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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Turning things on their heads, May 3, 2007
This review is from: Speed Lead: Faster, Simpler Ways to Manage People, Projects and Teams in Complex Companies (Hardcover)
This week I did a speed read of Speed Lead. Sometimes it is important to turn things on their heads to see them better--it is much easier than doing handstands to get a different perspective--and this is exactly what Kevan Hall, CEO of Global Integration does. It astounds me how quickly new insights become boilerplate, that heavy stuff that keeps us grounded when we need to fly off in new directions. So it is refreshing when we are challenged by someone other than airport security about the baggage we carry with us.
Within less than a generation, concepts of teamwork, community, buy-in, and communication have become the dogma of contemporary management practice and panaceas for what ails us organizationally. The merit of Hall's essay is that he dares to ask when, how, and why these concepts are applicable and above all, when are they NOT! Hall clearly identifies when these best intended and highly valued work concepts not only do not work but cause hemorrhages of time, money and above all, motivation. In essence, he is telling us, "Take a closer look!"
The author writes in a simple and straightforward manner without excess jargon. This does not keep him from articulating significant concepts and distinctions with sound bites that give the book its power to influence our practice. Interspersed worksheets assist the reader to reflect on his or her organizational realities as the key concepts are introduced. Rather than listing the chapters, now that anyone can read a table of contents by googling up Amazon, I would like to highlight a few hotspots.
Take, for example, Hall's treatment of "community decay." This is in fact an examination of the cycle of motivation that is often unmanaged to the detriment of both projects and people. Hall tells us how to kick off a community involvement, how to sustain energies when people are working remotely, and, finally how to finish. "Unfinished business" is a psychological drain that is the bread and butter of therapists but hardly ever identified or dealt with as an energy drain in organizations.
Much of the book depends on the clear distinction between a "spaghetti team" (intense interdependency needed to achieve goals--hence many connections of each team member with each other) vs. a group or "star team" (independent efforts produce most of the results, so only central coordination is usually required). This distinction seriously affects both the functional size of the team and the amount and kind of communication that is necessary and NOT necessary.
Not all of Hall's suggestions are new, but it is the focus that he puts on them that adds value. For example, having people at a training program or meeting identify their wants and offers, i.e., what they are looking to have or to learn, and what they are willing to share or provide. My colleague and friend Walt Hopkins introduced me to this way of starting a session over 20 years ago. However, Hall's insight is that instead of having long boring presentations of what people see as their "best practices"--common in many meetings, they simple use wants and offers data to network with each other and come away what they hunger for rather than a carryout menu of seemingly good things to do.
The big middle of this book rightly deals with remote working and virtual teamwork, and rightly so. as most people I work with in large organizations confess that as much as 90% of their craft and communication are handled virtually. Here Hall goes into detail about how to trim out the unnecessary, build local capability, and manage distributed loyalties without paranoia.
A few gems from the pages of Speed Lead:
* "If there is no agenda, how do you know you need a meeting?"
* "A regular meeting is a bad meeting."
* "People are much more able and willing to adopt common practices than common values."
* "Loyalty is naturally local."
In the Cultural Detectivetm USA, my colleagues and I identified as core US values, "speed" and "speaking out." Clearly "speed" and "time is money" are the unexamined premises of Speed Lead. As Hall points out, "Values rarely change." However the exercise of values is highly relative to situations, circumstances and the Zeitgeist. Sometimes they are more ideal than real. So it is a challenge to become conscious of the shifts that occur in their relativity. For example, despite the US addiction to speed, I hear complaints from Asian managers that their US counterparts simply move too slowly! Despite the lip service paid to "speaking out" and "freedom of speech," fact is that in the US workplace "cover your backside" seems ascendant, while in the US public context "freedom of speech" is being severely limited by fear, invasion of privacy, and political correctness. Dealing with the cost of the intimidating legal and political climate in organizations as well as in the general US environment seems missing in these pages despite its growing impingement on global business.
While only the final chapter of Speed Lead is overtly about culture, the entire book is about the culture of organizations and, from the author's apparent experience as a practitioner around the world, what he speaks about is at the interface of culture and globalization. However, what starts out as practical forestry management deteriorates into clear cutting in its final moments. For a great majority of readers, I fear Hall essentially burns down the cultural rain forest with the assumption that, because what purport to be rule-oriented, individualistic, direct- and English-speaking meritocracies have succeeded in exploiting resources and marketplaces so successfully, they are de facto right or even know where they are going (other than after the next dollar). Capitalism has been good at creating a lot of wealth and very dodgy about where it comes from and where it goes.
Paradoxically the final chapter is titled, "Leave my cultural values alone," but suggests that this is done by ignoring values in favor of adopting common practices, unless the values involved turn out to be locally useful or cause trouble. This is frightening and suggests that the future of most cultures will belong to museum curators. While there may be a practical balance to be found here, this reviewer suspects that Chapter 8 will be, more often than not, understood as giving the reader all the expert permission he or she needs to ignore, if not flout the cultural values and practices of collaborators with different backgrounds or on other parts of the globe. Freedom of culture, like freedom of religion, is relegated to the ever diminishing area of private discourse as the unconscious and unexamined culture and religion of global business are given free reign. The rise of hackers and terrorists should not surprise us.
Bottom line: lots of challenging and useful ideas, many helpful applications, especially salient for virtual collaboration, but let your values give you the framework in which to achieve your Speed Lead.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Read for all who work in Large Companies, February 14, 2007
This review is from: Speed Lead: Faster, Simpler Ways to Manage People, Projects and Teams in Complex Companies (Hardcover)
Anyone who works in a large(ish) company will enjoy and benefit from this book -- it is well worth reading. Its basic premise is that traditional management practices no longer work in the complex world that most business people inhabit.
The author points out various problems that I'm sure are common to many other companies especially in other major multinationals. Two that really caught my attention were too many bad meetings and too many pointless e-mails. Provocatively (but in my experience rightly) he says that in companies there is too much Co-operation, Communication, and Control (these are the first three sections of the book) but not enough "Community" (a sense of Trust and Team Spirit)which comprises the fourth section.
The book doesn't stop there but tells you what you can do about it. It is logical, easy to follow, and is full of simple practical insights, tips and tools to help you solve these issues. So there are lots of practical things to take away. Of course if you don't have these problems you won't need this book.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How to achieve and then sustain a decisive competitive advantage in a "crazy-quilt world of work", February 5, 2008
This review is from: Speed Lead: Faster, Simpler Ways to Manage People, Projects and Teams in Complex Companies (Hardcover)
According to Kevan Hall, "the book is about how to simplify the way we work together in complex companies to increase speed, make them easier and cheaper to operate, and provide a more satisfying place to work." Obviously, these are highly desirable objectives but seldom easy to achieve...especially now in what James O'Toole and Edward Lawler characterize as a "crazy-quilt world of work." In The New American Workplace, they share the results of their research and identify "some clearly identifiable developments":
Insufficient creation of "good jobs"
Increased choice and risk
Increased influence of competitive and economic drivers
Increased tension between work and family life
Mismatch between skills and business needs
Increased social stratification based largely on educational attainment
Changing nature of careers
Reduction in community and commitment
Shortcomings of the healthcare system
The boomer demographic imperative
Unrealized opportunities to make more effective use of human capital
These and other developments suggest a context, a frame-of-reference, for the material that Hall provides in Leading Speed. He focuses on what he calls the "4Cs": Cooperation, Communication, Control, and Community. None is a head-snapping revelation and I would have included Collaboration. However, this is Hall's book, not mine. He is to be commended for identifying the most serious efficiency and productivity problems in the workplace, and, common causes of each. He then proposes practical solutions to those problems.
I presume to suggest to those about to read this book that they first formulate a list of their organization's 3-5 most serious problems and be as specific as possible. Next, review the Contents (Pages v-vii) and see what each of the eight chapters covers. For example, are there problems with cycle time (e.g. preventable delays) or first-pass yield (i.e. quality of work the first time around)? Are there too many meetings that accomplish little (if anything) of value? Is too much time spent on what is urgent and not enough time spent on what is really important? How about communication, cooperation, and collaboration between and among departments, divisions, business units, etc.? Does the organization have silos, bunkers, castles, moats, drawbridges, hermits, snarling dogs, etc.? I then suggest to those about to read this book that they lock in on those sections that seem to be most relevant to the given organizational needs.
Of special interest to me is Hall's emphasis on the need for what he calls "selective decentralization" when identifying simpler ways to manage people, projects, and teams, especially in (but not only in) complex companies. He also stresses the importance of simplicity throughout his narrative, agreeing with Einstein that policies and processes should be "as simple as possible but no simpler." Hall has no illusions whatsoever as to how difficult it is to overcome all manner of barriers (especially cultural barriers) in complex organizations. In this context, I am also reminded of Oliver Wendell Holmes observation, "I wouldn't give a fig for simplicity this side of complexity but I would give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
Here is a selection of brief excerpts that are representative of the flavor and thrust of Hall's insights:
"The essence of a team is that [its members are] interdependent. A team is a tool you should use when a complex task requires people with a range of skills and points of view to cooperate to get the work done over a period of time." (Page 13)
"The idea behind best-practice reviews is to transfer learning...Sometimes the best practice comes from outside the team or from a specialist function or head office...People will only be receptive to learning [from a best practice] if they have a need for it and an interest in it. If not, then best-practice reviews are largely a waste of time." (Page 48)
"Companies need control to make sure they are efficient, legal, and predictable. Too much control, however, particularly from the center, can slow things down and undermine local responsibility...[Control] should be a finger on the pulse, not a grip on the jugular." (Page 106)
"The principle of building a sense of community at the right level is simple: Align the keys to community to your objectives...The more you need loyalty, the more you need to take control of line management processes, rewards, and career development. However, the more you need to build community, the more time and expense it will take [because] loyalty is naturally local." (Page 149)
Those who read this book will also appreciate Hall's skillful use of several devices in most of the chapters. The checklists either summarize key points ("Top Tips in Designing for Participation" in team meetings) or suggest next steps (e.g. "Putting this chapter [on meetings and conference calls] into practice in your organization"). Hall clearly agrees with Jason Jennings and others that, more often than not, "less is more."
C-level executives obviously have more authority and influence to leverage than do those who report to them but that fact remains that almost anyone who reads this book and then effectively applies material in it that is most relevant to the given needs and objectives also can derive substantial benefit from Hall's book. If not planning and conducting a meeting, she or he can at least be a more productive participant in it. If not heading a team that has been charged with completing due diligence for (let's say) an acquisition prospect, he or she can at least be a more productive contributor to the team's initiatives. Corporate agility is by no means easy to establish and then sustain. Kevan Hall suggests how managers (not only C-level executives) at all levels and in all areas can create that decisive competitive advantage by working effectively with their associates to produce more and better work faster in less time and at a substantially lower cost.
Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out O'Toole and Lawler's aforementioned book, The New American Workplace as well as Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood's Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value, Dean Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement: Rethinking the Way We Measure and Drive Organizational Success, and Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution co-authored by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson.
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