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Jim Whitehurst

Open Organization, The MP3 CD – Unabridged, April 19, 2016

by Jim Whitehurst (Author), James Fouhey (Reader)

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Today's leaders know that speed and agility are the keys to any company's success, yet many are frustrated that their organizations can't move fast enough to stay competitive. The typical chain of command is too slow; internal resources are too limited; people are already executing beyond normal expectations. As the pace accelerates, how do you inspire people's energy and creativity? How do you collaborate with customers, vendors, and partners to keep your organization on the cutting edge? What kind of organization matches the speed and complexity that businesses must master—and how do you build that organization?

Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, one of the world's most revolutionary companies, shows how open principles of management—based on transparency, participation, and community—reinvent the organization for the fast-paced connected era. Whitehurst gives listeners an insider's look into how an open and innovative organizational model works. He shows how to leverage it to build community, respond quickly to opportunities, harness resources and talent both inside and outside the organization, and inspire, motivate, and empower people at all levels to act with accountability.

The Open Organization is a must-listen for leaders struggling to adapt their management practices to the values of the digital and social age. Brimming with Whitehurst's personal stories and candid advice for leading an open organization as well as instructive examples from employees and managers at Red Hat and companies such as Google, The Body Shop, and Whole Foods, this audiobook provides the blueprint for reinventing your organization.

Language

English
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Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio
Publication date

April 19, 2016
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6.5 x 0.63 x 5.5 inches
ISBN-10

1511392460
ISBN-13

978-1511392464
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About the Author

Jim Whitehurst is CEO of Red Hat, the largest open source software company in the world. Before joining Red Hat, Whitehurst held various positions at Delta Air Lines, most recently as Chief Operating Officer, responsible for operations, sales and customer service, network and revenue management, marketing, and corporate strategy. Prior to joining Delta, he was a Partner at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and held various leadership roles in BCG’s Chicago, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Atlanta offices.

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Publisher ‏ : ‎ Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio; Unabridged edition (April 19, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1511392460
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1511392464
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 0.63 x 5.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,432,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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- #35,248 in Books on CD

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(4.4) 353 ratings

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Jim Whitehurst

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Jim Whitehurst is president and CEO of Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source software solutions. Since joining in 2008, Red Hat has been named by Forbes as one of the World's Most Innovative Companies, added to the S&P 500, and designated as one of the best places to work by Glassdoor. Former COO at Delta Air Lines and partner at The Boston Consulting Group, Jim has a BA in economics and computer science from Rice University, and an MBA from Harvard University. He is the author of "The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance".

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predicted that we would be in organizations that feel like communities, not hierarchies

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 12, 2017

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Put these ideas together.
Bureaucracy is the organizational form designed to maximize control, coordination, and consistency to produce efficiency and reliability. It worked effectively when workers performed rote tasks on assembly lines or in offices. Today we use robots to do these mundane tasks reliably, accurately and efficiently.
Your staff’s abilities that can have the biggest impact on the success of your company, are the ones that cannot be managed. These include enthusiasm, caring, commitment, creativity and so on.
For the last three decades I have come across examples of companies that were designed in anti-bureaucratic forms and that worked exceptionally well, such as the Spanish Mondragon Corporation (75,000 people,) or W.L. Gore (9,000 people in 30 countries).
In an era when a technology-enabled mob can overthrow a dictator, the business question is whether the same energy can be used to drive organizations, serve customers, produce goods or develop software.
Jim Whitehurst believes it can and he is in a unique position to make this assertion.
As the former chief operating officer at Delta Air Lines, where he took a lead role in the company’s much needed restructuring, he understood and ran a top -down, command and control organization. He currently heads Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open-source software, employing more than 7,000 people and with a market value of more than $ 10 billion. Its software is trusted to power submarines, and its customers include the New York Stock Exchange, DreamWorks, Sprint and 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies.
Some fifty years ago, the leadership thinker, Warren Bennis, predicted that we would be in organizations that feel like communities, not hierarchies. This is no longer an ideal, it is a business necessity. Beating your competition is no longer a one-time event with a clever strategy that lasts forever. Simply pedalling faster is not enough, and central planning is too time- and resource- consuming.
Whitehurst saw an alternative way in the process at Red Hat and describes its powerful method as “the Open Organization.” Similar methods are in use in the many successful companies he cites. General Electric’s Durham jet engine plant has 400 skilled technicians working in self-organizing teams, with the supervision of only one plant manager. Something similar exists in Whole Foods, Pixar, Zappos and Starbucks.
These are “communities” where the principles are different. The basis for loyalty is a common purpose, not economic dependency. Openness, transparency, participation, and collaboration are the very reasons the companies make money. The best ideas win, regardless of who they come from.
This book is important because so many executives can scarcely imagine an alternative to the organizational status quo, even if they know that bureaucracy is hobbling their organizations and slowing them up. They can feel how close their faster, more nimble universal competitors have come, and they know the danger.
An “open organization” responds to opportunities more quickly, accesses talent and inspires, motivates and empowers people at all levels to act with accountability.
So, how does one move towards an open organization? It starts with the realization that this is a journey not an event, and that many things will have to be different, starting with executive behaviour.
Whitehurst shares a seminal experience he had soon after joining Red Hat. “Early on, I issued what I thought was an order to create a research report. A few days later, I asked the people assigned to the task how things were going. “Oh, we decided it was a bad idea, so we scrapped it,” they told me in good cheer.”
Whitehurst’ response was that the team was correct to turn down the job if they thought it was not a good idea, or as importantly, because he had failed to convince them of its importance.
Open organizations such as Red Hat are the product of complex, subtle, and powerful organizing systems that truly free people to take more initiative, be more creative and more effective.
As business get harder it is easy to forget the role of passion in an organization. The leader’s role in a twenty-first-century organization includes being the “cheerleader-in-chief.” Having boundless passion for the mission is common in start-ups but seems to fade as the organization grows. The 7,000 people in Red Hat spread across more than 80 offices, and working remotely worldwide, are fired by the passion most companies ignore.
Only a deep passion for what the organization stands for drives people to bring their all to their work. Whole Foods has as their purpose nothing less than to provide food and beverages so that their customers become healthier and live fuller lives. Open-source is no different for those who work at Red Hat.
Passion will fade unless it is diligently, carefully and consistently nurtured.
“The Open Organization” is a chronicle of successful practices that Whitehurst uses to fire employees’ passion and really engage them. Engagement is not serving sushi lunches, but rather actually engaging with people, and enabling them to engage with their work and colleagues. The book shows how everyone can and should have an earned level of influence through the merit they display.
Most importantly, it is a fine description of the changing nature of leadership required today. This book could change the way your company functions and change your level success.

Readability Light --+-- Serious
Insights High -+--- Low
Practical High -+--- Low

*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works.

7 people found this helpful

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Scott Merrill

For executives, middle managers, and individual contributors alike

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 12, 2015

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In The Open Organization, Jim Whitehurst presents a compelling, modern alternative to the traditional top-down hierarchy of business organization. Born from the open source software movement, Whitehurst advocates for a participative organization that values ability more than title. Throughout the book Whitehurst shares personal examples of his own transformation from a traditional leader to an open one. The stories are sometimes embarrassing, but his honesty and frankness are a key part of what defines a successful leader in an open organization.

Even better, to my mind, are the examples that Whitehurst shares of other companies and leaders on the cutting edge of the open organization model. It's one thing to read a personal account of one company's efforts; but to see that company in the context of a larger movement to redefine the structure of success in the business world is truly eye opening.

I've been using and contributing to open source software for over a decade, so much of what Whitehurst shares feels self-evident to me. Of course collaborative decision making is hard and messy, but of course the results are almost always better than one person making command decision alone. Despite my own belief in the power of openness, I had yet to see a thorough examination of the business value to such an approach, versus the community value.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Whitehurst for TechCrunch.com in early 2012 (http://tcrn.ch/Ix8AKF) and the seeds of many of the ideas in The Open Organization were clearly present even then. Reading The Open Organization felt, in some ways, like the conclusion to that interview.

Despite my familiarity with open source and my first-hand history with many of the ideas in this book, I found The Open Organization to be a compelling read. The tone is conversational, and easy to read. Examples are plentiful and thought provoking. The scope of the book is appropriate for C-level executives, middle managers, and even individual contributors: an open organization works better when all members participate fully.

One of the things I liked best about the book are the numerous -- yet practical -- calls to action. Each chapter closes with "Jim's Leadership Tips", which is a simple list of questions and suggestions to try within your own organization. These are not sweeping pronouncements, nor are they particularly challening. They are suggestions for things you can try right now, today, to start building success with an open organization. The scope of these suggestions is almost always small, allowing you to try them out one at a time, either with an individual or small team.

Whitehurst does not shy away from the reality that an open organization is hard work. It takes a real committment from leadership to pursue the model that Whitehurst proposes. He reiterates this fact several times through each chapter. But evidence -- from within Red Hat, as well as from other organizations cited in the book -- indicates that the results can be nothing short of amazing.

23 people found this helpful

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Douglas Brown

Practical management of a collaborative organization

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 22, 2019

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Hundreds of authors have generated thousands of books urging leaders to move beyond hierarchical forms. They all assure us that we will feel much better about ourselves if we do but few of them offer any suggestions for how this will actually work. This book is the exception, providing some insights into the actual management approaches used in collaboration at scale. Jim Whitehurst is also unapologetic about the fact that this is no simple recipe: the balance between enough communication and too much debate is a very precarious position requiring constant vigilance and fine-tuning. It does take the better part of a full-length book to explain convincingly that such an approach is sustainable at all, so my main regret is that there is not enough space to go into more detail as to how it works on a day-to-day basis.

2 people found this helpful

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Client Amazon

Great ideas, well written, a real blueprint...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 18, 2016

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As a manager, you should strive to find means to ignite passion and pleasure to work together for your company.
As for employees, a sense of belonging to a community is very important. You should not avoid getting help even from outside your company, as a collaboration,
for a common aim : keeping your organization on the cutting edge, and competitive on the long run.
We've had examples for such blueprints : the Internet for its opennes, Wikipedia for its collaborative works, crowdsourcing for its power of mass participation (the wisdow of the crowd)
This book helps you open your eyes beautifully on better management expectations, and on how to feel better in every field of your professional life.
And you don't feel alone because there a real community already behind this attitude

2 people found this helpful

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Remo H. Jansen

... Jim Whitehurst explains in this book but I felt like the advice provided is somehow not backed up by ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 25, 2016

Verified Purchase

I agree with the ideas that Jim Whitehurst explains in this book but I felt like the advice provided is somehow not backed up by enough evidence. Jim talks about his feelings explains that the evidence of the effectiveness of his organization are its good financial. That is good but I would expect something more scientific and less subjective. I expected more data to backup why some of the ways they work at an open organization are more effective than working at a non-open organization.

3 people found this helpful

Nick

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 30, 2015

Verified Purchase

just great.

One person found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 20, 2016

Verified Purchase

Excellent book, clear and good insights!

One person found this helpful

Midas

Unternehmensführung in modern

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on October 26, 2022

Verified Purchase

In diesem Buch beschreibt der ehemalige CEO und President von Red Hat, was genau Red Hat so anders macht (genauer gesagt, gemacht hat) was die Unternehmenskultur betrifft.
Es ist schon anders und man braucht eine gewisse Zeit sich an diese neuartige Kultur zu gewöhnen. Doch nach kurzer Zeit kann man schon nicht mehr verstehen, wie man es jemals hat anders machen können.
Dabei ist das nicht viel mehr als aufgeschriebener, gesunder Menschenverstand.

Ein ganz wichtiges Zitat findet sich schon im Vorwort:
"While you can compel financially dependent employees to be obedient and diligent, and can recruit the most intellectually capable, you can't command initiative, creativity, or passion."
Es ist eine Binsenweisheit, daß motivierte und passionierte Mitarbeitende sich mehr engagieren, sich mehr einbringen und einfach mehr Spaß an der Arbeit haben. Dadurch wechseln sie weniger schnell und das Know-How bleibt in der Firma und wird zu derem Nutzen eingesetzt.
Gerade in einer Zeit, in der es so schwierig ist neue Mitarbeitende zu gewinnen, ist das ein nicht zu unterschätzender Wettbewerbsvorteil!
Man behält seine Mitarbeitenden und muß nicht alle paar Monate neue Bewerber finden, die richtigen auswählen und einarbeiten. In dieser Zeit sind motivierter MItarbeitende um ein Vielfaches produktiver.

Denn eigentlich wünschen sich alle Angestellten, daß sie mit einbezogen werden und an Entscheidungen mitwirken können. Das ist für viele, ja fast alle Vorgesetzte jedoch kurz vor Meuterei. Was für ein Irrglaube.

In diesem Buch (leider nur in Englisch verfügbar) wird eine alternative Art ein Unternehmen erfolgreich zu machen beschrieben.
Man beachte, daß das Buch erst im Nachhinein entstanden ist, es beschreibt also bereits Realität gewordene Vorgänge, nicht irgendetwas Theoretisches.

Mir gefallen die Beispiele sehr und die leicht nachvollziehbare Argumentationsführung.
Hier soll niemand missioniert werden (und wird es auch nicht), sondern es wird erklärt, warum man bei Red Hat Dinge anders macht; genauer gesagt, gemacht hat.
Denn all das was in diesem Buch steht, gilt nur bis zum 09.Juli 2019.

Vielleicht gibt es da draußen Unternehmer, die dieses Buch sinnentnehemend lesen und ihr Unternehmen in diesem Sinne umgestalten.
Ich bin mir sehr sicher, das es eine Menge Bewerber anziehen und auf längere Sicht dem Unternehmen erhalten würde.

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Peter de Toma sen.

The Open Organization - Igniting passion and performance – within IBM?

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on October 16, 2020

Verified Purchase

“IBM to acquire Red Hat in a deal valued at $34 billion” was the CNBC headline on CNBC.com October 28th, 2018. Lora Kolodny reported:
IBM announced plans to acquire Red Hat in a deal valued at about $34 billion.
Prior to the acquisition, Red Hat's market capitalization stood at approximately $20.5 billion.
The acquisition is by far IBM's largest deal ever, and the third-biggest in the history of U.S. tech.
According to a joint statement, IBM will pay cash to buy all shares in Red Hat at $190 each.
Shares in Red Hat closed at $116.68 on Friday before the deal was announced.

While James Cortada did not cover these “breaking news” in his new book “IBM The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon”, published in 2019! it makes sense to re-read or read the book “The Open Organization” written by Jim Whitehurst, CEO, RED HAT, with a foreword by Gary Hamel, published in 2015! Why? Readers get background information about RED HAT and a top executive who became IBM President, announced on April 6th, 2020!
Below you find some selected original quotes – with my comments marked “MC” – which might motivate readers to read this book as a starting point for watching IBM’s future led by the new CEO Arvind Krishna and the new IBM President Jim Whitehurst.
Pg. 11: Leading the Open Organization
Before I arrived at Red Hat, I had spent most of my professional career devoted to studying businesses. As a partner with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where I worked for ten years (with a two-years stint attending Harvard Business School), I saw the inner workings of literally hundreds of companies. My job was simple: identify and solve problems. …
Similarly, as chief operating officer at Delta Airlines, I was chief problem solver and took a lead role in Delta’s restructuring. I learned a lot over my six years there, as well as during my time at BCG.
MC: this career reminds me of Lou Gerstner’s career: McKinsey, American Express, Nabisco, and then IBM Chairman and CEO 1993-2001; Gerstner saved IBM from near bankruptcy and, with his team and motivated IBMers, managed IBM back into a leadership position – read “Who says elephants can’t dance” by L. Gerstner Jr., published in 2002. Now, Whitehurst is in competition with Gerstner who considered – for very good reasons – “keeping IBM together” the most important executive decision he made in his life! Now Rometty, IBM Chairman, Krishna, IBM CEO and Whitehurst, IBM President since April 6th, 2020, are going to split IBM – the first time – into two companies: the smaller part of IBM – "NewCo" as working title – should consist of 90.000 employees with
19 B$ annual revenue. It will be interesting, which part of the total “Good Will” – 58B$ - in the IBM balance sheet 2019 – 152B$ - will be in which of the two companies – IBM and NewCo? The most interesting question is how successful this split will be? Gerstner was absolutely right. Rometty-Krishna-Whitehurst-Kavanaugh (IBM mastermind of two IBM Roadmaps 2010/2015 and CFO since 2018) are facing two make or break situations: making the Red Hat acquisition and the corporate split successful!
Pg. 65 Leveraging 360-Degree Accountability
MC: we need to keep Whitehurst’s dogma in mind when following his role as IBM President.
Pg. 89: When I worked at BCG, we used the terms “thermometers” and “thermostats” to categorize people in an organization. Thermometers are people who reflect the temperature (hot, cold, or lukewarm) of the organization; the thermostats are the ones who set it.
MC: At IBM, by definition and as a matter of facts, Whitehurst & Co are now in the role of thermostats; AND the heat is on!
Pg. 93: At Red Hat, you also can’t gain influence or followers by gaming the system.
MC: I do hope, that this also applies to IBM today and in the next future.
Pg. 109: Chapter 5 Letting the Sparks Fly
Pg. 111: Red Hat’s four values Freedom, Courage, Commitment, Accountability
Pg. 117: But a key theme throughout this book is that leaders must often foster and encourage debate. If you don’t debate things and solicit feedback, that’s a problem. If you like top-down order and structure in discussions, the kind of chaotic culture we have built at Red Hat won’’t appeal to you.
Pg. 118: Everyone knows the expression “the elephant in the room” … In other words, everyone knows what the real issue is, but no one wants to raise and discuss it, because it’s personally painful and full of conflict.
MC: outside pundits – practitioners, investors, academics, IBM retirees etc. etc. - will carefully watch and judge the next steps and years at IBM under the leadership of Krishna and Whitehurst. Which way will succeed? Whitehurst with his background and his book published in 2015 can be sonsidered as an interesting real-life test.
Pg. 183: EPILOGUE As CEO of a public company, I’m a practitioner, not an academic. I don’t pretend to have developed a new management system, though I hope I have described why a new one is needed.
MC: Red Hat succeeded, no doubt; the management system of the young Red Hat acquisition as well as the forthcoming IBM split are on trial; I really hope to the benefit of the STAKEHOLDERS and not only to the benefit of SHAREHOLDERS. Somehow, it is exciting to watch these experiments from the outside, even if I am still an IBMer with blue blood – retired, to be clear!

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