Leading Outside the Lines: How to Mobilize the Informal Organization, Energize Your Team, and Get Better Results
By Zia Khan and Jon R. Katzenbach
1.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
From the bestselling coauthor of the business classic The Wisdom of Teams comes an all-new exploration of the modern workplace, and how leaders and managers must embrace it for success. Katzenbach and Khan examine how two distinct factions together form the bigger picture for how organizations actually work: the more defined "formal" organization of a company-the management structure, performance metrics, and processes-and the "informal"-the culture, social networks, and ad hoc communities that spring up naturally and can accelerate or hinder how the organization works. With dynamic examples from enterprises around the world, this book takes a timeless organizational approach and creates a powerful paradigm-shifting tool set for applying it.
- Includes self-assessment guidelines for senior leaders, front-line managers, and individual contributors
- Features organizations in business, government, the nonprofit sector, and academia-including the New York City schools system, Aetna, the Marines, United Nations, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Home Depot, Bell Canada, and the Houston Police Department
Leading Outside the Lines illustrates how leaders can make the two distinct factions work together to get the best of both.
Related to Leading Outside the Lines
Business For You
The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed: The Definitive Book on Value Investing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Richest Man in Babylon: The most inspiring book on wealth ever written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Write a Grant: Become a Grant Writing Unicorn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Third Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Beautiful Questions: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Next Five Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Emotional Intelligence: Exploring the Most Powerful Intelligence Ever Discovered Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 3rd Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Robert's Rules Of Order Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Carol Dweck's Mindset The New Psychology of Success: Summary and Analysis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Everything Guide To Being A Paralegal: Winning Secrets to a Successful Career! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tools Of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Law of Connection: Lesson 10 from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, 20th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree with or Like or Trust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capitalism and Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Real Artists Don't Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Creative Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Set for Life: An All-Out Approach to Early Financial Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone's Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Leading Outside the Lines
4 ratings1 review
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Katzenbach was McKinsey's point man on teamwork. His bestselling Wisdom of Teams is not bad and Jossey-Bass has a fine record of publishing good management books. This book, however, is a stinker of epic proportions.The title "Leading Outside the Lines" touches on an increasingly important concept: Leading people who are not under your control or command. In a knowledge society, more and more value is created in loose networks of experts. How to influence those structures and provide informal leadership is certainly an interesting question.Katzenbach provides few answers as he consequently misapplies the term. He uses informal leadership only in the sense of not using systems - which basically contradicts his title. All his examples are managers who manage their employees not according to written rules but informally, e.g. he presents the case of a NY school principal who fires some of her administrators, reassigns budgets and tasks. This is precisely and only leadership within the lines,The author goes beyond the misapplication of his topic. He actively celebrates bad management. The Bush administration was especially fond of the "rules be damned, I shoot from the hip" school of management. No wonder Katzenbach fills his book with plenty of those cases (which he presents without reflection). He celebrates the management style of an assistant US ambassador to the United Nations who gloats about his job: "“A hundred ninety-one nations against one. I like our odds!” This is both terrible math and horrible informal leadership. Prior to the UN, this gentleman deployed his skillz at - FEMA, another of those Bush success stories. Given the obvious abysmal results of these management practices, I really wonder why Katzenbach included and celebrated such obviously lousy management. He is also disingenious, e.g. he contrasts the ethics of Enron and McKinsey, without mentioning that many of Enron's leaders including its CEO (the youngest ever partner at McKinsey) came from McKinsey and that McKinsey provided the intellectual blueprint for Enron.Finally, Katzenbach displays a Friedmanesque talent for coining wrong metaphors: He asks his leaders to "set the fast zebras free". Zebras, in contrast to horses, are not domesticated and thus cannot be set free. His leaders should "melt the frozen tundra". Apart from the horrible effect of the released methane on global warming, unfreezing the tundra results in morass which stops all movement, not exactly the change management behavior sought by Katzenbach.To sum up, Katzenbach identifies an important topic but misapplies its meaning, supplies it with horrible, not-supporting cases and coins unhelpful terms. Scott-Morgan's The Unwritten Rules of the Game is better as are many knowledge management books with their distinction of tacit knowledge.