Talk, Inc.: How Trusted Leaders Use Conversation to Power their Organizations [Hardcover]

Boris Groysberg (Author), Michael Slind (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 20, 2012

Every leader has to make sure that employees are aligned with the overall corporate strategy it's fundamental to running a successful business. Until recently, though, the tools for doing so were blunt at best, laughable at worst. Now, corporate leaders' toolboxes overflow with different gear that can enable them to engage with their employees, to communicate the firm's strategy, and, equally critically, to listen as well as talk tools that again make possible the technology of conversation. This is a significant advance in the ability of a leader to lead.
While the conversation powered organization sounds terrific, it's also terrifically difficult to pull off. What are the tools, exactly, and which should you use when, and how should you deploy them? The conversation can't be one-sided, and it can't be inauthentic, and it must remain focused, or the whole enterprise can come crashing down.
In Talk, Inc., Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind not only provide logic of their big idea the necessity of making your organization conversation powered but also assess and evaluate the tools available, from new-fangled social media to the old-fashioned walk-around. They also offer a framework for how seeming oxymoron of corporate conversations should work, and talk frankly themselves about how to avoid the pitfalls that come with opening up your organization. Drawing on the examples of successful companies and their leaders from around the world, Talk, Inc. will help every leader achieve the alignment their company needs while making the workplace a little more human.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Named a Best Business Book for 2012 in strategy+business magazine

“Talk, Inc. makes a powerful case that effective talk is the primary means of motivating and inspiring loyalty among today’s increasingly social and connected workforce.” — strategy+business magazine

“This book provides tips for how leaders can communicate more effectively by making their agency’s culture more intimate, interactive, inclusive and intentional.” — The Washington Post

“Talk, Inc. is easy to read, and captures an important change in today’s workplace, offering a prescription for making it work.” — The Globe & Mail

ADVANCE PRAISE for Talk, Inc.

“Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind have captured one of the most significant changes in business leadership that I have witnessed during my twenty-four years as a CEO of a public company. If you want to understand what I believe will be the most critical ingredient to successful twenty-first-century leadership, read this book. Then join the conversation.” — Jim Rogers, Chairman, President, and CEO, Duke Energy

“As a leader, I have struggled to find ways to fuel employee engagement. I have also observed how leaders at Microsoft, Accenture, and PepsiCo have striven to engage employees. It’s hard work! Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind make a very strong case that organizational conversation—in contrast to the traditional ‘corporate communication’ model—is critical to helping leaders meet that challenge. More important, through in-depth discussion of real business situations, they provide insight on how to make organizational conversation happen. The model presented in Talk, Inc., furthermore, is as relevant to harnessing the power of customers as it is to managing your workforce.” — Dina Dublon, Director of Accenture, Microsoft, and PepsiCo; former Chief Financial Officer, JPMorgan Chase

“Talk, Inc., presents a template for creating organizational excellence. The authors have fashioned an outstanding explanation of a fundamental leadership competence: facilitating effective communication. This book, I believe, is a must-read for every organizational leader.” — S. Roy Choudhury, Chairman and Managing Director, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.

“Talk may be cheap, but genuine conversation is priceless—especially in organizations determined to win big in fast-changing times. In Talk, Inc., Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind offer a set of truly original insights, supported by a collection of in-depth case studies that will help leaders surface the best ideas from the widest variety of people in their organizations. The most successful companies don’t just out-compete their rivals, they out-think their rivals. And you can’t generate smart ideas without free-spirited conversation. Read this book—and then talk about it with as many of your colleagues as you can!” — William C. Taylor, Cofounder, Fast Company; author, Practically Radical: Not-So-Crazy Ways to Transform Your Company, Shake Up Your Industry, and Challenge Yourself

About the Author

Boris Groysberg is an Associate Professor in the Organizational Behavior unit at the Harvard Business School, where his research focuses on the challenges of managing professional service firms. Groysberg holds a DBA in Business Policy from Harvard Business School. Before joining the faculty, he worked at IBM. His first book, Chasing Stars, was published in 2008.
Michael Slind is a communications professional whose experience ranges from research at Harvard Business School to editorial work at Fast Company magazine, with stops at Tom Peters' SkunkWorks and the Boston Globe.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 242 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business School Press; 1 edition (September 20, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 142217333X
• ISBN-13: 978-1422173336
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #175,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How and why organizational conversation can - and should - be a new source of organizational power June 16, 2012

By Robert Morris HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

The results of dozens of major research studies confirm that, during a face-to-face encounter, the impact is determined as follows: body language, about 55-60%; tone of voice, about 30-35%; and what is said, about 10-15%. (Obviously, the results vary somewhat from one survey to the next.) The bottom line is that we communicate in several different ways whenever we "send a message" and the message received (IF it's received) is not necessarily the one sent or at least not the one [begin italics] intended [end italics].

What we have in this volume is a brilliant analysis of what works and what doesn't during what Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind characterize as "organizational conversations," a term that applies "to the full range of patterns and processes by which information circulates through a company -- all of the ways in which ideas, images, and other forms of organizational co tent pass between [and among] leaders and employees, or from one employee (or group of employees) to another...both in spirit and practice, organizational conversation is quite different from corporate communication" and they explain both the differences and why they are significant.

These are among the passages, themes, and concepts that caught my eye throughout the narrative:

o Why the shift from corporate communication to organizational conversation has occurred (Pages 7-8)
o Trust-based leadership (13-16)
o How to gain and give trust (18-20)
o Practical tips on how to promote "conversational intimacy" (55-60)
o The interdependence of "hard" assets and "soft" assets (81-85)
o "Three Pillars of Wisdom" (105-108)
o The benefits and perils of allowing employees to generate organizational (social) content (137-140)
o How to enable and leverage employee-generated content (163-169)
o The unique challenges of formulating an appropriate strategy for organizational conversation (178-184)
o How to determine "which communication efforts fall into which buckets" (225-228)

Groysberg and Slind make effective use of several real-world mini-case studies that illustrate both the potential benefits and (yes) perils of organizational conversation. There are exemplars: Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (Chapter 2), Cisco Systems (Chapter 5), EMC Corporation (Chapter 8), and Kingfisher PLC (Chapter 11).

Most change initiatives either fail or fall far short of original expectations and one of the reasons is defective leadership (lack of character and/or incompetence), especially at the C-level. That said, all organizations need trust-based leadership at all levels and in all areas of operation. One of the most important and yet least understood benefits of organizational conversation is its unique power to facilitate, indeed expedite building trust-based relationships throughout the given enterprise.

In my opinion, Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind are world-class empiricists and pragmatists who have an insatiable curiosity to understand what works, what doesn't, and why. They are determined (obsessed?) to help develop as many trusted leaders who can then make effective use of organizational conversation to power their organizations.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out other sources, such as Holly Weeks's Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them; TouchPoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments, co-authored by Douglas Conant and Mette Norgaard; Robert B. Cialdini 's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion; and two co-authored by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler: Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success and Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Speaking, asking, and listening: how to do it -- [HINT: It's not the words.] June 20, 2012

By Mike Grant

Format:Hardcover

Those who think that your message is what you say are grossly mistaken. Truly, it's not an issue of what you say -- it's how you say it. Nonverbal communication (tone of voice, body language) is what your listener will hear. And it goes on from there. In an organization, there's more to a leader's nonverbal communication than how they say something. For example, is the message delivered through an email, through a handwritten note, or in person? In the leader's office, or in the subordinate's? There are many, many factors involved.

This book is about maximizing the power of your organizational communications. It's about getting the message across that you wish to communicate. It's about how to say things. It's about structuring your communications -- and your company -- to facilitate enlivening, energizing, and inspiring communication.

The book also covers listening, and how to structure leadership's listening activities, so as not to put subordinates on the defensive so that they manipulate information in their response.

Highly recommended for any leaders for whom organizational communication is important. Which should be all of them.

For an excellent guide in cultivating innovation in your organization, check out 101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organization. And for a primer in organized creativity, look at The Practice of Creativity: A Manual for Dynamic Group Problem-Solving.

Hopefully you found this review helpful.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The New Corporate Communication Primer June 14, 2012

By IU ID MD

Format:Hardcover

Talk Inc combines the longstanding lessons on communication with the new modes of information technology to define itself as the new must have primer for corporate communications. As a physician administrator, I was hopeful that this book could be applied to many disciplines and was not disappointed. The style was directive but engaging in its prose, both easy to read and easy to apply. This book should be required reading for anyone in a corporate leadership role in the 21st century.