Personal and Organizational Transformations

Rating:
Summary: Want to really learn to lead? This is your book.
Review: Finally, someone's written a book that lays out a concrete, repeatable process for learning how to lead others and youself. Many books on leadership and management state general principles of how to lead, but leave the reader wondering what, specifically, he or she should do in real situations that require transformative action. Personal and Organizational Transformations is different.

This hugely helpful book shows with examples and exercises how to face scary or difficult situations and turn them into opportunities for self-development, advancement and building relationships with other folks. It has become cliche to remark how the Chinese character for crisis combines the symbols for danger and opportunity. This book's focus on day-to-day events and relationships actually shows the reader how this could be. Crises, boring situations, and bad interactions are actually opportunities for self-leadership or leading others. The book makes it clear that while we usually think of leadership as some grand gesture, changing small things is actually the place any transformation has to start. The examples, theory, and exercises in the book help the reader develop the courage, tenacity, and ingenuity to take on challenges in day-to-day life in transformative ways. I found it strengthened my ability to have a significant impact on the organizations I work in and in my personal life.

Rating:
Summary: Want to really learn to lead? This is your book.
Review: Finally, someone's written a book that lays out a concrete, repeatable process for learning how to lead others and youself. Many books on leadership and management state general principles of how to lead, but leave the reader wondering what, specifically, he or she should do in real situations that require transformative action. Personal and Organizational Transformations is different.

This hugely helpful book shows with examples and exercises how to face scary or difficult situations and turn them into opportunities for self-development, advancement and building relationships with other folks. It has become cliche to remark how the Chinese character for crisis combines the symbols for danger and opportunity. This book's focus on day-to-day events and relationships actually shows the reader how this could be. Crises, boring situations, and bad interactions are actually opportunities for self-leadership or leading others. The book makes it clear that while we usually think of leadership as some grand gesture, changing small things is actually the place any transformation has to start. The examples, theory, and exercises in the book help the reader develop the courage, tenacity, and ingenuity to take on challenges in day-to-day life in transformative ways. I found it strengthened my ability to have a significant impact on the organizations I work in and in my personal life.

Rating:
Summary: An engaging, far-reaching approach to leadership development
Review: I found this to be an exceptional book. I would particularly recommend it to those looking for an edge in developing better leaders and the organizational capabilities needed for the 21st century. Profusely illustrated with real-world examples, it provides new ways of thinking about leadership and organizational development and shows how leaders at all levels can engage in a new approach the authors call "developmental action inquiry." If you've been trying to put your finger on what's still missing in current organizational learning or action learning initiatives, this book could serve as a useful guide for going to the next level.

In Part I, the authors show how individual leaders learn to engage in a self-sustained process they call "action inquiry." Action inquiry not only involves experimenting with increasingly more effective leadership behavior (for example, improving working relationships, teams, and organizations). It also involves reflecting on these experiments and then using the insights gained in further action. The authors bring a sense of passion and clarity to this seemingly simple (but actually quite challenging) process, which seems to be the foundation for everything that follows.

One of the book's unique contributions comes in Part II, where the authors draw on a half-century of research on human - especially adult - development, combined with their own research on the relationship between leadership behavior and stages of personal development. In these chapters they show how new leadership competencies become available to people as they grow into successive stages of human development. In a sense, the authors have created an extraverted counterpart to the widely acclaimed and more introverted developmental framework elaborated by Ken Wilber. (See, for example, his recent book, Integral Psychology).

Because the global business environment has evolved into a turbulent mix of interdependence, rapid change, and uncertainty, many leadership programs are designed (at least implicitly) to help managers develop the competencies needed to operate more effectively in this environment. (These competencies include, for example: a greater awareness of feelings, assumptions, and multiple perspectives and the ability to think systemically, understand and engage multiple stakeholders, reframe situations, and think "out of the box"- all while remaining focused on the pragmatic issues of business strategy and operations). The authors show that these and related competencies often associated "leadership" - as opposed to "management" - correlate with growth into a particular stage of human development that is still fairly rare according to the research. I think this helps explain why leadership programs often don't stick, when they tout these competencies but don't necessarily understand or facilitate the underlying stage-development needed to truly embody them.

In Part III, the authors lay out a model of stages of organization development. Though at one level this seems to be just another life-cycle model of organizations, the unique contribution of this model is that it conceptualizes its stages in a way that parallels the individual stages presented in Part II. In this model, each successive stage gives birth to new organizational capabilities needed to re-purpose, re-structure, and continuously improve in response to increasingly complex environmental conditions. The organizational stages and the transitions from one to the other are illustrated with real-world examples.

Finally, Part IV explores the inner and outer reaches of action inquiry, drawing on the authors' empirical and life research to conceptualize and document even "higher" (deeper?) stages of leadership and organizational development. The examples provided in this section are sketchy and suffer from a low sample size, but they are intriguing. This section also includes a thought-provoking chapter that brings alive for contemporary leaders the Socratic question, "What is the good life?"

Overall, this ambitious book succeeds in being both pragmatic and far reaching. This second edition of the book, with its two new chapters, deserves wide readership among thinking leaders; among HR, Training, and Organization Development professionals; and among professors and students of leadership and organizations.

Rating:
Summary: An engaging, far-reaching approach to leadership development
Review: I found this to be an exceptional book. I would particularly recommend it to those looking for an edge in developing better leaders and the organizational capabilities needed for the 21st century. Profusely illustrated with real-world examples, it provides new ways of thinking about leadership and organizational development and shows how leaders at all levels can engage in a new approach the authors call "developmental action inquiry." If you've been trying to put your finger on what's still missing in current organizational learning or action learning initiatives, this book could serve as a useful guide for going to the next level.

In Part I, the authors show how individual leaders learn to engage in a self-sustained process they call "action inquiry." Action inquiry not only involves experimenting with increasingly more effective leadership behavior (for example, improving working relationships, teams, and organizations). It also involves reflecting on these experiments and then using the insights gained in further action. The authors bring a sense of passion and clarity to this seemingly simple (but actually quite challenging) process, which seems to be the foundation for everything that follows.

One of the book's unique contributions comes in Part II, where the authors draw on a half-century of research on human - especially adult - development, combined with their own research on the relationship between leadership behavior and stages of personal development. In these chapters they show how new leadership competencies become available to people as they grow into successive stages of human development. In a sense, the authors have created an extraverted counterpart to the widely acclaimed and more introverted developmental framework elaborated by Ken Wilber. (See, for example, his recent book, Integral Psychology).

Because the global business environment has evolved into a turbulent mix of interdependence, rapid change, and uncertainty, many leadership programs are designed (at least implicitly) to help managers develop the competencies needed to operate more effectively in this environment. (These competencies include, for example: a greater awareness of feelings, assumptions, and multiple perspectives and the ability to think systemically, understand and engage multiple stakeholders, reframe situations, and think "out of the box"- all while remaining focused on the pragmatic issues of business strategy and operations). The authors show that these and related competencies often associated "leadership" - as opposed to "management" - correlate with growth into a particular stage of human development that is still fairly rare according to the research. I think this helps explain why leadership programs often don't stick, when they tout these competencies but don't necessarily understand or facilitate the underlying stage-development needed to truly embody them.

In Part III, the authors lay out a model of stages of organization development. Though at one level this seems to be just another life-cycle model of organizations, the unique contribution of this model is that it conceptualizes its stages in a way that parallels the individual stages presented in Part II. In this model, each successive stage gives birth to new organizational capabilities needed to re-purpose, re-structure, and continuously improve in response to increasingly complex environmental conditions. The organizational stages and the transitions from one to the other are illustrated with real-world examples.

Finally, Part IV explores the inner and outer reaches of action inquiry, drawing on the authors' empirical and life research to conceptualize and document even "higher" (deeper?) stages of leadership and organizational development. The examples provided in this section are sketchy and suffer from a low sample size, but they are intriguing. This section also includes a thought-provoking chapter that brings alive for contemporary leaders the Socratic question, "What is the good life?"

Overall, this ambitious book succeeds in being both pragmatic and far reaching. This second edition of the book, with its two new chapters, deserves wide readership among thinking leaders; among HR, Training, and Organization Development professionals; and among professors and students of leadership and organizations.

Rating:
Summary: Action Inquiry along the developmental path
Review: P&OT is a highly engaging new guide to putting action inquiry from theory into practice. Journal entries and reflections from working MBA students, consultants and executives illustrate the success of this carefully constructed "manual" to enhance self-efficacy and awareness of multiple mental models in action. Unlike Argyris's and Senge's work, which advocates systems theory as a better, more adequate worldview than the common linear-scientific mental model in Western society, P&OT elucidates the whole sequence of the developmental trajectory in adults. It covers the transformation from early stages to the most rare, and most complex and influential mental models beyond a systems view. It gives a vivid sense of each action logic as it represents both a triumph over the earlier worldview or mental model and presents its own specific opportunities and vulnerabilities for further growth. In addition, the authors postulate developmental parallels to organizational stages and evolution. These may be helpful as signposts or in locating particular growing pains that companies go through from their conception stage through systematic productivity. Ever more important in today's global environment, P&OT also shows what it takes for organizations to become viable learning communities that are capable to renew themselves in response to multiple constituencies and rapidly changing conditions. Fisher, Rooke and Torbert provide an excellent and practical resource for organizational studies and leadership development courses, as well as transformational consulting and coaching. This handy volume calls on all of us to be more courageous, experimental and mindful, a message which is also at the core of Bohmian dialogue practices, critical thinking and self-reflection exercises from other sources. Moreover, with its rigorous developmental foundation, P&OT fits into the All Quadrant, All Levels model of science as advocated in Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology.

Rating:
Summary: An important addition to the transformation literature
Review: This book, if not only read carefully but also taken to heart through committed practice, can transform the way you work, indeed, the way you live your life and engage in action in the workplace.

It reports on research and practice conducted over a period of more than 30 years that has implications not only for personal and organizational transformation, but also for societal transformation. It includes numerous in-depth examples which anchor the overall approach to simultaneous inquiry and action. Unfortunately, for those who want a `quick fix' or an easy `formula' for creating greater personal or organizational effectiveness this book will probably frustrate and disappoint most readers.

The core ideas are based on a developmental view of individuals and organizations, that is implicitly present in some of the most enduringly creative and dynamic institutions throughout history. But the real test of these ideas is to utilize them in practice and through consistent efforts to inquire in the midst of daily action. The exercises and ideas are helpful to individuals at all levels of leadership who wish to develop further their skills and competencies in creating long-term effectiveness at increasingly deeper and broader levels of cognition.

This reviewer is a Professor of Strategic Management at a European business school who has been attempting to apply many of the core ideas and practices in this book for three decades - in both organizational settings as well as in daily life. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in making the effort to engage in long-term personal and organizational transformation. Otherwise, if it is quick change you are after, it is better that you stay with the over-simplified `cook books' that most management books manifest as.

Rating:
Summary: An important addition to the transformation literature
Review: This book, if not only read carefully but also taken to heart through committed practice, can transform the way you work, indeed, the way you live your life and engage in action in the workplace.

It reports on research and practice conducted over a period of more than 30 years that has implications not only for personal and organizational transformation, but also for societal transformation. It includes numerous in-depth examples which anchor the overall approach to simultaneous inquiry and action. Unfortunately, for those who want a 'quick fix' or an easy 'formula' for creating greater personal or organizational effectiveness this book will probably frustrate and disappoint most readers.

The core ideas are based on a developmental view of individuals and organizations, that is implicitly present in some of the most enduringly creative and dynamic institutions throughout history. But the real test of these ideas is to utilize them in practice and through consistent efforts to inquire in the midst of daily action. The exercises and ideas are helpful to individuals at all levels of leadership who wish to develop further their skills and competencies in creating long-term effectiveness at increasingly deeper and broader levels of cognition.

This reviewer is a Professor of Strategic Management at a European business school who has been attempting to apply many of the core ideas and practices in this book for three decades - in both organizational settings as well as in daily life. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in making the effort to engage in long-term personal and organizational transformation. Otherwise, if it is quick change you are after, it is better that you stay with the over-simplified 'cook books' that most management books manifest as.