In today's dog-eat-dog world of competition and ongoing change, people in every position, especially the "old dogs," must learn to work as great groups and creative coalitions rather than as "lone wolves." They must learn the relatively "new tricks" of collaboration and innovation. Through creative collaboration, these leaders position their companies to be more adaptive and more profitable, continually reinventing themselves to address new markets and capitalize on new technologies.
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"When it comes to writing about leadership, there's no one better than Bennis. I consider him one of my gurus." --Ken Blanchard, The One Minute Manager
About the Author
Warren Bennis is Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California. He has served on the faculties of MIT's Sloan School of Management, Harvard and Boston University, and was executive vice president of State University of New York at Buffalo. For seven years he served as president of the University of Cincinnati. He has been observing and writing about leadership for more than four decades and is the best-selling author of Leader, An Invented Life (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), and Organizing Genius.
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Old Wine, New Bottle,
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This review is from: Old Dogs, New Tricks: On Creativity and CollaborationBennis (Hardcover)
Bennis has written almost 30 books thus far, most of them on the subject of leadership. Those who have already read several of them will find no "new tricks" in this book and may, in fact, share my discomfort with any use of the word "tricks" other than in the quite specific "old dogs" context. The last thing our world needs is having more tricksters in positions of leadership but we do need leaders who inspire in others (in Bennis' words) "a sense of purpose or meaning...a sense of belonging, community, team, or group....[and] a sense of power, involvement, connection, and alliance" In another book, Bennis draws a comparison between managing people and herding cats. Some day, I hope he will write a book (perhaps dedicated to Noah) in which he suggests what can be learned from both the male and female lion as well as from the termite, the orca whale, alligators and crocodiles, the prairie dog, the hyena, etc. For Bennis, the "new trade is all about vision, meaning, purpose, and trust -- and what it takes to maintain these essential elements in modern organizations." I assume he agrees with me that only a few can occupy the highest executive levels in an organization (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.) but literally everyone in the same organization can be a leader in the sense of taking appropriate (repeat, "appropriate") initiatives. They will do so, however, only if their organization's leaders "have the capacity to enroll [them]" in a compelling vision. In Section 3, Bennis identifies and then explains several strategies which are needed to achieve that engagement: 1. Release the brainpower of people 2. Work for the long-term interests of all stakeholders 3. Adapt to a new style of leadership 4. Form new global alliances NOTE: For small-to-midsize organizations, this probably involves forming strategic alliances with other, much larger organizations which are global in both their nature and scope. 5. Reinvent the organization 6. Solve problems before they have names 7. For everyone involved, be a leader of leaders 8. Share the power [i.e. share authority as well as responsibility] 9. Make the case for co-leaders 10. Create leaders at every level NOTE: Noel Tichy has a great deal of value to say about #10 in The Leadership Engine. I also highly recommend Bennis and Goldsmith's Learning to Lead. If massive organizational transformation is required, I recommend O'Toole's Leading Change and Katzenbach's Real Change Leaders. In his Postscript, Bennis discusses the importance of authenticity. Without it, there can be no mutual trust and respect, nor cooperation (much less what Bennis calls "creative collaboration"), nor any possibility of completing the transition to the New Trade. "Tomorrow's organizations will be federations, networks, clusters, cross-functional teams, temporary systems, ad hoc task forces, lattices, modules, matrices -- almost anything but pyramids. An organizations can become and then remain "authentic" only to the extent that its people (especially its leaders) are "authentic." The structures of the future may be temporary but certain basic values must remain constant. The components of a new paradigm suggest what these non-negotiable values are: focus on quality, service, and the customer; collaboration and unification; nurturing interdependence; respecting, honoring, and leveraging diversity; continuous learning and constant innovation; [at least for larger organizations] being globally competitive; and finally, having a much broader focus: "My community, my society, my world." If your own organization lacks these values now, and does nothing to invest itself with them, it has no authenticiuty...and frankly, no future.
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