China: The Race to Market

A 304 pages book by Jonathan Story
Financial Times Prentice Hall - 2003

• China is at a critical turning point and could go in any of several directions. The direction China goes will depend on complex political and economic uncertainties. It can become a great power, it can disintegrate or it can hover between the two alternatives.
• To become rich, China depends on a world order that, in turn, depends on the United States. The world’s move to market democracy may be unstoppable. On the other hand, the world may be headed for revolution and warfare.
• China’s leadership is in a precarious situation, justifying legitimacy on Marxist principles but rejecting Marxism in practice. Chinese Communist leadership resembles Britain’s Tories — cautious, skeptical, conservative and protective of their own privileges.
• China has many voices and competing power centers. It is not a “unitary actor.”China’s population fears uncertainty and chaos more than it fears tyranny.

Gridlock Economy

A 304 page book by Michael Heller
Perseus Books  - 2008

• A “commons” is a resource that everyone shares. The “tragedy of the commons” happens when too many people use a common resource, thereby destroying it.
• Societies often try to avert the tragedy of the commons by creating private ownership – “anticommons.” 
• A private owner of an anticommons may block the public from using it.
• The underuse of a resource limits its benefit to society as much as its overuse does. Anticommons harm society by stifling innovation and creativity.
• Learning to see the hidden costs of underuse is a key step in fixing gridlock. Lawmakers can end a black market by removing the reasons for its existence.  Informal organizations can protect commons by imposing their own rules on users. Voluntary cooperation and philanthropy can solve some gridlock problems.

True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership

A 288 page book by Bill George and Peter Sims
Jossey-Bass - 2007

• Authentic leadership depends on your “internal compass.” This is your "True North." It guides you toward who and what you are.
• The true leader inspires others to strive for success to achieve a shared purpose.  
• You cannot become a great leader if you cannot lead yourself.
• True north inevitably directs you to your clear purpose in life – what you can contribute and how others will remember you.
• Great leaders do not operate in a vacuum. No leader ever achieved success alone.
• You will make your greatest contributions when you are enthusiastic about your work.
• Your true north is based on your values and deepest convictions.
• There are no "born" leaders or "instant" leaders. Leadership is not a state of being. It is a journey

When Organizing Isn't Enough

A book by Julie Morgenstern
2008 - Simon & Schuster

• SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life
• SHED stands for “separate” your treasures, “heave” your trash, “embrace” yourself, and “drive into the future.”
• Before you shed, develop a new theme for the life you want in the future.
• Inventory the three primary “shedding points”: your possessions, your activities and your bad habits.
• Assign each item, to-do entry and habit an attachment score and an obsolescence score, so you know what you can discard and what to keep.
• To shed properly, hold onto only 10% to 20% of what currently constitutes your life.
• Once you start to shed, you will feel energized. Don’t look back. Discard your burdens.
• When you are done, spend some quiet time reflecting on what you want and then begin pursuing your real goals.

Taking the Stress out of Stressful Conversations

We all get caught in conversations
fraught with emotion. Usually, these
interactions end badly – but they
don’t have to, thanks to a handful of
techniques you can apply unilaterally.

Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail

An article by John Kotter
Harvard Business Review - 1995

Most major change initiatives—whether intended to boost quality, improve culture, or reverse a corporate death spiral—generate only lukewarm results. Many fail miserably. Why? Because managers don’t realize transformation is a process, not an event. Leaders who successfully transform businesses do eight things right and they do them in the right order.

1. Establish a sense of urgency: Examine competitive realities for potential crises and untapped opportunities and convince at least 75% of your managers that the status quo is more dangerous than the unknown.

2. Form a powerful guiding coalition: Assemble a group with shared commitment and enough power to lead the change effort and encourage them to work as a team outside the normal hierarchy.

3. Create a vision: Create a vision to direct the change effort and develop strategies for realizing that vision.

4. Communicate the vision: Communicate the new vision and strategies for achieving it. Teach new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition.

5. Empower others to act on the vision: Alter systems undermining the vision and encourage risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions.

6. Plan for and create short-term wins:  Define visible performance improvements and reward employees contributing to those improvements.

7. Consolidate improvements and produce more change: Use increased credibility from early wins to reinvigorate the change process with new projects and change agents.

8.Institutionalize new approaches: Articulate connections between new behaviors and corporate success.

Discovering Your Authentic Leadership

An article by Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew McLean, and Diana Mayer
Harvard Business Review - Feb 2007

We all have the capacity to inspire and empower others. But we must first be willing to devote ourselves to our personal growth and development as leaders.

Think about the basis for your leadership development and the path you need to follow to become
an authentic leader. Then ask yourself these questions:

1. Which people and experiences in your early life had the greatest impact on you?
2. What tools do you use to become self-aware? What is your authentic self?
3. What are your most deeply held values? Where did they come from? Have your values changed significantly since your childhood? How do your values inform your actions?
4. What motivates you extrinsically? What are your intrinsic motivations? How do you balance extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in your life?
5. What kind of support team do you have? How can your support team make you a more authentic leader? How should you diversify your team to broaden your perspective?
6. Is your life integrated? Are you able to be the same person in all aspects of your life—personal, work, family, and community? If not, what is holding you back?
7. What does being authentic mean in your life? Are you more effective as a leader when you behave authentically? Have you ever paid a price for your authenticity as a leader? Was it worth it?
8. What steps can you take today, tomorrow, and over the next year to develop your authentic leadership?

Seven Transformations of Leadership

An Article by David Rooke and William Torbert
Harvard Business Review - April 2005

Every company needs transformational leaders—those who spearhead changes that elevate profitability, expand market share, and change the rules of the game in their industry. Great leaders are differentiated not by their personality or philosophy but by their action logic —how they interpret their own and others’ behavior and how they maintain power or protect against threats. For example:

• An Opportunist wins any way possible. Is self-oriented and manipulative.  
• A Diplomat avoids conflict. Wants to belong and obeys group norms; doesn’t rock the boat.
• An Expert rules by logic and expertise. Uses hard data to gain consensus and buy-in.
• An Achiever meets strategic goals. Promotes teamwork and juggles managerial duties to achieve goals.
• An Individualist operates in unconventional ways. Ignores rules he/she regards as irrelevant.
• A Strategist generates organizational and personal change. Weaves visions with pragmatic, timely initiatives and challenges existing assumptions.
• An Alchemist generates social transformations and reinvents organizations.

To be an effective leader, diagnose your current action logic and work to upgrade it by experimenting with new interpersonal behaviors,forging new kinds of relationships, and seizing advantage of work opportunities

In Praise of the Incomplete Leader

An article by Deborah Ancona, Thomas Malone, Wanda Orlikowski & Peter Senge
Harvard Business Review - Feb 2007

No leader is perfect. The best ones don’t try to be—they concentrate on honing their strengths and find others who can make up for their limitations.

Accept that you're human, with strengths and weaknesses and understand the four leadership capabilities all organizations need:

• Sensemaking—interpreting developments in the business environment
• Relating—building trusting relationships 
• Visioning—communicating a compelling image of the future
• Inventing—coming up with new ways of doing things

Then find and work with others who can provide the capabilities you’re missing. Take this approach, and you promote leadership throughout your organization, unleashing the expertise, vision, and new ideas your company needs to excel.

What Makes a Leader?

An article by Daniel Goleman
Harvard Business Review - Dec 1998

What distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones? It isn't IQ or technical skills. It's emotional intelligence: a group of five skills that enable the best leaders to maximize their own and their followers' performance. When senior managers at one company had a critical mass of EI capabilities, their divisions outperformed yearly earnings goals by 20%.

The Emotional Intelligence skills are:

• Self-awareness —knowing one's strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and impact on others
• Self-regulation —controlling or redirecting disruptive impulses and moods
• Motivation —relishing achievement for its own sake 
• Empathy —understanding other people's emotional makeup
• Social skill —building rapport with others to move them in desired directions

We're each born with certain levels of EI skills. But we can strengthen these abilities through persistence, practice, and feedback from colleagues or coaches.

Beware the Next Big Thing

An article by Julian Birkinshaw
Harvard Business Review - May 2014

Innovative management ideas that bubble up in other companies pose a perennial quandary: Should you attempt to borrow them, and if so, which ones and how? Even the most promising practices can fail if they're transplanted int he wrong firm. 

The best approach is to extract the essential principle from a management innovation - its underlying logic - by asking a series of questions about it, including: How is your company different from the originating firm? Are the innovation's goals worthwhile for your organization? Even if you decide the idea isn't right for you, the analysis can help you better understand  your own management models and sharpen your practices. 

How to Outsmart Activist Investors

An article by Bill George and Jay Lorsch
Harvard Business Review - May 2014

Activist hedge funds are playing a larger role in interactions between corporations and markets. Their game is simple: They buy stocks they view as undervalued and pressure management to do things they believe will raise the value. 

Although the activists sometimes have good ideas, they may push for radical course changes that can be disastrous for an organization. Its crucial to be prepared for them so as not to be led astray. 

You can tackle this challenge by:

• Having a clear strategic focus
• Analyzing your business as as activist would
• Having your external advisers lined up in advance
• Building board chemistry
• Performing against declared goals
• Not dismissing activist ideas out of hand