Customer Reviews

Leading Without Power: Finding Hope in Serving Community, Paperback Edition

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After having read "Leadership is an Art", and "Leadership Jazz", I didn't have an idea that this book would have such a significant impact on my thoughts. Working for a non-profit, this book is such a wonderful guide about what it takes to lead an organization that is more concerned about people and less about profit. This doesn't mean that profit is not important, but what the author does say is that there is a considerable amount of heart and soul that goes into the non-profit sector. I especially recommend the section entitled "What shall we measure." DePree looks at key indicators from a perspective that should be imitated by any company that really wants to captivate its customers and employees. The explanation about the difference between a "movement" and "organization" is also spectacular. A great guide for the future.

De Pree presents a philosophy that while in many ways is timeless, is never a cliche. His emphasis upon people, their potential, and the elements present in strong, enduring organizations, will appeal to leaders working in any industry. De Pree offers the reader refreshing thoughts about the importance of service to others in an era of forgotten virtues. It is one of the most elegant and inspiring books I have come across lately.

This book is among the best books on leadership ever written. I keep a copy next to my computer at the office and I also have one next to my laptop in the study -- the book is a reference guide for me almost daily. Although written with non-profits in mind, the book speaks to universal truths and eternal concepts -- things that bring fulfillment and meaning to any kind of work. I believe chapter two (What's a Movement?) is the best business book chapter of content I've ever read. It speaks to the importance of higher purpose thinking. Buy it. You'll be glad you did. Buy a bunch and hand them out. They'll be glad you did.

I can see where the author is coming from, and I think I see what he wants to say. The problem? He rambles. A lot. Stories of his experiences as the CEO of Herman Miller and his vacations seem to crop up every few paragraphs, and more than a few seem only tenuously connected to the subject matter. I also spotted several plugs for books that he enjoyed without even an explanation as to why he enjoyed them or how they relate to what he's talking about. With all the name-dropping he did, I imagine it was a favor for a friend. It just didn't feel quite right to me.

I quote Max De Pree several times a month. I love this insight: "The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant."

De Pree was chairman and CEO of Herman Miller, Inc. (the office furniture manufacturer). He wrote that a financial analyst once asked him, "What is one of the most difficult things that you personally need to work on?" De Pree's answer: "The interception of entropy." How many leaders ponder that one?

So when I was recently talking about "The Results Bucket," I was reminded again how elegantly De Pree discusses results in his book, Leading Without Power, especially in chapter four, "What Shall We Measure?"

No color commentary needed here. His powerful insights are sufficient:

"In my experience a failure to make a conscious decision about what it is we're going to measure often causes discombobulation and a lack of effectiveness and a lack of achievement."

"Yet measurement is essential in an organization for several reasons. It's directly connected to the way an organization can mature and grow. And it directly affects whether or not we're going to reach our potential--how close we're going to come to our potential. The idea of measurement in an organization is also directly connected to the whole concept of renewal, one of the essential ingredients of which is abandonment. What are we going to give up? What are we going to abandon? None of us have unlimited resources."

"The task of stating just exactly what to measure falls to the leaders in organizations. It's not an easy job, and finding what to measure won't happen automatically."

"Broadly speaking we can begin by thinking about how we measure inputs and outputs. The Soviet Union believed that in many cases managers should be rewarded with bonuses based on input. If you were running a shoe factory, your bonus as a manager was based on how much leather, how many nails, how many pounds of glue entered the process. If all the shoes came out for left feet, well, that was too bad. Nobody cared--except, of course, the people who needed the shoes. If you made furniture, your bonus was calculated on the how many board feet of lumber entered the plant, not on how many chairs came out. A strange system. We should be surprised not that it disintegrated but that it lasted as long as it did."

"Clear and relevant planning by project, both for the short term and the long, is an input to be measured--as is our work at appointing the right person to the right job. Especially in non-profit groups we tend to accept willingness for competence--a dangerous mistake. Willingness is necessary but not sufficient."

De Pree goes on to discuss other inputs and then those all-important outputs (the results of your work). But his wisdom will trip you up--as in this insight:

"I once posed the following question to a senior vice president of sales and marketing during a performance review: `What would grace enable us to be?' A strange question in a profit-making organization, but I repeated it to the five people for whom I was accountable. The man to whom I first put the question responded with a four-page essay on what grace could enable a corporation in the capitalist system to be. It was an astonishing response. I couldn't measure it, but it gave us such a foundation for a future, such a wonderful forum in which to discuss potential."

De Pree writes, "Dudley Hafner, executive vice president of the American Heart Association, measures input with what he calls `telephone water cooler conferences.' Periodically he and his team meet with an invited guest on a forty-five-minute conference call."

Many outputs, especially for non-profit organizations, are tough to measure. "Leaders are walking and talking manuals of behavior," says De Pree. How would you measure that at your shop?

I hope these gems have whetted your appetite to read this masterpiece. De Pree adds, "It's so easy to fall into the trap of measuring only what's easy to measure." Then he suggests you measure the "tone of the body" in your organization. Not easy--but he gives you clues on how to do it, like gauging a team's sense of urgency. Good stuff!

He doesn't say anything new, his Polyanna tone gets annoying and also there were parts where I found undertones of racism. There is no particular structure from chapter to chapter and it's more of his stream of consciousness. Although he talks a great deal about the virtues of non-profits and those who serve such organizations, he is essentially a capitalist with a heart. If you need to read this, check it out from the library for free.

This book is not only inspiring to me, but has been a great discussion resource for our entire management team. We are a fast moving, innovative high performance organization, with lots of personal and organization development under our belts. And yet, this simple little book is concrete enough to point new directions for growth and challenge us to be even better. Thanks Max!

Max De Pree continues to bless us with his insightful books on leadership. In this book he helps us to realize that leading without power works best when it is a movement that is being led, and when leaders focus not on success, but on building a legacy. When we are trying to build a legacy we become competent in establishing and maintaining relationships. A true legacy establishes and sustains an enduring direction.

Leading without power includes a vision that is based on morale purpose and active virtue. Nonprofit organizations without the clear insight they received through empowering vision, fail to realize their potential.

When leading people without power, helping them see their spiritual calling in life is mandatory. Many people are not clear about this essential resource.

I enjoyed this book because I am a highly task-oriented person who prefers to begin my thinking from a left-brain prspective. This book challenged me to think about relationships, and to think from a right-brained perspective. Whether your preferences are tasks or relationships, left brain or right brain, you will find great hope in serving community as you allow the message of this book to transform your leadership style.