Discover the great insight that forms powerful leadership-something that transforms imminent disaster into sure success. In this book, Dr. Newkirk shows you how Human Systems Design ignites the successful relationships all leaders depend upon to mobilize innovation and change.
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About the Author
Raymond Newkirk is an entrepreneur, consulting specialist, speaker, educator, and award winning athlete. As the Founder & Chairman of the Systems Management Institute, he is an authority on strategic management and leadership design. A former monk, his personal philosophy is: "Live fully. Love deeply with wisdom. Lead others to great achievement. Grow spiritually and intellectually. Honor God in all I do."
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Management is a difficult profession at best. At its worse, it becomes an unbelievable nightmare. Recently, I had the misfortune of suffering through an unbelievable nightmare, a really tough experience for me and everyone involved. It was the proverbial project from hell. You know, the one that compels you to constantly look over you shoulder as you move from one crisis to another.
This project reaffirmed many of the principles I had learned throughout my life, re-taught ones that I should never have forgotten, and introduced several new lessons I probably would have never learned had I missed this great experience. Doubtlessly, I enjoyed the satisfaction of succeeding against all odds. Our team snatched success out of the jaws of defeat. My greatest satisfaction, however, came from helping others expand their professional horizons by rethinking how they should design complex projects as we enter the 21st Century.
As with many things in life, the project was not all bad; it had a few redeeming qualities. For one thing, it contributed to the growth of my team. We experienced every conceivable management contradiction and clumsily tripped through numerous shortcomings disguised as success. For some of us, life does not get any better than this. The problem in this situation, of course, is the emotional pain we are forced to endure to enjoy such hard won growth. In the high-tech industry, emotional pain characterizes the workplace. Although individuals are resilient, endurable, and capable, believe me when I tell you, organizations are fragile.
Usually, I enjoy visiting book stores. But lately I have become bothered by the great number of new management titles that come out every year. How can a society produce so many experts with so little to say? The glut of ideas sold today discourages me from writing this book. But I do not offer yet another fad nor do I intend to experiment with you, your organization, or your professional future.
In this book, I simply present an executive model for effectively, efficiently, and profitably engaging in business at the dawn of the 21st Century. Unlike the trends and fads of the last few years, I do not advocate re-engineering, downsizing, business partnering, outsourcing, jumping the curve, estimating the cycles, riding the wave, challenging the boardrooms, or inflicting chaos. Rather, I merely encourage executives and others within their sphere to take care of the basics effectively to successfully guide and grow their businesses intelligently. With the advent of modern information technologies, their complex networks, and the rapid commercial acceptance of the Internet, executives gain a much improved opportunity for success than at any time in history - if they would but understand the strategic value of these new business tools.
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Recently, a few highly influential business leaders have begun to seriously discuss the fallacy of re-engineering, downsizing, and right sizing. Echoing Andy Grove, the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer XE "Chief Executive Officer" of Intel, they realize that a great company cannot shrink to regain leadership success but must stay on top to remain great. You are a rare executive if your company loses its leadership position only to regain it later. Too many competitors hunger to replace you. Great executives understand that, regardless of the short term euphoria associated with downsizing, companies must grow to enjoy success.
Rapid growth challenges the entire organization. Over the last ten years, Dell Computers has grown phenomenally. But working there could easily shorten your life. The current Chief Executive Officer XE "Chief Executive Officer" is beginning to appreciate this as he moves his company to adopt less painful approaches to management practice and seek new insights into leadership.
It is not lost on me that top flight companies, especially in high technology industries, produce even more stress than revenues. Paradoxically, if the Chief Executive Officers of such high stress organizations guided their enterprises as appreciative systems, they could possibly achieve even higher profits while simultaneously reducing stress. It all comes down to vision. Guided by an innovative, noble, and in-depth vision, your enterprise will move from growth to hyper-growth, the golden apple of only a few. Lacking such a vision, your success will overtake you. For the uninspired executive, success ultimately breeds personal and business failure, if they attain success at all.
Thought Break One
People can be difficult to get along with, even when their managers look out for them. Implementing an appreciative human systems environment does not mean that staff appreciation will follow. On the contrary, if the design of the human activity system is under-conceptualized, the executive insight over idealistic, or the political acumen inexperienced, the appreciative human activity system will be anything but appreciative.
Regardless of one's intention to implement the most exciting and responsive work environment possible, people will be people. Remember Agency Theory? It reminds us that people work in an organization for many different reasons and competing values. While management may project goodwill and appreciation for those in the organization, they should remember that some of the best people may care less about the management vision of an organization than their own hidden wishes which may conflict with those of management. In this situation, management needs to realize that organizational influence may reside elsewhere than in the Boardroom. While individuals are very strong, organizations are indeed very fragile. It is vital that management engage in an appropriately developed design inquiry during the design of the appreciative HAS. Do you know what an HAS is? Do you know how to engage in design inquiry? Think about it.
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