Geeks and Geezers

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Summary: Leadership Development Model - reflective & useful
Review: .
What I find most thought provoking is the authors' notion of the crucible (difficult event/test such as failure, imprisonment, or any personal defining moment) as an important input towards shaping the competencies of the leader as he/she extracts wisdom after having endured it.

The bulk of this book explicates the Leadership Development Model and how it applies to leaders of all ages, both geeks and geezers. In this Model, individual factors (e.g. gender, IQ, race) and the era (with a given shared history/culture/arena) determine how the leader would interpret the crucible, which in turn impacts the development of four leadership competencies:
1. adaptive capacity - hardiness & learning how to learn is key
2. engaging others by creating shared meaning
3. voice (purpose indentified after periods of self-introspection; EQ)
4. strong moral compass or integrity.

I applaud the authors for the elegance of the Model, and its usefulness in serving as a framework for self-introspection - so crucial in the development of timeless leadership.

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Summary: Warren done it again!
Review: Although we can easily get some leadership books from most of the Business Section at any bookstore, please be sure that you won't miss this one!! Excellent!!

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: As a management and leadership literature junkie I always anticipate anything new from Dr Bennis. I have to say this one was disappointing. The generational perspective was novel but un-enlightening. And the basic leadership principles discussed was stuff hashed over any number of times in other texts and previous work by others including Dr Bennis. Admittedly I found myself skipping through pages because I couldn't take another lame example of how "insightful" these twenty-something dot commers were. Comparing their "crucible" of growing up with divorced parents and a TV babysitter with the previous generations' crucibles of watching their buddies shot on the battlefields of WWII or sitting in prison for sixteen years is in my opinion no comparison at all. I'm surprised Dr Bennis as a bronze star recipient himself would allow such an arbitrary parallel to be made. There is a respectful appeal for a return to national leadership and service in the last few pages of the book but this seems too little too late. I'll hold out for the next Bennis book to be a return to the quality I've seen in the past.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: As a management and leadership literature junkie I always anticipate anything new from Dr Bennis. I have to say this one was disappointing. The generational perspective was novel but un-enlightening. And the basic leadership principles discussed was stuff hashed over any number of times in other texts and previous work by others including Dr Bennis. Admittedly I found myself skipping through pages because I couldn't take another lame example of how "insightful" these twenty-something dot commers were. Comparing their "crucible" of growing up with divorced parents and a TV babysitter with the previous generations' crucibles of watching their buddies shot on the battlefields of WWII or sitting in prison for sixteen years is in my opinion no comparison at all. I'm surprised Dr Bennis as a bronze star recipient himself would allow such an arbitrary parallel to be made. There is a respectful appeal for a return to national leadership and service in the last few pages of the book but this seems too little too late. I'll hold out for the next Bennis book to be a return to the quality I've seen in the past.

Rating:
Summary: Out of the Crucible of Life comes Leadership
Review: Geeks & Geezers by Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. Thomas is about how Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders. And it does an excellent job of pointing out the differences between our generations. This Harvard Business School Press publication is definitely useful in understanding the way folks in my parents' generation (the Geezers) react to those in my children's generation (Geek) . Based on their definitions for Geeks and Geezers, I am in between the two, yet most of my acquaintances put me in the Geek category due to my love of and work in the world of technology.

The basic premise of this book is that all leaders must go through a "crucible" of some kind. The kind of leadership characteristics we have may be different because of our environments (Geezers defined by WWII, Parental fallibility, etc. and Geeks by abundance, opportunity, technology and globalization), but every leader is tested somehow. The different environments and experiences affects the needs, wants, character and maturation process for these people and therefore define the differences in leadership style.

After exploring historical experiences and interviewing both groups, the authors complete their leadership model with Era and Individual factors feeding into the crucible of Experiences. The crucible heats up experiences and organization of meaning that develops Leadership competencies. The crucible might be military service in the case of the Geezer of business failure in the case of the Geeks, but whatever that life changing crucible is, it is the one thing that is common to leadership. This book is worth your time and consideration if for no other reason than to understand the value of the crucible we may now be going through in our contracting economy - this so called job-loss recovery.

Rating:
Summary: Out of the Crucible of Life comes Leadership
Review: Geeks & Geezers by Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. Thomas is about how Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders. And it does an excellent job of pointing out the differences between our generations. This Harvard Business School Press publication is definitely useful in understanding the way folks in my parents' generation (the Geezers) react to those in my children's generation (Geek) . Based on their definitions for Geeks and Geezers, I am in between the two, yet most of my acquaintances put me in the Geek category due to my love of and work in the world of technology.

The basic premise of this book is that all leaders must go through a "crucible" of some kind. The kind of leadership characteristics we have may be different because of our environments (Geezers defined by WWII, Parental fallibility, etc. and Geeks by abundance, opportunity, technology and globalization), but every leader is tested somehow. The different environments and experiences affects the needs, wants, character and maturation process for these people and therefore define the differences in leadership style.

After exploring historical experiences and interviewing both groups, the authors complete their leadership model with Era and Individual factors feeding into the crucible of Experiences. The crucible heats up experiences and organization of meaning that develops Leadership competencies. The crucible might be military service in the case of the Geezer of business failure in the case of the Geeks, but whatever that life changing crucible is, it is the one thing that is common to leadership. This book is worth your time and consideration if for no other reason than to understand the value of the crucible we may now be going through in our contracting economy - this so called job-loss recovery.

Rating:
Summary: Okay, I dont get it, isnt this stuff just common sense???
Review: I have just finished watching Bennis talk about his book on C-Span's book reviews and have just read the individual book reviews here--and I don't get it. Isn't this stuff just common sense? Leaders have to be resilient? Leaders have to have charisma? Leaders have to be deep and have a vision that comes from introspection? Leaders have to have a moral compass? And the one I truly don't get is why the hoopla over the "crucible". My goodness, who has gone through life without a "crucible" experience? We are all men of clay--put into the kiln of life to see what comes out--if anything is patently obvious you would think that would be. What comes out of the other end of the crucible for Bennis is the myopic focus on "leaders". So what I get out of this is that Warren Bennis is a genius in finding the center of the watermellon--an easy life in southern California writing about stuff that is just plain obvious--and getting paid wildly for it. Bennis came out of the crucible not as a leader, but as crafty. How about you?

Rating:
Summary: Okay, I dont get it, isnt this stuff just common sense???
Review: I have just finished watching Bennis talk about his book on C-Span's book reviews and have just read the individual book reviews here--and I don't get it. Isn't this stuff just common sense? Leaders have to be resilient? Leaders have to have charisma? Leaders have to be deep and have a vision that comes from introspection? Leaders have to have a moral compass? And the one I truly don't get is why the hoopla over the "crucible". My goodness, who has gone through life without a "crucible" experience? We are all men of clay--put into the kiln of life to see what comes out--if anything is patently obvious you would think that would be. What comes out of the other end of the crucible for Bennis is the myopic focus on "leaders". So what I get out of this is that Warren Bennis is a genius in finding the center of the watermellon--an easy life in southern California writing about stuff that is just plain obvious--and getting paid wildly for it. Bennis came out of the crucible not as a leader, but as crafty. How about you?

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Summary: "Crucibles" Which Create Exceptional Leaders of All Ages
Review: I have read all and reviewed most of the books which Bennis has authored or co-authored. My opinion is that this is the most thought-provoking as yet produced by the self-styled "geezer." His co-author is Robert J. Thomas. They are now at work on another book, entitled Leadership Crucibles, which develops in much greater depth the material they introduce in Chapter Four of this book.

In From Good to Great, Jim Collins explains that he and his 21 research associates set out to answer these questions: Is it possible for a good, mediocre or even terrible organization to become great? If so, what are the underlying variables that enable it to do so? If not, why not?. "We came to think of our research effort as akin to looking inside a black box. Each step along the way was like installing another lightbulb to shed light on the inner workings of the good-to-great process."

Similarly, what we have here is Bennis and Thomas' response to another question: "Why are some people able to extract wisdom from experience, however harsh, and others are not?" Bennis and Thomas asked successful geeks to share the secrets of their youthful triumphs and distinguished geezers to tell them how they continue to stay active and engaged despite the changes wrought by age. They selected and then interviewed a group of 43 effective leaders, ranging in age from 21 to 93. Their research also included others who were not interviewed. As many as possible of the interviews were videotaped because Bennis and Thomas knew that "taping would preserve a wealth of information that no transcript could capture.". The results of their study are presented and discussed in this book. It would be a disservice to them as well as to those who read this review to summarize all of the conclusions they reached.

Among the findings of their research, Bennis and Thomas learned that Geezers and Geeks had quite different concerns when in the age range of 25-30. The Geezers' concerns were making a living, earning a good salary, starting and supporting a family, stability and security, working hard and getting rewarded by the system, listening to their elders, paying "dues" to various organizations, and using retirement to enjoy life. In contrast, Geeks' concerns (during the same age range) were making history, achieving personal wealth, launching a career, change and impermamence, working hard so they can write their own rules, wondering if their elders "got it wrong," deciding where loyalty should lie, and achieving a balance between work and life.

These are significant differences which Bennis and Thomas explain in terms of the different eras in which Geeks lived (at ages 25-30), the societal values of their respective generations, and various "defining moments" such as those associated with the Great Depression, World War Two as well as Viet Nam and the emergence of the Internet and World Wide Web.

Of special interest to me is Bennis and Thomas' discussion of "crucibles" from which some emerge as leaders but most others do not. As they explain, they developed a theory that describes, they believe for the first time, how leaders come to be. "We believe that we have identified the process that allows an individual to undergo testing and to emerge, not just stronger, but better equipped with the tools he or she needs both to lead and to learn. It is a model that explains how individuals make meaning out of difficult events -- we call them crucibles [in italics] -- and how that process of 'meaning making' both galvanizes individuals and gives them their distinctive voice." They cite and then discuss a number of individuals who underwent that process and, as a result, became highly-effective leaders. Clarke and Crossland also have much of value to say about "the leader's voice" in their book so entitled.

Bennis and Thomas conclude their book with an especially apt quotation from Edith Wharton: "In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch enemy, sorrow, one can remain alive long past the the usual state of integration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways." These are indeed words to live and grow by for both Geeks and Geezers.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting concepts from 2 vast age groups the geeks and
Review: the geezers! Worth reading for both business leadership reasons as well as interesting concepts. There are some similiar qualities shared by the younger successful Geeks and the older successful Geezers.