we can try to excel.

Highly recommended.


Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

At some point in our lives, we've had to make an important decision with uncertain outcomes and limited information - and we tended to fill the gaps with our personal judgment. The trick is to effectively apply good judgment that generates consistently positive results. The authors of the book Judgment help to dispel myths around this ethereal attribute by showing that it's a demonstrable skill that can be nurtured and refined by individuals and within organizations alike. The writers, who are well-known leadership experts, describe the concept of judgment as a contextually-informed process of decision making that covers three distinct areas namely - people, strategy and crisis. They further note that within each of these areas, effective judgment takes the same three-step approach of preparation, "the call" (or actual decision) and executing that decision. Soundview recommends this book because it offers clear steps to help maximize positive outcomes while minimizing the worst in the face of ambiguity and competing demands. In our judgment, you're best served by reading this book.

The audio book CD version of "Judgment" is excellent. Tichey & Bennis offer a thorough and practical framework- framing & naming the issue, making the call, and execution- for considering and making business judgments. Tichey is highly regarded in the field and provided many useful examples from his tenure running GE's famed Crotonville Leadership Center. Unlike some other business books, Tichey & Bennis were not afraid to say when bad judgments and mistakes were made, such as HP's Board's hiring Carly Fiorina along with numerous bad judgments made during Fiorina's tenure as CEO. It's an excellent guide to the judgment process.

Bottom line on Tichy and Bennis's book: Good judgement is judged by the bottom line. Period. Did you succeed? Great. Then you made the right decision. In a way only Tichy and Bennis can, they dice out the stuff that makes you succeed. It's a brilliant wake up call for those of us who think simple rules will make us winners, and a strategic planning session for the ones who need to get these concepts imbedded into their team.

Theories on leadership come a dime a dozen. These guys toss out the theories and get down to business. Maybe radical among talking heads in the business world, this model is well steeped in Tichy's background as a Ph.D. psychologist. Almost a century ago Skinner and others pointed out that a reward wasn't what was fun or what made you happy. It was the thing that caused you to do more of whatever it is the rewarder wanted. This bottom line approach to psychology changed child-rearing and treatment of psychiatric disorders forever.

Tichy and Bennis may well change the way we make judgements in business forever. They dice up the good and bad judgements of great leaders inside and outside of commercial business. Then they show us how to do the judgement making. Judgement, they tell us, doesn't occur with the 'aha' moment in the middle of the night, nor does it occur when we cross the rubicon and tell our team of our decision. It happens over time-with thought, preparation, commitment, and execution. Failures anywhere make the judgement end up a failure, while comprehensive planning (a.k.a. hard work) make the judgement more likely to succeed.

In my work as a teacher of leadership in health care I've had the great privilige of watching Tichy do his thing. When he's helping a corporation go through its metamorphisis, he prepares meticulously, negotiates strategically, then give every bit of energy he has to the clients' goals. The process is never a one-off. It's continuous with reinforcement and ongoing communication. And he succeeds. Clearly this book on judgement is not just his observation of others, but a model he himself has followed in his work. Following the lead of one of the world's great leadership experts is not a bad thing. Great stories, great insight, a fun read for those of us who need to ensure our judgements fall into the 'succeeded' category.