Extracts taken from my new book ‘The Flipping Point‘. A flipping point in the trend for adopting absurd management ideas needs to be reached. ‘The Flipping Point‘, contains 200 short vignettes exploring what ’deprogramming management’ may look like.
There is only one strategy test: what will you tell the children?
There is only one strategy test: what will you tell the children? Try this: Son, I got up every day and went to the office to maximise shareholder value. I also participated in lots of Lean Teams. Ah, and I was an agile employee. In my time, our employee engagement scores went up from 4.5 to 7. Just try. Rehearse this by saying it to yourself in the mirror. Yes, what will we tell the children. That’s probably the only question that matters.
My children, your children, their children, the children. Apply wisely and broadly. Once you look them in the eyes, you’ll know straight away if the grandiose strategy you are proclaiming has any legs. What we will tell the children is ‘the red face test’ of leadership.
If the company is overheating and has no thermostat, every day without an explosion is pure luck.
If the company is overheating and has no thermostat, every day without an explosion is pure luck. Leaders are the thermostats. Amongst other things.
Inspired by the very readable anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen. I love his book ‘Small Places, Large Issues’ which has had several editions. His ‘Overheating: an anthropology of Accelerated Change’ was published in 2016. If you read one single book on Anthropology, read his ‘Small Places’.
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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.
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- The myths of change. How traditional management and academic thinking is responsible for the colossal failure of change programmes. Debunking uncontested assumptions. Looking at the alternatives.
- The myths of company culture. Stuck in old concepts. How we have made cultural change hard and often impossible. The failure of communication programmes. The key to successful mobilizing of people for a purpose.
- The myths of management. Empowerment, ownership, accountability and other little challenged ideas. Non-management myths. What new management may look like.
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