On High Performance Organizations: A Leader to Leader Guide

(Author), (Author), The Drucker Foundation (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

On High-Performance Organizations features the best thinking from top experts on organizational effectiveness, sustaining growth, and strategy. Written in a concise style that is ideal for the busy executive with little spare time, the book presents a stellar roster of contributors. On High-Performance Organizations is one title in the Leader to Leader Guides, which draw from the most compelling articles that have appeared in Leader to Leader, the Drucker Foundation's award-winning journal.

From the Inside Flap

On High-Performance Organizations presents the best leadership thinking on creating strategic advantage and passion-driven organizations. Part of the Leader to Leader Guides, which offer a wellspring of rich insight and information from top leadership thinkers, it provides readers with the tools for helping their organizations excel in effectiveness, sustaining growth, and strategy.
Drawn from Leader to Leader the award-winning journal, On High- Performance Organizations brings together Karl Weick, Frances Hesselbein, Scott Adams, Philip Kotler, James O'Toole and other thought leaders to offer practical guidance for those who seek to lead their organizations to high performance. This essential volume offers leaders a roadmap for organizational success by revealing how leaders employ people with a diversity of experience and opinion, support efforts to anticipate and embrace change, build productive work communities, and disperse leadership responsibility.
Each of the four volumes in the Leader to Leader Guides— On Mission and Leadership, On Leading Change, On High-Performance Organizations, and On Creativity, Innovation, and Renewal— is organized around an essential topic with a diversity of views presented in clear, short chapters. These essential collections provide leaders with insight and inspiration to take their organizations to new levels of excellence.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (February 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787960691
• ISBN-13: 978-0787960698
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,475,060 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The Leader to Leader Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ideas Galore, May 3, 2002

By	Norman Olshansky "NFP Consulting" (Sarasota, Florida) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

...

Put together 18 academic and corporate leaders and ask them to share their thinking and strategies related to organizational effectiveness and, you guessed it.a wonderful collection of thought provoking insights.

This book is a collection of essays, interviews and study results on effective organizational leadership and strategies. While the book focuses on the for-profit sector, many of the themes are relevant to not-for-profit organizations.

My own background has been both in not for profit and for profit corporations. My reaction to the first few chapters of the book was luke warm. I thought the presentations were too academic and were applicable primarily to very large for profit corporations. Most not for profits do not have the resources, human or financial, to implement many of the worthwhile observations made in those early chapters. However, as I got further into the book, I found myself taking notes and voila.. I actually was inspired by two of the chapters.

While a listing of the subjects covered (see below) may get a yawn or two, there are some real gems hidden within this book. I was especially pleased to learn more about outcomes management and new business models. Those chapters gave me some concrete ideas, which I was able to use right away, given the nature of my work with non-profits. Other readers will likely find different gems of particular interest to them. That is the beauty of this book. It stimulates creative thinking and new ideas.

The chapters deal with organizational self assessment, responding to changing business conditions, the marketing of leadership, entrepreneurial efficiencies, alternative business structures, strategic generosity, and leadership in the virtual world, to name a few. There is even an interview with Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, which often deals with subjects related to the workplace.

This is an ideas book and not a how to publication. If you are ready to explore a variety of ideas from business leaders and academics, pick up a copy. Who knows, you may also walk away with a few good new ideas, which can be part of your own leadership arsenal.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't you want your organization to perform?, April 2, 2002

By A Customer

I am a fan of the Drucker Foundation's LEADER TO LEADER journal. This collection of articles is just right for people looking to make their organization (or department, or team) perform.

My favorites include chapters by Frances Hesselbein, Philip Kotler, the interview of Scott Adams, and the partnership chapter by James E. Austin. I also loved the work of Douglas K. Smith, Leonard L. Berry, and Adrian Slywotzky.