Books
From Hierarchy to High Performance
Co-Authors: Bill Sanders, Doug Kirkpatrick
Forward-thinking leaders are developing new, successful models of self-management, attracting the energies and visions of a young and modern workforce who rightfully demand autonomy and flexibility. Driven by passion and purpose as a driver of profit, they delight their customers, from stockholders to stakeholders.From Hierarchy to High Performance shares the secrets for companies that want to restore people to their rightful place as leaders who are poised and eager to make a difference at work and in the world. Great Work Cultures is a consortium of business professionals dedicated to unleashing the power within human organizations. We prioritize collaboration over control, human experience over bureaucratic rules, and networks over hierarchies.
Nobody Is Smarter Than Everybody: Why Self-Managed Teams Make Better Decisions and Deliver Extraordinary Results
Author: Rod Collins
Nobody Is Smarter Than Everybody questions the conventional thinking that prescribes how we organize work. For well over one hundred years, the centralized top-down hierarchy has served as the prototypical model for managing the work of large numbers of people Despite its longstanding presence in everyday social life, the centralized top-down hierarchy is an idea whose time has passed. The notion that the most effective way to organize the work of large numbers of people is to leverage the intelligence of an elite few by giving them command-and-control authority is no longer a sustainable proposition. That's because, in our new Digital Age, the world is changing much faster than any single person or any elite group of like-minded individuals can absorb.
The book highlights the sudden unprecedented challenges of a radically different business world, describes why conventional management models are ill-equipped to meet these challenges, and acquaints readers with a new organizational paradigm-the self-managed peer-to-peer network-where leadership and decision-making are exercised by teams rather than individuals. The book spotlights three organizations that have decades of experience in using collective intelligence and shared power to assure their longevity as they navigate business environments continually transformed by increasing change and escalating complexity.
Nobody Is Smarter Than Everybodyis for leaders who are open to learning about the extraordinary advantages that self-managed networks provide through better and faster problem solving, more effective and efficient work processes, and consistent customer satisfaction and profitability. You will become proficient with practical steps you can take to build organizations that can change as fast as the world around you.
The No-Limits Enterprise: Organizational Self-Management In The New World Of Work
Author: Doug Kirkpatrick
Achieving a Twenty-First Century Enterprise
There are two near-universal truths about the working world. The first being that people work best when they are happy and passionate about their work; the second being that people produce and innovate on their highest levels when they are not coerced to work, but are simply expected to keep the commitments they freely make to their colleagues and their organization. Today, companies cannot afford to have their employees disengaged and hating―or at least not loving―their jobs. Traditional management is broken. We need a new, twenty-first-century approach to management that will galvanize the minds―and hearts―of people giving so much of their lives to organizations.
In The No-Limits Enterprise: Organizational Self-Management in the New World of Work, Doug Kirkpatrick examines how companies can begin the journey toward becoming a twenty-first-century enterprise with limitless power for growth. Within The No-Limits Enterprise, you will learn concept such as - why the domestic and global breakdown of bureaucracy means the future of the workplace is here right now, - why “managing” others in the workplace is obsolete and, ultimately, self-defeating on so many levels, and - how to rigorously self-assess for success, corporately and personally, before embarking on an enterprise transformation.
Any business can transform itself into a No-Limits Enterprise in which every individual is free to innovate and forge new paths to the immense benefit of all. These challenges do not demand complex layers of management; they demand the ability to jettison ancient layers of control, and trust in the simplest of all human traits: the desire to create with dedication and love.
Wiki Management: A Revolutionary New Model for a Rapidly Changing and Collaborative World
Author: Rod Collins
Command-and-control may have once been an effective model in managing the large numbers of cookie-cutter clones that business programs were producing faster than anyone could say “MBA,” but the rapid change and increasing complexity of the twenty-first century have rendered that model obsolete. For the most part, today’s managers who were trained in the old ways are not adept to succeed in the current work environment that has evolved from take-it-or-leave-it hierarchies to collaborative networks of workers and managers feeding off of each other’s ideas to build the business together.
The new age of mass collaboration demands a new and extremely different model to manage by today--wiki management. Featuring enlightening examples from forward-thinking companies including Google, Whole Foods, Linux, and Wikipedia, Wiki Management outlines the revolutionary, necessary steps companies must take to: • Leverage their collective intelligence • Effectively integrate diverse points of view • Transition leaders from the role of “boss” to that of facilitator • Make “delighting customers“ more important than pleasing superiors • Achieve a shared and actionable understanding of the key drivers of business successIt’s a different world today than the one you were educated in, trained in, and found great success in. This “wiki” world has reshaped both the work we do and the way we do it, making mass collaboration not only possible but usually the best solution. This groundbreaking book reveals what it takes for managers of any generation to succeed in this fast-paced and exciting new environment.
Beyond Empowerment: The Age of the Self-Managed Organization
Author: Doug Kirkpatrick
Empowerment programs swept through corporate America in the last two decades. Unfortunately, bolting empowerment programs onto existing power structures often led to the appearance of empowerment--without the actual power. Going beyond empowerment means that people have all the power they need from the very moment they join a company--regardless of the level of responsibility or complexity. They are immune from threats or coercion. They are free to seek any needed resources and relationships on their own initiative. And they are held fully accountable for results by themselves, their colleagues and the organization's mission.