3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This year's business book masterpiece!, September 4, 2007
This review is from: What Made jack welch JACK WELCH: How Ordinary People Become Extraordinary Leaders (Hardcover)
Stephen Baum's leadership book, "What Made jack welch into JACK WELCH: How Ordinary People become Extraordinary Leaders," is this year's business book masterpiece. I regularly read a sampling from the hundreds of business success books published each year. And, in this case, Baum's work is missing the usual after-the-fact braggadocio, and instead is loaded of insight, introspection and reflection, all crafted in useful advice for the aspiring leader.
As I read Baum's work, per his advice to begin my own inventory, I took laptop to lap, instead of pen to hand, and began making notes and holding my own personal introspection sessions related to each chapter. It took me five times longer to read Baum's work than any business book I have read in years as I found myself stopping over and over to add a note here and there about my experiences, as I inventoried my own archetypal shaping experiences.
While I tired of the phrase "swimming over your head" I couldn't offer a more appropriate phrase to viscerally describe the experience of trying new experiences in preparation for assuming the mantel of leadership. I also must commend Baum for the depth of his sourcing from his own interviews, written texts of successful leaders, and confidential conversations from his professional network. This deep insight is successful in reinforcing Baum's theories and concepts in each case. In the personal gut searching spirit of James Lipton's, "Inside the Actors' Studio," this book works.
Baum's text discusses a wide range of shaping experiences he calls "archetypal shaping experiences," helps identify "empty suits" in leadership positions, goes into serious depth about skills and attributes critical to leadership including: action orientation, ethics, managed risk taking, developing confidence, and acting decisively. He concludes the book with two powerful capstone chapters.
Chapter 7 on engaging and inspiring team members by using "signal acts" and authenticity is very thought provoking. He gives some great examples and discusses the concept of parenting. One nit I would pick with Baum is his light treatment or warning around making sure not to treat workers as small children in the family. In my varied career, I have seen many executives bring their parenting skills into the workplace and then complain about how immature their workers are, how they need too much direction and guidance, all the while treating their workers like five-year olds. It would be nice to see how parenting works well and a comparison of when if works to the detriment of an organization. Baum might summarize, we want loyal families, but we also want them to grow up and leave the nest for their own success.
Baum concludes with Chapter 8 on finding a career guide or mentor, which he calls "guardian angels." He discusses the attributes of these angels who ask tough but gentle questions, offer gentle and not so gentle advice, get you to look into the mirror and help shape your character. Baum offers some heartfelt examples of how mentors shaped the successful career launches of some of his interviewees. And last but certainly not least, Baum and his interviewees take time and print to herald the importance of angels at the bottom of the organization, who roll up their sleeves, get the job done, and won't hide or obscure the truth. As I read this chapter concluding the book, it became obvious that Baum has elegantly packaged his experiences as a coach and executive advisor along with his interviewees into an elegant work, and as such has become a mentor to me, and could be a mentor to you through the pages of his book. What a gift!
Baum's text ranks with the best of the best in terms of leadership guidance, inspiration and introspection. As an author, Stephen Baum and his collaborator Dave Conti join the hallowed ranks of Peter F. Drucker (Management), Warren Bennis (The Leadership Advantage), Stephen Covey (7 Habits), Tom Peters (In Search of...), and Peter M. Senge (The 5th Discipline).
If you are in the honored position of mentoring an up and coming leader, I can think of no better holiday gift for the upcoming season than Baum's book. And even if you just see a glimmer of leadership hidden in one of your subordinates or peers, I can think of nothing better than Baum's book as a lever to encourage them in a deep examination of their own soul and capacity to step into a stronger leadership position.
I have a good friend and mentor who taught me the importance of self-reflection and of taking the effort to thank those individuals that have had a great influence on your life and success. I am proud to add Stephen Baum to that list of my great influencers and to thank him for his new book. I believe you will do the same.
One final note, in my professional life I have been exposed to quite a few books from the peer groups and Chairs of Vistage, (formerly TEC), and for once am relieved to see that I was not force fed the value of their groups, no slam against Vistage, I believe whole heartedly in their mission, I just don't like getting force fed the allegories and appreciate the solid research and balance Baum brings to his work while sharing acknowledgment to the contributions of his peer group of CEOs.
8/30/2007 Review by:
Gordon W Stanley
Co-founder and President, Red Team Advisors, Inc.
An advisory firm specializing in workflow efficiency and document management.
[...]
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great leaders share "a common pattern of life experiences", September 25, 2007
This review is from: What Made jack welch JACK WELCH: How Ordinary People Become Extraordinary Leaders (Hardcover)
In the Introduction, Stephen H. Baum confides that, at one point, the more he had gotten to know great leaders, the more he realized what he did not know. For example, "Who made these men and women who and what they are?" So he set out to find an answer to that question and later realized that what he really wanted to know was the answer to a related question: "How did they develop [various traits of great leadership] in the first place?" In this book, written with Dave Conti, Baum shares everything he learned during research on and -- in some instances from interviews of -- various great leaders, such Gordon Bethune (Continental Airlines), Cathleen Black (Hearst Magazines), Jim Broadhead (Florida Power & Light), Shelly Lazarus (Ogilvy & Mather), Arthur Martinez (Sears, Roebuck & Company), and Jack Welch (GE).
Note: Baum uses lower case to identify exemplars pre-greatness (jack welch) and then upper case upon their becoming great leaders (e.g. Jack Welch or, more irritating, JACK WELCH). In the review that follows, I capitalize all proper nouns, including individuals' names.
In the first chapter, Baum explains how "shaping experiences mold successful leaders," then devotes the remainder of his narrative (Chapters 2-8) to an examination of the process by which "ordinary people become extraordinary leaders." This process bears striking resemblances to the process that Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas discuss in Geeks & Geezers (later reissued as Leading for a Lifetime) and what Bill George describes in Authentic Leadership and then True North.
How to explain the fact that so many CEOs and other C-level executives are ineffective leaders? Baum offers this explanation: "Unable to reach deep into their character and their life experiences for the strength and knowledge to lead, pretenders rely on a variety of false personas or masks to make up for their deficiencies. They use artifice to compensate for the lack of a well-developed core. [George characterizes it as one's "true north."] Their masks and their acting skills can cover up their flaws for a while, but they are eventually exposed. Whether they work in the executive suite or the mailroom, they eventually fail."
That is certainly not true of the exemplars upon whom Baum focuses most of his attention. However significantly different they may be in several respects, all share "a common pattern of [shaping] life experiences" that have guided and informed, indeed nourished their development as effective leaders. Baum's analysis of the causes, effects, and significance of many of those experiences is of uneven quality. He seems to have selected more than he is willing and/or able to discuss with sufficient precision.
Of special interest to me is what Baum has to say about "shaping experiences that whet the appetite to take charge" in Chapter 4. As do Bennis and Thomas in Geeks & Geezers, Baum focuses on "crucibles," noting that the shaping of character begins during the first seven years of life. "It is then that the values of integrity, humanity, respect for others,having the courage of your convictions when it matters, and your work ethic are developed...[however] this early development is worthless if it isn't challenged and cured or hardened in real life -- in [begin italics] crucibles of character [end italics], as I like to call them."
Then in Chapter 6, Baum explains how great leaders develop the capacity to act decisively and effectively." This material will be of special interest and value to those who now have what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton characterize as a "knowing-doing gap." Baum clearly agrees with Thomas Edison that "vision without execution is hallucination." He cites several examples that demonstrate that knowing what direction to take and which actions are required is not enough. "To be truly effective, the ability to act must be accompanied by the ability to engage and inspire others to act with you." This is among the most important traits of great leaders.
Baum immediately establishes and then sustains a personal rapport with his reader. He shares the lessons to be learned from exemplary leaders are help his reader to initiate, expedite, and eventually a process by which to become an "extraordinary" leader of others. It is worth noting that, in the final chapter, he discusses the importance of finding "guides" to complete that difficult "journey." He identifies his, explaining his relationship with each, and encourages his reader to find her or his own. How? "Imagine that you have a personal board of directors in charge of your career...Think about the individuals who might be willing and able to occupy each of the chairs. Are they in your midst? Have you spoken to any of them yet? Go off and ask one to `be on your board.' You'll be surprised by the responses - good leaders and good people will be flattered to be asked."
In this context, I presume to add a few thought of my own. Great leaders are obviously very busy people but a high percentage of them make time to serve as a mentor to others. (The current CEO of GE, Jeff Immelt, spends at least 25% of his time and energy helping to develop leadership skills in members of GE's middle management group.) Those who read this book are well-advised to seek out appropriate "guides." Once they then become the leaders they aspire to be, I hope they will eagerly agree to be "guides" to others as they embark on a "journey" of their own.
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