Steve Denning begins his book, The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century with a quote from John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison's 2009 Shift Index to lay the foundation of the problem we face:
"Remarkably, the return on assets for U.S. firms has steadily fallen to almost one quarter of 1965 levels...very few [workers] (20 percent) are passionate about their jobs...executive turnover is increasing. Customers are becoming less loyal to brands...the rate at which big companies lose their leadership positions is increasing."
Everyone is talking about innovation in products, services, processes, supply chain, etc. But few talk about innovating management itself, perhaps because it hits the closest to home and is the hardest and scariest form of innovation. We tend to think of start-ups or `younger' companies when we think of innovative forms of management (e.g., Google, Zappos, etc.), but W. L. Gore is not a `young' company, nor is Standard & Poor's. Innovating management evokes the root fears of innovation - fear of the unknown and of losing control, authority, power, respect, even one's job. How do you experiment and prototype this type of innovation without rocking the company to its core?
That's what Steve's book is about - how to start moving your company forward through radically innovating how and what you manage, based on 7 Principles. In his forthright and clear style, Steve provides a framework for radical management that is simple to understand and follow - but bear in mind, simple doesn't mean easy, and this isn't easy.
The 7 foundational Principles to Radical Management are:
Principle 1: Focus on delighting the client: Traditional management focused on managing things (products/services), not people (like customers, employees); how can we meet customers' needs this way?
Principle 2: Do work through self-organizing teams: Did you know there were self-organizing teams in the 1100's (legal), we keep `rediscovering' them so why don't we remember them?
Principle 3: Do work in client-driven iterations: Business today is not once-and-done; meeting real needs is iterative, applying learning at each iteration with clarity of needs, wants, goals, and expectations
Principle 4: Deliver value to clients in each iteration: Each iteration must deliver real value; test the critical needs first, then finesse, letting the team decide what they can/cannot do and by when
Principle 5: Be totally open about impediments to improvement: Balance truth & power/authority, be transparent; it takes courage to be responsible and accountable, but it's a two-way street
Principle 6: Create a context for continuous: Improvement is foundational, there is always something to learn, do better; communication WITH employees, customers, stakeholders matters more than we think
Principle 7: Communicate Interactively: stories, questions, conversations - We live in 3 worlds at work - the social, the market-based and the power structure - authenticity is vital - conveyed through interactive communication
What makes The Leader's Guide to Radical Management so readable and "apply-able" is that it puts theory into practice, making it a `user manual' if you will for radical management. Steve does this by using real life examples in multiple industries, examples we can relate to and apply to our own businesses. He also puts management into historical context so we understand how we got here and how best to un-learn old habits and lead others into more radical management. All this is good, but it needs to be broken down into `manageable' steps to make it reality. Each principle has several Practices showing how to make the Principle real. These practices are tried and true, not theory. Finally, Steve gives examples of how radical management has been implemented today. We know execution is key and the book provides examples of companies, in various industries, sizes, ages, who exemplify radical management. (In full disclosure, I did suggest one of them, Thogus, because they have undergone an amazing, courageous transformation to become what I call the "google" of manufacturing)
This is an important book to read, especially at this time and place in our economy and society. I encourage you to read this, put it at the top of you pile, read and discuss this book at your management team meetings, mark it up, put it to use and share it. It will change your organization for the better, if you've got the courage to try.
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Strategy is a story, not a plan.
Steve Denning is a unique business writer. He does not merely observe and recount. He has consistently developed innovative approaches of his own. He perfected the storytelling device while at the World Bank. He discovered that it was impossible to move the hierarchy and its widely distributed bureaucracy with finely honed and statistically verified strategic presentations about optimum resource allocation and project ranking. He wasn't listened to. But when he shifted to a narrative approach - telling persuasive stories - he achieved success. Subsequently, he undertook a wide-ranging study of storytelling as a strategy tool. This book is a result - with lots of examples, case studies and, most usefully, templates and typologies of effective narratives for every situation. It's an unusually valuable book.
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2010
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- kleuterReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 12, 2012
A management filosofy that delights customers
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