The Leader's Handbook: Making Things Happen, Getting Things Done

Rating:
Summary: Peter Scholtes introduces us to his new book
Review: Author's comments on The Leader's Handbook: Making Things Happen, Getting Things Done It took me a long time to write this book... a process of distillation and percolation, even before I put words on paper. This was the result of a long labor and delivery. My publisher had asked what my purpose was in writing this book. Here is what I said: I want a book that will make a difference. I want my book to say that simple answers to complex issues will not accomplish anything worthwhile. Behind the complexity is a simplicity that we can come to understand only by struggling. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it eloquently: "I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity; But I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." I hope this book is more than a management book. Leadership is a universal experience both for the leader and those being led. While much of my book applies to leading a business the insights and learnings apply to educators, healthcare, leaders, government, social groups, religious organizations... anywhere people try to make things happen and get things done together. I've tried to make The Leader's Handbook fun to read. I write as I speak, with lots of side bars telling various anecdotes. I try to lace it with humor. And I try to feel passionately about what I have to say. For all of this the reader, of course, will be the final judge. This is what some of my friends have to say about The Leader's Handbook: Peter Scholtes has done it again! The Leadership Handbook is the perfect guide for people trying and hoping to accomplish positive change. It's witty, deceptively simple, clear and, most of all, wise and effective. The conclusion with 47 Habits of Pretty Good Leaders should be required reading for everyone of voting age. An excellent and easy to understand primer for continual improvement for the individual and any organization in today's turbulent world. - Clare Crawford-Mason "The Leadership Handbook is a rare gift for all leaders who want to continue their personal path of learning. Scholtes writes as gracefully as he speaks. His unending supply of insightful models, delightful stories, and practical suggestions for action offers an exceptional bridge to the future. How can you argue with the teachings of a master?" - Daniel K. Oestreich, co-author Driving Fear Out of the Workplace and The Courageous Messenger It is not often one finds top notch theory and practiced in one place, but The Leaders Handbook is a treasury of specific suggestions informed by a wise, humanistic model of how organizations work - and ought to work. Peter Scholtes may actually manage to give consultants a good name - Alfie Kohn Peter Scholtes' delightful new book should be required reading for all managers and executives. He goes beyond the anecdotal fluff which is common today and gives us a way to become effective leaders which is based on sound theory and practice. - Donald J. Wheeler, President of Statistical Process Controls and author of several best selling books on statistical thinking Peter Scholtes has made another prominent contribution to the complex world of quality improvement. The Leader's Handbook is a great companion to The Team Handbook and relates, in an uncomplicated, easy to read and understand format, the necessary knowledge and role of a leader in improving organizations. Business, education, and government leaders will all benefit from this handbook. I highly recommend it for anyone serious about leading their organization into the 21st Century - David P. Langford Co- Author of Orchestrating Learning with Quality There are more references to Peter Scholtes in my own book on the Deming philosophy that virtually anybody else other than Dr. Deming and Shewhart. He's great! This comprehensive presentation of Peter's work over recent years will prove invaluable to everyone who is serious about managing and leading in a much better way. - Henry Neave, Director of Education and Research of the British Deming Assoc. and Principal Lecturer in Management in the Quality Unit at Nottingham Trent University, Author of The Deming Dimension When Peter Scholtes talks, I listen. When he writes, I read. If you want to learn about quality, you should do the likewise - Myron Tribus Finally, in one place, a compendium of the many ideas and methods that Peter has shared with audiences over the years. The Leader's Handbook is a valuable companion to The Team Handbook and should benefit anyone desiring to improve the performance of their organization. - Dr. Edward M. Baker The following chapters make up the book: - Forward by Russell Ackoff 1. Train Wrecks and Bad Radios: How we got where we are 2. The New Leadership Competencies 3. Systems Thinking: The Heart of 21st Century Leadership 4. Getting the Daily Work Done 5. Giving Meaning, Purpose, Direction and Focus to Work 6. Breakthrough Improvement 7. Keeping Track: Measurements of Improvement, Progress and Success 8. Leading by Asking Good Questions 9. Performance Without Appraisal 10. Leadership into the Next Millennium There are some comments in the book that are unconventional. While they are not the way managers usually approach the subject of leadership, these statements reflect my strong beliefs, the net output of my nearly forty years of observing leaders and leadership. - We look to the heroic efforts of outstanding individuals for our success. Instead we must create systems that routinely produce excellent work with the everyday efforts of ordinary people. - Changing the system will change what people do. Changing what people do will not change the system. - Certain common management approaches - management by objectives, performance appraisal, merit pay, pay for performance and ISO 9000 - represent not leadership but the abdication of leadership. - Current buzzwords like "empowerment", "accountability", and "high performance" are meaningless, empty babble. - Ninety-five percent of the changes undertaken in organizations have nothing to do with improvement. - The greatest conceit of managers is that they can motivate people. Managers' attempts to motivate people will only make things worse. - Behind incentive programs lies management's patronizing and cynical sets of assumptions about workers: managers implicitly say to workers, "I'm OK, you need incentives." Managers imply a belief that their workers are withholding a certain amount of effort waiting for it to be bribed out of them. If you are intrigued with these statements and want to hear more explanation about why they are true, I encourage you to read The Leader's Handbook

Rating:
Summary: A reader
Review: Being a disciple of W. Edwards Demming, Peter Scholtes has a quality department's process bias; emphasizing systems, processes and statistics. Was I reading another new age quality assurance textbook? Because of this, I felt he overemphasized the present moment. True leaders are going places and have many loyal followers. The book rarely talks about this visionary thinking or how effective organizations are moving into new areas. This is a good book for beginners as long as you're aware he presents a different viewpoint, and because of this, he did bring some useful ideas that other books didn't have. Ironically, he openly admits that you may not agree with some of his viewpoints.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Great book using the same style that made the Team Handbook such a success - great ideas, well written, easy to use and in a format that makes it easy to use as a reference book.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Manual
Review: Having attended one of his talks, I gathered this book to be condensed from Scholtes' personal experience and practical knowledge which can also be seen in his "Teams" predecessor. A functional manual covering leadership in all aspects, with its depths and substance manifested in simple and easy to follow guidelines.

An ideal recommendation for any modern manager.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Manual
Review: Having attended one of his talks, I gathered this book to be condensed from Scholtes' personal experience and practical knowledge which can also be seen in his "Teams" predecessor. A functional manual covering leadership in all aspects, with its depths and substance manifested in simple and easy to follow guidelines.

An ideal recommendation for any modern manager.

Rating:
Summary: A model for the leaders of the future.
Review: I knew that the organization I work for was stuck in the stone-age (Dismal Leaders). Then Something amazing happened. Upper management decided we needed a change. Due to my backround in Teambuilding, I was asked to Champion the change for the future. I decided to utilize most of the things I learned from reading this insightful book. The results to this point have been outstanding. People are beginning to come out of their shells and be creative again. Barriers are slowly coming down throughout the organization. Real Work is getting done through cross-funtional teams of people who care about customer satisfaction. We have a long way to go, but as long as management sticks to their word, change will happen. This book is a useful tool for that transformation.Everyone who is in a management position should read this book and learn what it's like to truely lead your fellow workers. I also recommend the Team Handbook.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad
Review: I really liked his idea about putting everything into 'systems'. However, there seemed to be a bit of theory involved and I did not really like his talk too much on that kind of stuff. I liked all the practical talk. All in all, it is a great book. I would recommend E-Myth by Michael Gerber, for more talk on running a business through systems.

Rating:
Summary: Practical, incisive and visionary handbook
Review: Scholtes expects to shock people right from the first page of his Preface. Let me quote extensively:
"More than 95 percent of your organization's problems derive from your systems, processes, and methods, not from your individual workers....

We look to the heroic efforts of outstanding individuals for our successful work. Instead we must create systems that routinely allow excellent work to result from the ordinary efforts of ordinary people.

Changing the system will change what people do. Changing what people do will not change the system.

Certain common management approaches--management by objectives, performance appraisal, merit pay, pay for performance, and ISO 9000--represent not leadership but the abdication of leadership.

Current buzzwords like empowerment, accountability, and high performance are meaningless, empty babble..." (ix-x)

The old organizations's leaders need: forcefulness, ability to motivate and inspire, decisiveness, willfulness, assertiveness, result- and bottom-line orientation, being task-oriented and having integrity and diplomacy.

Scholtes' new leadership competencies (much influenced by Edward Deming's ideas...) are based on a new mentality and understanding of: systems thinking, variability of work, how we learn, psychology and human behavior, interactions of these components, and vision, meaning, direction and focus.

The bulk of the book gives clear elaborations of these new competencies, with charts, illustrations, pertinent questions and many tools. Ch. 4 on "Getting the Daily Work Done" is a tough one, partly because it takes much effort to grasp the author's use of a Japanese term, "Gemba" (even when I can read the original Chinese characters). Issues of waste, standardization, change versus improvement, performance without appraisal, use of measurement data... are all seen in the new light of systems thinking.

Carefully study the differences between "Crazymakers" and "Healing and Learning" in the workplace (pp378-387). There is a summary of the book under "The 47 Habits of Pretty Good Leaders" (pp391-6). Peter Senge's books give excellent background material. This one is a real handbook that should be methodically studied, discussed, adapted and applied to one's own institutions. One must not forget the advice given in Chapter 1: "leaders must be patient with themselves and others, persistent, and humble, and allow themselves and others to be inelegant." (p12,p391)

Rating:
Summary: Practical, incisive and visionary handbook
Review: Scholtes expects to shock people right from the first page of his Preface. Let me quote extensively:
"More than 95 percent of your organization's problems derive from your systems, processes, and methods, not from your individual workers....

We look to the heroic efforts of outstanding individuals for our successful work. Instead we must create systems that routinely allow excellent work to result from the ordinary efforts of ordinary people.

Changing the system will change what people do. Changing what people do will not change the system.

Certain common management approaches--management by objectives, performance appraisal, merit pay, pay for performance, and ISO 9000--represent not leadership but the abdication of leadership.

Current buzzwords like empowerment, accountability, and high performance are meaningless, empty babble..." (ix-x)

The old organizations's leaders need: forcefulness, ability to motivate and inspire, decisiveness, willfulness, assertiveness, result- and bottom-line orientation, being task-oriented and having integrity and diplomacy.

Scholtes' new leadership competencies (much influenced by Edward Deming's ideas...) are based on a new mentality and understanding of: systems thinking, variability of work, how we learn, psychology and human behavior, interactions of these components, and vision, meaning, direction and focus.

The bulk of the book gives clear elaborations of these new competencies, with charts, illustrations, pertinent questions and many tools. Ch. 4 on "Getting the Daily Work Done" is a tough one, partly because it takes much effort to grasp the author's use of a Japanese term, "Gemba" (even when I can read the original Chinese characters). Issues of waste, standardization, change versus improvement, performance without appraisal, use of measurement data... are all seen in the new light of systems thinking.

Carefully study the differences between "Crazymakers" and "Healing and Learning" in the workplace (pp378-387). There is a summary of the book under "The 47 Habits of Pretty Good Leaders" (pp391-6). Peter Senge's books give excellent background material. This one is a real handbook that should be methodically studied, discussed, adapted and applied to one's own institutions. One must not forget the advice given in Chapter 1: "leaders must be patient with themselves and others, persistent, and humble, and allow themselves and others to be inelegant." (p12,p391)

Rating:
Summary: Bored, then Impressed
Review: To all those who want to have a business, read this book. At first I hated Peter Scholtes method, but then I grew to love it. It is very similar in the methodology of Steven Covey that at first it is annoying because it is right, but then you realize use it because it is right.

Scholtes make the terms of business easy to understand. There are no complex terms. It is just straight talk that is fairly fascinating.

I especially liked his talk on presenting data. Its not complex graphs or mathematical concepts, its just straightforward presentation. Look for some data from the Napoleonic wars.

Anyway, a good read. No matter what.