Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders - Hardcover

Berger, Jennifer Garvey; Johnston, Keith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804788472 ISBN 13: 9780804788472

Verlag: Stanford Business Books,US, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

When faced with complex challenges or uncertain outcomes, many leaders believe that if they are smart enough, work hard enough, or turn to the best management tools, they will be able to find the right answer, predict and plan for the future, and break down tasks to produce controllable results. But what are leaders to do when this isn't the case?

Rather than offering one-size-fits-all tips and tricks drawn from the realm of business as usual, Simple Habits for Complex Times provides three integral practices that enable leaders to navigate the unknown. By taking multiple perspectives, asking different questions, and seeing more of their system, leaders can better understand themselves, their roles, and the world around them. They can become more nimble, respond with agility, and guide their organizations to thrive in an ever-shifting business landscape. The more leaders use these simple habits, the more they enhance their performance and solve increasingly common, sticky business issues with greater acumen.

Whether in large or small organizations, in government or the private sector, in the U.S. or overseas, leaders will turn to this book as a companion that helps them grow into the best version of themselves.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston are founding partners of Cultivating Leadership, a global leadership consultancy. Jennifer is the author of Changing on the Job (Stanford, 2011). Keith is the former Global Chair of Oxfam International. Follow them on CultivatingLeadership.com.

Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston are founding partners of Cultivating Leadership, a global leadership consultancy. Jennifer is the author of Changing on the Job. Keith is the former Global Chair of Oxfam International. Follow them on CultivatingLeadership.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Simple Habits for Complex Times

Powerful Practices for Leaders

By Jennifer Garvey Berger, Keith Johnston

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8047-8847-2

Contents

List of Figures and Tables, 
Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
Chapter 1. Leading the Possible, 
Chapter 2. Engage with Complexity, but Keep It Simple, 
Chapter 3. Say What You Think, Listening to the Ways You Might Be Wrong, 
Chapter 4. Create a Clear Vision for an Unclear Future, 
Chapter 5. Make Rational Use of Human Irrationality, 
Chapter 6. Communicate Your Certainty About Uncertainty, 
Chapter 7. Grow Your People to Be Bigger Than Your Problems, 
Chapter 8. Lead Change as the New Normal, 
Notes, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

LEADING THE POSSIBLE

"Damn!" Yolanda Murphy, director of the statewide Family and Children's Services (FACS) Division, slammed her fist on the keyboard, inadvertently closing the email window she had just been reading. In her first 18 months on the job, Yolanda felt she must have seen more tragedy and mayhem than the previous director had seen in his seven years in the role, a notion never omitted in front-page news stories about the miserable series of misfortunes that still seemed to be unfolding.

Now that she was 56 years old, this was supposed to be the apex of her career—her first stint as a chief executive. While many applauded her as a no-nonsense, competent manager who knew the agency and the state government, some had thought that she lacked the frontline social work experience to do the job well. But not even a career social worker could have anticipated all of these different pieces breaking down, she thought. Six children dead and four hospitalized in 18 months, children that FACS was following, was supposed to be protecting. And here, today, another case of abuse from a foster family.

"Jamie!" she called. "Will you bring me whatever the review has got so far on the Proucheford office? And will you get Doug in here?" She ran her fingers through her hair and pushed away from the desk. She walked to the window, looking hard into the city as though the answers to her questions were somehow out there, as though she could save children at risk if she just stared hard enough.

"This is about the kid in the Proucheford County Hospital, isn't it?" Doug, Yolanda's next-in-line, had come in without her hearing him. She turned and nodded. Sitting and shuffling through a set of papers, Doug looked as terrible as Yolanda felt. Doug had been with FACS for 20 years and knew the system inside and out. A career social worker, Doug had moved up the ladder to the No. 2 position and until he wasn't willing to be promoted any higher. Before Yolanda took the position, some had told her that Doug liked the No. 2 spot because there was power without visibility, but none of that rang true for Yolanda once she met him. And none of them in FACS could avoid visibility now, with their names trending locally on Twitter and on the front pages and editorial pages of every newspaper in the state.

Doug was coordinating the several investigations to figure out where the fault was in the system, and he had gathered thousands of pieces of data and found no clear conclusions, no smoking gun. Many of those pages of paper were organized into a series of neat files now in a thick stack on Yolanda's desk. He found the paper he was searching for and began to read aloud. "Ten year old kid, lived with this foster family for eight months. History of starting fires, last one burnt down the foster house where he was last placed. Current foster family on probation because of reports—never proven—of abuse of a kid in their care 18 months ago. This kid was the first placement during the probation, and he was placed there after six—no, seven—families turned him down as being too dangerous to placed with them. Got in a fight the day before yesterday with his foster mother's boyfriend and got beat up, head trauma, broken leg, a wide variety of bruises." Doug pushed a picture of a little boy in a hospital room across the table.

"What the hell is going on, Doug?" she asked, staring into the little boy's vacant eyes. "Why am I looking at another picture of a kid hurt while we were supposed to be protecting him? We've got more reviews running than we've ever had before, more people are looking under rocks than we've ever had, and we're still placing kids with foster parents who we suspect of beating other children? Is this a failure of a couple of links of the chain, or is this a failure of the whole damn organization? And who do I have to fire or promote or train up in order for this to stop?"

Doug, holding a close-up of a series of bruises on a child's back, said, "I would give anything to know the answer to that question. I have been through these documents a thousand times and ..." His sentence was interrupted by Jamie, who had walked into the office, pink message slips in hand.

"Yolanda, you've got calls from the regular local press—but also there's someone from the New York Times who wants to talk with you."

"Tell them we're investigating and there will be a press conference at"—she looked at her watch and then at Doug—"three o'clock." Doug nodded. Yolanda sat down at the table and began to page through the largest file marked "Proucheford." "So, Doug, we have three and a half hours to figure out what's wrong—and how to fix it."

* * *

THINKING ANEW

A leader, reflecting on the growing needs for a new way of being, offered his ideas about the leadership challenge he—and his people generally—faced. He explained to his stakeholders:

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

You've probably faced a situation that made you think something like this, too—as Yolanda and Doug are thinking of their terrible situation. No matter how good leaders are, they find themselves dealing with problems—and opportunities—more difficult or complex than anything they've known before. Superb leaders have long known that they need to find ways to "think anew and act anew," especially as their plates become "piled high with difficulty." This challenge to think in new ways about a novel situation has been with leaders always, and each time, they have pushed at the edges of what we know in order to grow more capable of handling the challenges that seem impossible. Abraham Lincoln was speaking to more than just to the US Congress about the "quiet past" and the "stormy present" in 1862. The truth is that leadership requires ways of thinking anew no matter what era you're in; it's probably true that the first Neolithic leaders were pushed to the edges of their capacities as farming and stone tools created conflict and opportunities for their people. Leadership by its very definition is about taking people and ideas to new places.

The problem for leaders today is that as the world changes so quickly, the future becomes far less predictable, the options become exponentially increased, and the way we need to think about those options shifts. Imagine if Lincoln had had to tweet about his plans (and his breakfast) as well as being Facebook friends with the senators on both sides of the aisle. Lincoln needed to make...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Stanford Business Books,US
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0804788472
• ISBN 13: 9780804788472
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 255
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland