Erik on Software

Global Leadership Summit 2010 Day 2:Terri Kelly

From the conference notes:

President and CEO of W.L. Gore & Associates, a multi-billion dollar enterprise that is often profiled as an example of a unique leadership culture.

Employing 9,000 associates in 30 countries, Gore produces a diverse range of products, including GORE-TEX fabric, medical devices, filtration, and other advanced technology solutions.

A pioneer in adopting a non-hierarchical lattice-based management structure, Gore's "associates" become leaders based on their ability to gain the respect of their peers and to attract followers. Kelly earned the title of president and CEO in 2005 - one of the few titles within the company - following a peer-driven selection process.

W.L. Gore has appeared on all the U.S. "100 Best Companies to Work For" lists, and is included on many international lists of top workplaces.

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From my personal notes:

• "Innovation requires an environment of collaboration."
• Gore evolved special task forces from his experience at DuPont into small teams across the company.
• Gore is a peer based organization - it's about helping other people's success, not just their own. It's about relationships.
• The "On-demand hierarchy" forms based on where the knowledge resides.
• Hierarchies assume that those above have more knowledge and are in the best place to make decisions.
• Gore is a "lattice organization" - we're all connected by a series of nodes.
• We don't tell people what to do or what projects on which they should work.
• Focus on specific areas is encouraged, but the ownership is theirs.
• Common formulation of rules is important: belief in the individual, small teams, we're all in the same boat, take a longer term view
• Success is not financially-driven alone.
• There is a lot of internal selling at Gore to get funding for ideas - a natural selection process comprised of passion and the ability to sell others.
• Associates want to work on projects where they can provide the greatest impact.
• Compensation is based on contribution - not title or role.
• Everyone at Gore has a "personal sponsor" to help them grow who is not their supervisor.
• Plants worldwide limited to 200-250 people each. It's an investment that brings a different level of engagement and gets people to reach out to other facilities - large facilities tend to discourage this from happening.
• This way of doing things is scalable at the global level. Founder Gore was challenged when going from 100 to 200 people, and the size of the company is now 9,000.
• The "waterline principle" says that if you're going to consider an investment, holes cannot be drilled below the waterline.
• Leadership at Gore is defined by "followership".
• Understanding and communicating the rationale behind decisions is important.
• "Distributed leadership roles" are encouraged at Gore as opposed to centralized roles concentrated in one person or a few people.

Global Leadership Summit 2010 Day 1:Jim Collins

From the conference notes:

A nationally acclaimed business thinker, Jim Collins serves as a teacher to leaders throughout the corporate and social sectors.

Author of the best-selling books Good to Great and Built to Last, he is a student of companies - how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies.

His writings, based on groundbreaking research, have been featured in Fortune, Business Week, The Economist, USA Today, and Harvard Business Review.

His latest volume, How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In, looks at the common mistakes of organizations in a state of decline and what leaders can do to reverse negative patterns and flourish anew.

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From my personal notes:

• "Good is the enemy of great."
• "Greatness is not a matter of circumstance, but largely of conscious choice."
• Enterprises, people, organizations, and governments fall all the time - if it can happen to them, it can happen to us.
• Great becomes good, then mediocre, then bad, then irrelevant, and then gone.
• There are 5 stages of decline.
• The first stage of decline is "Hubris Born of Success".
• It shows outrageous arrogance if you think decisions have been good just because circumstances have been good. Bad decisions are still bad regardless of circumstance.
• Leaders "never give up".
• Humility is what distinguishes the best leaders.
• This humility is not soft, but has burning passion.
• The second stage of decline is "Undisciplined Pursuit of More".
• Companies become complacent - stuck in a rut.
• "Packard's Law" says that you will fail if you don't execute growth brilliantly.
• Resist growth until we have fantastic people - remember the 4 C's. (Bill Hybels presented the 4 C's in the keynote address: character, competence, culture, and chemistry.)
• Get the right people first, and then decide where to go.
• The third stage of decline is "Denial of Risk and Peril".
• From the outside, you look really great - this makes it difficult to admit otherwise.
• The "Stockdale Paradox" was named after Admiral Stockdale.
• Stockdale had been asked how he resisted depression not knowing the end (of imprisonment at the Hanoi Hilton), to which he responded "Never confuse faith and facts" - you need to confront brutal facts. Optimistic fellow prisoners who kept telling themselves they would be released soon died the quickest, while Stockdale's realization that he would probably be imprisoned a long time helped sustain him.
• The fourth stage of decline is "Grasping for Salvation".
• "The peril you deny throws you on the edge."
• Greatness is never a single event. It is a process - the "Flywheel".
• The fifth stage of decline is "Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death".
• There needs to be a reason to endure the struggle.
• If you always measure your success by financial gain, you will always lose.
• You need to be "driven by purpose beyond money and success".
• Purpose is rooted in core values - values that are not compromised.
• There is a paradox, however - values are not open to change.
• "If we lose our own soul we lose it all."
• The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.
• You have to be willing to change.
• You need to both "preserve the core" AND "stimulate progress".
• Do your diagnostics. Use the "Good to Great Diagnostic Tool".
• Count your blessings. When we begin to account for all the good, all the successes that we did not cause, it is humbling.
• What is your question to statement ratio? Can you double it by next year? Invest more time in being interested, not interesting.
• Have the discipline to stop doing.
• Preserve the core, stimulate progress.
• "Be willing to change tactics, but not give up on core values."

Global Leadership Summit 2010 Day 2:Daniel H. Pink

From the conference notes:

Best-selling author, business thinker, and former White House speechwriter, Daniel Pink has been credited with defining a new era in the workplace. His provocative business books describe the changing world of work.

In A Whole New Mind, Pink examined the rise of "right brain" skills that will be required in modern economies. His latest book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, analyzes the scientific data behind high performance and vocational satisfaction.

Pink's articles on business and technology have appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Wired where he is a contributing editor.

A sought-after speaker, he addresses corporations, associations, and universities around the world on economic transformation and the new workplace.

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From my personal notes:

• People are so much more complex than their biology - their physical needs - their biological drive.
• Humans respond exquisitely to their "reward and punishment drive".
• We do things because they are interesting.
• For example, attending this conference does not satisfy either the biological drive or the reward and punishment drive.
• There exists about 50 years of research on human motivation.
• The 2-dimensional view of human beings that requires suppressing the biological drive to focus on the reward and punishment drive does not work so well.
• A study said that a greater reward increased performance except when the requested task was less complex or required less creativity, which caused decreased performance.
• Big rewards tend to create tunnel vision - this phenomena is shown again and again in the research, but this is routinely ignored.
• Red Gate Software did something radical. Salespeople were gaming the system, so the CEO eliminated commissions. Instead, salaries were raised and profit sharing was provided.
• Part of the problem with organizations is that we make assumptions about people: that human beings are "machines" and that human beings are "blobs".
• The assumption is that human beings are complicated machines, but "mechanical" - they respond the way you want them to respond given certain inputs.
• The assumption is that human beings are passive and inert blobs, but our essence is to be active and engaged.
• There are 3 elements for motivation: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
• Management is a technology from the 1850s. What other technologies do we use from back then?
• Management was designed to "get compliance". Our organizations are too complicated.
• People want engagement. Autonomy in 4 things leads to engagement: time, task, team, and technique.
• Attlassian Software has "Fed-Ex Days" where people can work on anything on Thursday as long as they deliver overnight on Friday to the rest of the company. Fed-Ex Days worked out so well that they now have "20% Time" where people can work on anything they want for 20% of the time. According to the company, all the "good" ideas have come about from this time.
• Since it can be difficult for a company to adopt something like 20% Time in a short period of time, 20% Time with training wheels (or as the Brits would say, "stabilizers") or 10% Time are options.
• It can be difficult to initiate such measures quickly. Some "scaffolding" is helpful to gradually move in this direction.
• The "single, largest motivation at work is making progress".
• Mastery is partially met by contributing more.
• People are more likely to have "flow" at work than at leisure, so this is a great opportunity. Unfortunately, the workplace is one of the most feedback-deprived places in the world, and performance reviews are worthless.
• Workplace performance reviews are America's version of Kabuki theatre (great laughter from audience).
• Pink thinks that we are seeing the limits of the "profit motive", even though it might be good morally and financially.
• The bad and the mediocre result when the profit motive and the "purpose motive" are not working together.
• "Most businesses are not run very well."
• To be motivated by purposes larger than oneself is important.
• Pay attention to determine whether people refer to their organization as "we" or "they". Use of the pronoun "they" points to alienation. The pronouns being used say a lot.
• One person cannot change one's organization, but one can change as an individual what they do tomorrow.
• Anything good in life begins with a "great conversation" - this is what changes the world.

Global Leadership Summit 2010 Day 2:Jack Welch

From the conference notes:

Said to be the most studied CEO of the 20th Century, Jack Welch began his 41-year career with General Electric Company in 1960, and in 1981 became the company's eighth chairman and CEO.

Fortune named him "manager of the century", and the Financial Times named him one of the three most admired business leaders in the world.

He teaches at MIT's Sloan School of Management and recently launched the Jack Welch Management Institute at Chancellor University, offering advanced management degrees online.

A prolific business writer, he authored the internationally best-selling autobiography, Jack: Straight from the Gut and most recently outlined his management philosophy in the best-seller Winning.

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From my personal notes:

• Bill Hybels has been trying to get Jack Welch to speak for 15 years.
• According to Welch, leaders need to be comfortable in their own shoes - someone people can count on.
• People in business take on a persona that is not themselves - they think they have to behave a certain way.
• Leaders need to energize people - being energetic does not necessarily help.
• Energizing someone means to get them to "feel it" - "feel the vision" - leaders need to "feel the fire" themselves because it is hard to pass it off otherwise.
• Tell a story. Show people how their lives will change in some way. Get them excited because you like the journey.
• "Most meetings that are any good are not planned."
• Leaders get smarter by learning from those around them. Too many managers are afraid of hiring people smarter than themselves, so "they hire dopes" instead.
• Truth-telling leads to less meetings and bureaucracy.
• Welch came to believe that differentiating people based on performance will help the staff. People need to be actually treated differently depending on their performance.
• Welch differentiated people by categorizing them in groups: the "top 20%", the "vital 70%", and the "bottom 10%".
• "Don't sports teams treat players differently? Isn't winning good? Business is a game too."
• Candor needs to be the foundation before differentiation happens.
• People need to know where they stand - it is hard to work for someone when they do not know where they stand.
• Most organizations spend too much time improving the bottom 10%. If you have an appraisal system with candor, where they stand should not come as a surprise to them at the time of review.
• "I love to see people grow" is a gene that good people possess.
• "Generosity of spirit" is a distinguishing characteristic of high performers.
• Bad leaders hide their top performers.
• Envy is a terrible thing that top leaders to not exhibit.
• A leader might run the risk of losing the top portion of the middle 70%, but one needs to remember that ranking is always based on a snapshot in time.
• Do not make up a new game every time it comes time for a review. One should hand-write what they said during the review, and when it comes time for the next review, use the same sheet as the original hand-written review so the individual can physically see what was said last time compared to now.
• A cynic is not a loud-mouthed disruptor.
• "The hallway whisper is deadly."
• "You have to do everything you can to stop the meeting after the meeting."
• "I can't think of a better way to build a team then by using 20-70-10."
• "Not recognizing performance is silly."
• "Sometimes non-profit is said to mean non-performance - that's a bunch of nonsense."
• Welch set up a succession process. He initially divided successor candidates into three categories that included "the obvious" and "the long-shots". Unexpectedly, only the long-shots survived over the years. It is difficult to determine how people will work over the long term.
• "Low-level managers have trouble celebrating little victories."
• This past year, Welch was in the hospital for 104 days. He got a staph infection from the cortizone shot he routinely gets in the back to play golf.
• When asked whether his spiritual journey changed while he was in the hospital, he said "maybe".

New Book Review: "Employees First, Customers Second"

New book review for Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down, by Vineet Nayar, Harvard Business Press, 2010, reposted here:

Putting employees first is an idea with which most are probably already familiar, the idea that putting employees first will bring benefits to customers. Putting customers first is not necessarily going to move a company in the right direction. As Roger L. Martin stated in "The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking" (see my review), "customers are not always right...customers lie or they are wrong". But just how will putting employees first bring benefits to a firm? In trade-off scenarios between employees and customers, does putting employees first mean that they will always win?

In this book, Vineet Nayar discusses the transformation of HCL Technologies (HCLT) since he became CEO of the firm in 2005. As it became apparent that other Indian firms in the technology services space started to outpace HCLT, Nayar started seeking solutions. While contemplating the traditional hierarchical corporate pyramid (where a few managers sit at the top and the bulk of the organization sits at the bottom) and the traditional value zone where products are created and produced, and conversing with customers and observing the younger generation of workers, Nayar came to the conclusion that the value zone lay in the "how" of their offerings (the way technologies are brought together and implemented) more than the "what", but that the employees working at this level of the pyramid were not respected or supported by management.

Nayar began to contemplate whether a solution might lay in making management accountable to the value zone and the people in it. In other words, putting employees first might help the end goal of HCLT, which was to provide technology services. Some of the methods used to achieve this aim were the "Mirror Mirror" exercise (to help see the reality of the situation, to create dissatisfaction with the status quo, and to build a hunger for change), the "Blueprint Meeting" (to draw a path from point A to point B, and to create trust through transparency), the "Smart Service Desk" (to enable employees in the value zone to open tickets for management to resolve), and the "Open 360-degree Review" combined with an initiative called "Happy Feet" (to open the performance review process to all employees whom a manager might affect or influence, and to allow anyone who provides feedback to a manager to see the results of that manager's review).

The author provides a well-worded explanation of the customer-management-employee relationship, something lacking in other texts of this genre. And Nayar succeeds in his goal of explaining the "how" rather than the "what" while other business texts such as Ric Merrifield's "Rethink: A Business Manifesto for Cutting Costs and Boosting Innovation" (see my review) that specifically set out to explain the "what" rather than the "how" often change course. This reviewer also enjoyed Nayar's incorporation of the four elements of trust (see my review of "The Trusted Advisor", by David H. Maister, Charles H. Green, Robert M. Galford). Recommended text for anyone looking to other firms for ideas on how to take an alternative look at the value zone.

New Book Review: "Why Can't You Just Give Me the Number?"

Recently posted book review for Why Can't You Just Give Me the Number?: An Executive's Guide to Using Probabilistic Thinking to Manage Risk and to Make Better Decisions, by Patrick Leach, Probabilistic Publishing, 2010, reposted here:

If all executives and managers had backgrounds in statistics, this book would not need to have been written. Leach presents introductory probabilistic thinking to manage risk and to make better decisions masterfully, beginning by comparing the skills of professional poker players and business professionals. Knowing probabilities just gets professional poker players in the game; in order to win, additional skills are needed. "Ironically, the reverse is often true in business - the players have the skills but do not understand the odds. Most executives and managers are intelligent and highly skilled individuals with a good sense for the industries in which they operate. However, competitors are also led by bright and capable people. Some are certainly more capable than others, but most companies employ talented and intelligent managers and executives. In business, having the skills just gets you into the game."

As the author explains, "this book is not designed to give you the ins and outs of statistical methods, or show you how to calculate the standard deviation of a set of data, or enable you to create efficient charts for your portfolio of opportunities. This is not an instruction manual for hands-on statistical analysis; there are a number of excellent books of that type already on the market. This is an overview of the world of probabilistic methodology - or rather, the view from a senior manager's perspective. We'll occasionally work with numbers and terminology, but the idea is not to turn you into a statistician or an economic model builder. My purpose is (1) to convince you of the importance of using probabilistic thinking as part of your decision making process, and (2) to give you the foundation you'll need to interpret the results of statistical analyses appropriately."

Based on this dual purpose, Leach hits the bulls-eye. After making the case that all value generated by business executives comes, directly or indirectly, from how they manage uncertainty, Leach discusses why many of the past methods that dealt with uncertainty are inadequate today, and how the sensitivity analysis "tornado" chart, the decision tree, and Monte Carlo simulation should be used together (i.e. not in isolation) to gain insight into uncertainty. Subsequent chapters discuss subjects such as risk-neutrality, risk aversion, human biases and weaknesses, contingent probabilities, advantages and disadvantages of single values that represent one another rather than ranges, dependencies between projects, near-critical-path tasks, right-skewed distributions, the MAIMS (Money Allocated is Money Spent) effect, the decision making process, the value of information, the value of control, optimization, the efficient frontier, and statistical quirks and traps.

This reviewer especially enjoyed chapter 5 ("Improving the Odds of Success"), chapter 6 ("It's All in Your Head"), chapter 7 ("Contingent Probabilities"), chapter 8 ("Which Number Do You Want?"), and chapter 10 ("Late and Over Budget - Project Management Issues"). The simple line graphs and diagrams throughout the text are very effective at getting the author's point across, reminiscent of "Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects" by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister (see my review), and the quotes at the start of each chapter, some of which this reviewer is already familiar, provide excellent preludes to the content of accompanying discussions. For example, the fourth chapter begins with the following Persian proverb: "He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool - shun him. He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a child - teach him. He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep - wake him. He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise - follow him."

New Book Review: "Under Control"

New book review for Under Control: Governance Across the Enterprise (CA Press), by Jacob Lamm, Sumner Blount, Steve Boston, Marc Camm, Robert Cirabisi, Nancy E. Cooper, Galina Datskovsky, Christopher Fox, Kenneth V. Handal, William E. McCracken, John Meyer, Helge Scheil, Alan Srulowitz, and Robert Zanella, Apress, 2010, reposted here:

A team of 14 executives from CA (formerly Computer Associates) assembled this collection of related essays, each of which can feasibly stand alone as separate white papers, on governance across the enterprise. While other texts have been written on this subject matter in the past, the authors believe that they provide a unique perspective, since CA has directly experienced the consequences of its own inadequate governance in the past.

After introducing the concept of enterprise governance, the authors present discussions on policy management, risk management, portfolio management, risk governance, IT governance, and information governance, as well as their relationships with the regulatory environment, finance, and sustainability. The two appendixes comprise the compliance and risk committee charter of CA, as well as the corporate governance principles of CA.

This reviewer especially appreciated the high-level overview by Jacob Lamm, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at CA, on the rise of governance and how governance looks today. As Lamm writes, "like many terms in the public eye in recent months, governance is in the eye of the beholder, and definitions can vary from one author to another. But the essence of the definitions is generally the same. Put simply, governance is the culture, policies, procedures and controls that help ensure a company will meet its business goals".

Lamm continues by recognizing that "governance is far from a new concept; corporations have long practiced it. But there has been a change in the level of attention tiven to governance. This increased emphasis has been driven by the needs of the corporation, the stockholders, and regulatory bodies". Lamm then discusses some of the key business drivers for improved corporate governance, and then presents the key goals of good governance, and some of the activities and roles that this might entail.

The diagrams in this text remind this reviewer of those that one might find in many books published by Harvard Business School Press. For example, the diagram on common risk management approaches that Sumner Blount provides illustrates well the four permutations of the manner in which risk can be addressed (accept it, transfer it, mitigate it, or avoid it), and the diagram on likelihood and impact of risk that Rob Zanella provides depicts well the relationship between these two concepts.

In addition, although CA approaches are discussed throughout this text, the references to third-party materials are abundant. For example, Network Frontier's Unified Compliance Framework (UCF), a repository that harmonizes IT controls from over 400 international regulatory requirements, standards, and guidelines, is discussed. Recommended especially to those new to governance or seeking to expand their understanding of how governance is increasingly needed following the economic crisis of 2008, as a consultant this reviewer is looking forward to more business texts that balance the sizable and reputable catalog of technical texts already published by Apress.

New Book Review: "Manage Your Project Portfolio"

Recently posted book review for Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects, by Johanna Rothman, The Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2009, reposted here:

Rothman's latest effort is all about how to create and use a project portfolio effectively. Note that while the author discusses how a collection of projects might together form real value, a program, this is not the focus of this book. After discussing project portfolio basics, the author discusses project evaluation, portfolio ranking, portfolio collaboration, portfolio iterations, portfolio decisions, portfolio evolution, and ends by addressing mission. This book was composed very well, and this reviewer especially found valuable the manner in which the author points to prerequisite areas of the book by page throughout in case the reader does not read sequentially. As Rothman indicates, a project portfolio is simply the organization of projects, by date and value, to which the associated organization commits or is planning to commit. A project portfolio helps the practitioner decide when to commit to a project so that a product development team can start or continue a project, understand when it is time to terminate a project so that a team might be freed for other work, determine when to transform a project and commit to the resultant project, and serve as a visual tool to help enable negotiation on how to tackle projects when it is difficult to decide what to do next.

The author points out that "if everyone in your organization (senior managers, middle managers, technical leads, functional managers, and project managers) is wedded to a serial life cycle and no one is willing to consider finishing valuable chunks of work frequently, you can't use a pragmatic approach to managing the project portfolio". In addition, "when your organization's management refuses to make a project portfolio, that lack of decision making is guaranteeing at least one or more schedule games. Or, people will decide which project to work on first, and that decision may not agree with yours. Without project portfolio management, you have more projects competing for the same - and limited - number of people. You find you can't commit to which people work on projects when, you're awash in emergency projects, and you and your staff are running yourselves ragged multitasking" which research has consistently shown to be unproductive. While "Manage Your Project Portfolio" is not a technical text by any means and is expected to be an easy read for most audiences, the author did decide to include a couple of very effective diagrams in the second chapter that if understood by the reader will help navigate the rest of the text by understanding what a project portfolio does for the organization, and what happens when no one manages the project portfolio.

In addition to providing new material, Rothman effectively ties in the insights of a number of other authors in this space, and this reviewer especially enjoyed seeing multiple references to Frederick P. Brooks and Gerald M. Weinberg. The manner in which the author incorporates agile philosophies is especially well done. Her discussion on velocity, both individual and team, for example, is quite effective. "Since I've been working in the field, my managers and clients have been trying to measure productivity. What a waste. Individual productivity means nothing. What does mean something is a team's throughput." While many readers might have already come to the same conclusion, Rothman really drives home this point. "If you try to measure individual productivity, you will get some data. And, the people whom you are measuring will game the data, have no fear. If you measure code, they'll write a ton. If you measure tests, they'll write a bazillion. If you measure files, they will have many more than the project needs. No matter what you measure, if it's not running, tested features, then they will game the system. Don't do it. But you say, I have several single-person projects. Surely I can measure that person's productivity. Um, no, you can't. First, I doubt that those people resist talking to each other. Second, how will you compare productivity? If Davey gets the easy projects and Sally gets the hard ones, who is more productive? I can't tell, and neither can you. Stop trying."

Pro Bono: Taproot Foundation Project Manager - Part 1

My pro bono Taproot Foundation project team completed the Delivery, Assessment, and Closing phases Thursday night according to the Ernst & Young devised methodology (the current Project Management Institute equivalent is the Executing and Controlling phase combined with the Closing phase) executed for our nonprofit client in the Chicago Loop since April, 2009.

Back row: Sean Murray (Taproot Graphic Designer), Ben Kimpel (Taproot Web Developer), David Dubin (Taproot Marketing Manager), Michael Bird (Taproot Copy Editor/Writer), John Jiang (MCIC Technical Director). Front row: Erik Gfesser (Taproot Project Manager), Teresa Pudi (Taproot Account Director), Virginia Carlson (MCIC President, Executive Sponsor). Not pictured: Patricia Gross (MCIC Vice President). Photo by Erik Gfesser.

Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC) is an independent, nonprofit research and consulting firm founded in 1990. The data, information and insight that MCIC provides has made them the research partner of choice for more than 1500 organizations and individuals working to improve social conditions and quality of life.

New Book Review: "Strategy Safari"

Recently posted book review for Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour through the Wilds of Strategic Management, by Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand, and Joseph Lampel, Free Press, 1998, reposted here:

Authors Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel provide the oft-cited "The Blind Men and the Elephant" by John Godfrey Saxe as a backdrop to their discussion on the ten schools of management (Design, Planning, Positioning, Entrepreneurial, Cognitive, Learning, Power, Cultural, Environmental, and Configuration), because while at the outset they indicate that "we are the blind people and strategy formation is our elephant", since "everyone has grabbed hold of some part or other and 'railed on in utter ignorance' about the rest" because "no one has had the vision to see the entire beast", the authors end their discourse by showing that there is not necessarily one safari beast with which to contend, but multiple, although "we shall never find [the whole beast of strategy formation], never really see it all". Corresponding to each of these ten schools is a different view of the strategy process - strategy formation as a process of conception, strategy formation as a formal process, strategy formation as an analytical process, strategy formation as a visionary process, strategy formation as a mental process, strategy formation as an emergent process, strategy formation as a process of negotiation, strategy formation as a collective process, strategy formation as a reactive process, and strategy formation as a process of transformation.

The chapter introductions to each of the schools provide superb historical information, and the last chapter discusses the evolution of the the ten schools and provides an excellent bulleted summary table that whimsically assigns different beasts to each school as well as easy-to-remember homilies such as "take us to your leader" for The Entrepreneurial School, "I'll see it when I believe it" for The Cognitive School, and "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" for The Learning School. In the opinion of this reviewer, the chapters on these three schools are also the best, even though the authors indicate that The Cognitive School is "characterized more by its potential than by its contribution. The central idea is valid - that the strategy-formation process is also fundamentally one of cognition, particularly in the attainment of strategies as concepts. But strategic management, in practice if not in theory, has yet to gain sufficiently from cognitive psychology. Or perhaps more accurately, cognitive psychology has yet to address adequately the questions of prime interest to strategic management, especially how concepts form in the mind of a strategist".

The authors draw from many research sources (some readers may be interested in knowing that the bibliography is 18 pages long), including some of their past works, most notably Mintzberg, and their liberal use of well-placed sidebars and diagrams in the material is extremely effective in bringing these together. Their use of humor is also well received by this reviewer, especially when placed in the midst of some of the rather lengthy discussions that some readers new to his subject matter might otherwise receive as dry. For example, the chapter on The Design School starts with a quote by an anonymous manager about a Harvard MBA: "The damn guy just sits there waiting for a case study." This reviewer completely agrees that, in the words of the authors, this book makes sense of a field that often seems to make no sense. Well recommended to anyone in business, especially those struggling through the vast, sometimes confusing terrain of strategic management.

New Book Review: "First Among Equals"

Recently posted book review for First Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals, by Patrick J. McKenna and David H. Maister, Free Press, 2005, reposted here:

Admittedly, this reviewer does agree with some of the earlier reviews here that this book does borrow some material from other works, and it might be disconcerting that almost-50% of the works listed in the bibliography of this text were written by either of the two co-authors McKenna and Maister. This reviewer is reminded of some of the reader comments for Weinberg's "More Secrets of Consulting: The Consultant's Tool Kit", which indicated that the author of "The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving & Getting Advice Successfully" was attempting to profit from the success of his earlier work (see my reviews for both of these texts). In the opinion of this reviewer, this is not true with this effort.

Maister's earlier "Managing the Professional Service Firm" (see my review), for example, focused on the firm itself, while "First Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals" is also true to its title, concentrating on the professionals which make up professional service firms. In addition, while the earlier work consists mainly of articles published separately over a 10-year time period within such publications as "Sloan Management Review", the "Journal of Management Consulting", "International Accounting Bulletin", and "The American Lawyer", this work consists mainly of new content and concentrates on getting ready for management, coaching individuals, coaching teams, and building for the future with existing staff, topics never touched on in any detail in the earlier work.

The writing style that Maister used in his earlier collaboration with Green and Galford called "The Trusted Advisor" (see my review) continues in this effort, with introductions to topics followed by lists that are later elaborated upon in greater detail, an aspect of this book which seems to help organize the wide variety of discussions. Sidebars from professional service firm managers throughout the text also increase its accessibility. In the opinion of this reviewer, some of the best chapters of this book include: "Deal Differently with Different People", "Tackle the Prima Donnas", "Clarify Group Goals", "Build Team Trust", and "Measure Group Results". Well recommended for both managers and professionals working in professional service firms.

Pro Bono: Taproot Foundation Project Manager - Part 2

My pro bono Taproot Foundation project team completed the Draft Direction phase last night according to the Ernst & Young devised methodology (the current Project Management Institute equivalent is the Executing and Controlling phase) currently being executed for our nonprofit client in the Chicago Loop.

Clockwise from left: Michael Bird (Taproot Copy Editor/Writer), Patricia Gross (MCIC Vice President), Teresa Pudi (Taproot Account Director), Sean Murray (Taproot Graphic Designer), John Jiang (MCIC Technical Director). Not pictured: Erik Gfesser (Taproot Project Manager), Virginia Carlson (MCIC President, Executive Sponsor), Ben Kimpel (Taproot Web Developer), David Dubin (Taproot Marketing Manager). Photo by Erik Gfesser.

Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC) is an independent, nonprofit research and consulting firm founded in 1990. The data, information and insight that MCIC provides has made them the research partner of choice for more than 1500 organizations and individuals working to improve social conditions and quality of life.

New Book Review: "The Future of Management"

Recently posted book review for The Future of Management, by Gary Hamel and Bill Breen, Harvard Business School Press, 2007, reposted here:

In the preface to this text, the authors indicate that their goal is "to help [the reader] become a 21st-century management pioneer; to equip [the reader] to reinvent the principles, processes, and practices of management for our postmodern age", but that "this is not a compendium of best practices. It's not filled with exhortations to 'go thou and do likewise'". In addition, Hamel and Breen go on to write that "this is a book for dreamers and doers. It's for everyone who feels hog-tied by bureaucracy, who worries that the 'system' is stifling innovation, who secretly believes that the bottleneck is at the top of the bottle, who wonders why corporate life has to be so dispiriting, who thinks that employees really are smart enough to manage themselves, who knows that 'management', as currently practiced, is a drag on success - and wants to do something about it."

In some sense, within the closing lines of this book the authors reiterate their goal in writing this book, which "was not to predict the future of management, but to help [the reader] invent it. At every turn, [the authors] have argued that the technology of management must be reinvented, and will be reinvented. The only question is: Who's going to do the reinventing?" So for any reviewers here who are disappointed that this book does not attempt to predict the future of management, the authors make it clear throughout their discussion, right from the outset, that this was not their goal. On many levels, "The Future of Management" provides an excellent follow-up discussion to Christopher D. McKenna's "The World's Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century" (see my review) because the latter text discusses how management philosophy became ubiquitous to begin with over the course of the last century.

The authors first discuss why management innovation matters, and then provide case studies of management innovation in action, followed by discussions on imagining and building the future of management. Hamel and Breen make a convincing case that management innovation, "anything that substantially alters the way in which the work of management is carried out, or significantly modifies customary organizational forms, and, by so doing, advances organizational goals", sits at the top of the innovation stack, below which reside strategic innovation, product/service innovation, and at the base, operational innovation. The Whole Foods Market, Google, and W.L. Gore case studies are well done, and the accompanying lessons at the conclusion of each of these case studies far exceed similar attempts of most business texts of which this reviewer is familiar, including many from Harvard Business School Press, the publisher in this case.

New Book Review: "Managing Humans"

Recently posted book review for Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager, by Michael Lopp, Apress, 2007, reposted here:

A lot of reviews for this work have been posted here already, including a few which puzzlingly complain about the substance of what Michael Lopp has to share, even though the subtitle of "Managing Humans" contains the phrase "Biting and Humorous Tales". While Joel Spolsky, cofounder and CEO of Fog Creek Software, is quoted on the back cover as saying that this is "by far the most brilliant book about managing software teams you're ever going to find", I would argue that in my opinion this is by far the most witty book about managing software teams.

The content that the author provides focuses on some of his personal experiences, the bulk of which were taken from previous contributions to his "randsinrepose" weblog, and abides by his premise to a T, which is to not offer a traditional management book based on the idea that there is a science behind management, but a witty book about how managers, "a strange breed of people who through a mystical organizational ritual have been given power over your future and your bank account", learn by doing. At the same time, the reader should not expect this book to explain the hows - it is simply about the software engineering management experiences of one individual and some of the insights he has gained along the way.

Despite the fact that much of the content here consists of a wide variety of topics, sometimes seemingly random, for readers seeking more traditional content chapters 27-30 entitled "Incrementalists and Completionists", "Organics and Mechanics", "Inwards, Outwards, and Holistics", and "Free Electrons" provide some valuable content that is reminiscent of Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.'s "The Mythical Man-Month" chapter 3 entitled "The Surgical Team" (see my earlier review). In these chapters, Lopp takes a break from his customary humor and looks at some of the different work styles and associated personalities in this field. After a while, any successful professional will undoubtedly begin to figure out some of the traits possessed by colleagues, but Lopp does the best job that I have seen to provide some broad brushstrokes to help even those in the profession who are no longer neophytes; if anything, this portion of the book will serve as a second take into how professionals might approach different scenarios based on the individuals involved.

This book is a quick read and recommended to anyone in the software engineering field willing to take a break for some humor about their own profession, and interested in hearing some life lessons provided by an individual who is not afraid to talk about himself.

New Book Review: "Leading the Charge"

Recently posted Amazon Vine book review for Leading the Charge: Leadership Lessons from the Battlefield to the Boardroom, by General Tony Zinni and Tony Koltz, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, reposted here:

The authors walk the reader through, provide insights to, and discuss possible solutions to some of the many pressing leadership challenges of the new century, with much focus placed on the changes that have taken place in the world following the end of the Cold War twenty years ago. From the perspective of Tony Zinni, who has leadership in the realms of military, diplomacy, and business, the manner in which systems and organizations operate has changed, and due to a variety of factors a new and different archetype of leader needs to emerge in order to be effective.

Zinni explains that much of the substance for this book had its origins attempting to answer questions from book tour audiences for his earlier work called "The Battle for Peace". In that book, Zinni explained how the world had changed since 1989. It was frequently inquired whether a different type of leaderhip is now needed, and after initially answering to the effect that "the principles of good leadership are timeless and continue to apply", he realized that "these people are telling [him] something, not asking [him] something...they're out there in the trenches where they're seeing failing or ineffective leadership, and they're wondering if this is just a bad patch of bad leaders or something more serious".

According to Zinni, "eleven new or newly molded qualities are the core elements modern leaders need if they are going to create a culture of leadership and be successful in today's challenging world", and discussions on each of these form the bulk of the text: (1) have self-knowledge, (2) possess ethical sense, (3) listen to, understand, and relate to the newly led of this generation, (4) understand the environment, (5) understand and control their organization, (6) operate at a fast pace, (7) be more curious, broadly knowledgeable, and widely educated than leaders of the past, (8) communicate articulately, (9) develop different and stronger decision-making skills than their predecessors, (10) lead in times of crisis and change, and (11) think and act strategically.

One of the strengths of this book is the ease with which Zinni is apparently able to traverse his varied experiences of the last few decades in order to apply what he has learned to what he sets out to communicate. He seems more at ease discussing his military experience, but he is able to successfully demonstrate to the reader the eleven qualities of modern leaders within the corporate domain as well, focusing to a great extent on his time as an executive at DynCorp International.

The author writes that "in most leadership books written today by prominent leaders, academics, or self-help gurus, we see similar lists of qualities or principles", for example, "the secret to success lies in following the author's 'Seven Ls of Leadership' or 'Five Pillars of Successful Leadership'", and "it would be hard to argue with the theory, but something is missing". Further, he has "no doubt that scientific studies can accurately reflect the reality of leadership" and he does not "object to efforts to teach leadership techniques or to develop good people with desireable attributes" for such training "can enhance a leader's leadership skills, and we can certainly use more good people". However, he explains that "we must never forget that character development, leadership education, and technical training, however useful, are no substitutes for the real experience of leading" and on this note, "leadership experiences left unexamined are useless and wasted".

On his chapter on the need for self-knowledge, Zinni writes that "loyalty in and of itself is not a core value. It must always be a value secondary to integrity and honesty. The whistleblower who stands on principle should be honored and valued far more than the individual who remains blindly loyal in the face of immoral, unethical, or criminal behavior. Too often the merely loyal get respect and rewards while the honorable whistleblower gets cast out into the darkness. That's the flaw in the idea that if you're disloyal, you've committed the ultimate sin. No. If you're dishonest and you lack integrity, you've committed the ultimate sin. Loyalty can't stand on its own. From integrity, honor, and honesty, loyalty will follow, as will many other values, such as trust. But you can't say 'My principle core value is loyalty to the leadership and the institution'".

One of the most effective chapters in this book presents the author's views on how listen to, understand, and relate to the newly led of this generation: "I don't believe you can be an effective leader if you don't care about your people. You must value them as family. You must have a genuine interest in their well-being and in who they are and what makes them tick. This is truer than ever before. It is difficult to relate to emerging generations with vastly different outlooks and perceptions from ours, but it's critical to try to do so if we are to maximize the great potential they possess. The new generation of successful leaders gets this, and it is paying off for them."

In his chapter on understanding the environment, the author discusses the "classic error of believing that knowing a lot means you control a lot. We collect massive amounts of information. Great! But what counts is what we do with it. [He has] sat through hundreds of exhausting op center briefs filled with thousands of PowerPoint slides attempting to satisfy commanders' insatiable demands for more stats and data. All too often, commanders come to believe that command of the data equates with command of the environment. A potentially deadly mistake." In discussing his experience as a young officer in Vietnam, his mentioning of how "all the impressive stats and color-coded maps didn't match the reality [he] was experiencing" reminded me of one of my past project managers who tweaked and tweaked the algorithms behind his spreadsheet until the cells turned their portion of the executive dashboard green.

In the last chapter, on strategy, the author writes that if he were to "advise a young aspiring leader about making himself more effective and attractive to his bosses, [he] would recommend demonstrating his ability to think and analyze over a very wide range. He should be able to clearly describe his environment, to see and articulate future positions for his enterprise in that environment, and to set a course for his enterprise to achieve success". And within just a few short paragraphs of his afterword, Zinni lays out his summary of advice to young professionals seeking to lead. If the potential reader does not have time to review the entire text, reading these last portions of the book are highly recommended. Overall, this book is very well written, and suggested for anyone seeking leadership advice from someone who has been (literally) in the trenches.

New Book Review: "Managing the Professional Service Firm"

Recently posted book review for Managing the Professional Service Firm, by David H. Maister, Free Press, 1993, reposted here:

This text is a classic resource on the professional service firm, and as a consultant this reviewer appreciates the accumulated wealth of knowledge the author graciously decided to share. The content that Maister provides here is practical and very accessible, and consists mainly of articles published separately over a 10-year time period within such publications as "Sloan Management Review", the "Journal of Management Consulting", "International Accounting Bulletin", and "The American Lawyer".

While most of these articles refer to professional service firms as partnerships, the vast majority of the material is still applicable to other types of firms, including the limited liability company (LLC). And the title might suggest a management audience, but the content is important for all associated professionals, including new associates. Because this book is so well written, this reviewer also recommends a reading by those considering work in this field, either those still studying at the university or those contemplating a professional transition.

There is no other book quite like "Managing the Professional Service Firm", even though it has been over 15 years since its first appearance (1993) and a host of other texts have entered this space, especially after the late-1990s boom in consulting. The foundation of this book is the simplified mission statement that Maister indicates is the same, with varying refinements, for most professional service firms: "To deliver outstanding client service; to provide fulfilling careers and professional satisfaction for our people; and to achieve financial success so that we can reward ourselves and grow".

Probably no coverage of this book can quite deliver justice to its quality. This reviewer set out to list several of the articles which they consider to be above and beyond the rest, but it was difficult to include all but just a small minority of the chapters. The strength of the content is slightly skewed toward the first half of the book, but strong articles persist throughout the 7 sections covering basic matters such as balancing company composition and profitability, client matters such as listening and marketing to clients, people matters such as motivation and scheduling, management matters such as strategy, partnership matters such as performance and compensation, and multisite matters. Highly recommended.