Extracts taken from my new book ‘The Flipping Point‘. [1] A flipping point in the trend for adopting absurd management ideas needs to be reached. ‘The Flipping Point‘ [1] contains 200 short vignettes exploring what ’deprogramming management’ may look like.
An epidemic of nastiness can only be combated by a counter-epidemic of kindness.
An epidemic of nastiness can only be combated by a counter-epidemic of kindness. Don’t fight a behavioural epidemic from inside. Don’t try to convert nasty people one by one. Use your energy to flood the system with as much non-nastiness as possible. Your hope is a counter-epidemic of the opposite, not fighting from inside. If you have an epidemic of individualism, don’t fight it at an individual level. It’s a waste and you’ll never win. Create a counter-epidemic of collaboration that takes over. In the organization, (behavioural) change is social. Or it isn’t.
Nasty, sceptical, negative, toxic people cannot be changed by rational appeal, performance management or special prayers. In my previous life as a psychiatrist, many of my most successful ‘interventions’ were transplants. Not of organs but of the entire being to a new, different, a bit unknown (but relatively safe) territory. Temporarily (but drastically) changing the family environment, for example, at a distance, always paid off. My main question was often ‘where is your most distant relative with a house and a room?’.
Find gracious, generous people of character who want to make a difference.
Find gracious, generous people of character who want to make a difference. Let them have hope, confidence and strength. Be honest from day one: it won’t be plain sailing. Give them a big common goal and ask them for help. Invite them to join you. A journey you (must) have already started. Give them the space to work in peer-to-peer mode. Treat them for who they are, not their title or their rank. Provide resources. Trust them. That night you’ll sleep well. You will have started a management revolution.
Decouple titles and rank from the individual. One of the key success factors in our Viral Change™ programmes is that Viral Change™ project teams have no hierarchy within. Also, our communities of champions are hierarchy-free. Their membership is completely divorced from ranks in the system, even if those ranks still exist outside the borders of the Viral Change™ programme.
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The Flipping Point [1] – Deprogramming Management. This book asks you to use more rigour and critical thinking in how you use assumptions and management practices that were created many years ago. Our real and present danger is not a future of robots and AI, but of current established BS. In this book, you are invited to the Mother of All Call Outs!
Available from major online bookstores [2].
[1]
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New webinar series launching in June.
Feed Forward webinar series – the organization now, under new management
Machines work on feed-back. Minds work on feed-forward. We don’t need thermostats; we need new compasses. There is no ‘back to normal’. Normal has not been waiting for us. Leandro Herrero
To change to ‘the new normal’ we must think and act differently in the management of our organizations. Join Leandro Herrero and his team of organizational architects for these 5, free webinars as they debunk uncontested assumptions and uncover the alternatives, whilst considering why this is even more relevant today in the current exceptional environment. Join us and bring your critical thinking brain, switched on. It’s a serious business. It may also be fun.
All attendees receive a complimentary copy of The Flipping Point.
Webinar topics:
- The myths of change.
- Can we put the company in an MRI? Can we diagnose its health in terms of its internal connectivity, communication and collaboration?
- The myths of company culture.
- The myths of management.
- High touch and high tech in the digitalisation era
Request [3] more information about these webinars.