Customer Reviews

The Power of Collaborative Leadership:: Lessons for the Learning Organization

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This is the first book on OL that I would feel comfortable passing on to a business manager. Most of the others I've read are more geared toward researchers in the area. But the work is thoroughly researched and referenced, so even researchers will find the book a good lesson in how to write for the business audience! The summaries of key contributions in the field (esp Argyris, Schon, Senge) at the beginning would be a great primer for someone new to this area of research, and the practical advice in the later part of the book in terms of questions to answer at each stage of going forward with your OL effort were highly appropriate.

The books is innovative as it reports not only success stories about the learning organisation, but also failures in trying to use its concepts, methods and tools. It is a must read for consultants, practitioners and researchers facing the challenges of learning, change management and leadership, in a compelling and different format (interviews).

Our friendConrad Anker, a modern day explorer, just summitted MT Everest as a part of a documentary of the 1924 attempt by George Mallory. Iva Wilson and Bert Frydman are explorers of a different kind. As readers, we get to walk with them as they scale their mountains, hills, and valleys of implementing organizational change using organizational learning (OL) tools.

I had a gut reaction to this book. The tribal stories as told by Iva and Bert allow the reader to experience a mock simulation of what it's like to lead and live in times of revolutionary change. One gets to feel the power, the thrill, the fear, the frustration, the pain, and responsibility carried by leaders spearheading change. The reader gets an inside out look at the processes, how they evolved, adapted, disappeared, and impacted Iva and Bert's thinking and action. Rarely do we get to participate in a process from the inside out. We get to here out loud the assumptions, the questions, the barriers, and challenges from a leader's perspective.

Their honesty smacked me in the face with my own behaviors in a recent 6 year change process. I appreciated the dichotomy of visionary and pragmatic leadership styles because they were made explicit and represent what we all face as leaders - the different perceptions and approaches in enacting vision. They were willing to expose their mental models for our learning, so critical to beginning a change effort.

Dixon's OL definition: "intentional use of learning processes at the individual, group, and system level to continuously transform the organization..." was poignant. (p. 47) However, I was irked at the notion that OL and bottom-line are often viewed as diametrically opposed. I would argue if you have a dysfunction work environment, you probably have higher health care costs, lost production, stress related impact across the board, unhappy families, higher turnover... OL should be the prerequisite to maximizing human potential and bottom-line results. It was disturbing that there were so many negative external forces pushing against Iva and Bert and yet, OL and its proponents seemed to become scapegoats for major systemic causes outside their control..

The interviews of other powerful leaders highlight the need for (1) core values as underpinning of any vision, (2) genuine care and concern for people and their aspirations in aligning personal values with that of the organization, (3) the need to create shared leadership by giving away power to those that are capable, and (4) to be able to be the bridge between old and new systems. The authors summarize their short list of an effective OL leader. The reader is asked to create a learning journey with an adaptive map. The questions posed offer a comprehensive analysis for more effective implementation.

I would recommend this book for anyone embarking on a change initiative, leader or employee. This book is worth reading, studying by chapter, using for individual or organizational analysis, and for assessment on multiple levels - individual, organizational, and systemic. Thank you for allowing me to learn, feel, and be challenged by your learning.
Becky H. Smith, Ed.D., Systems Management and Research, Inc.

I have known one of the authors, Iva Wilson, for many years. When I served with her on a Board I thought she had a remarkable ability to distill an idea that was in the air in such a way that we all took full credit. Based on this experience, I anticipated that this book would help me with organizational learning, which it did.

The authors have written a very useful and stimulating volume. For me, as a senior manager and then as a consultant, Organizational Learning has been an abstract and academic topic. In contrast, this book relates the actual experiences of two CEO's - both their successes and failures - in terms I can relate to my own experiences.

One of the great strengths of the book - though it will be a source of discomfort to those who want easy, tidy, answers - is that it makes clear how individual each organizational learning effort is and must be. The route is often not clear; changing directions is a necessity, not a detour from a know-able optimal path.

The differences in the CEO's experiences can make for difficult reading because they do NOT prescribe a single approach or method. I found it hard to keep straight what each one was recommending. Finally, I realized that I needed to craft my own approach using their stories as stimulus. Eureka! A very worthwhile experience.

Learning, true learning, takes courage. Being a life-long-learner means being comfortable admitting that all our previous thoughts, feelings and actions-while they were the best we could do at the time-were limited by what we had not yet learned. Being a learner means admitting that the answers we believe in today are always limited by what we will learn tomorrow.

One of the things I love about this book is the courage the authors model in admitting that learning has inherent risk. I know Iva Wilson, but I had no idea of the power of her story until I read this book. I gained a whole new perspective of the pain and heartache that can come from being a CEO with a vision that others do not fully appreciate. I am thankful that she and Bert are willing to tell of their failures as well as their successes in their journey to create organizations where people can be more authentic and humane. This book asks me to stop, the next time I am being judgmental of another's' passion, and listen more deeply to their story.

I have studied much about organizational learning, but this book gave me many stories that brought the meanings behind Peter Senge's book, The Fifth Discipline, into a new light. I understand organizational double-loop learning in a new way. And thanks to Iva, I have a new appreciation of the risk and the power of dialogue.

This book would be a comforting companion for anyone who fears they are not smart enough to "do it right the first time." None of us are.