Enlightened Leadership

Rating:
Summary: Meno's Manager
Review: "The manager is dead!" Just like Neitzche's madman, Oakley and Krug assert that management as we have know it cannot exist in the current environment of vast information and rapid change. We do not need the military model that has been thriving in Corporate America. The world of the 21st century requires more than a mindful puppeteer bringing his/her men in the line of battle. The emerging model is not individual with the answers, but the individual with the questions. If this sounds too much off the mark, think about the last project you were involved in. How many questions were you asked? How much time did it take to get your team on board? Did they ever come on board? If you are like many, the answers are perplex. But you know intuitively that the best ideas are your own. Why would that not be any different for your employees? The Enlightened Leader is one who can ask the most effective questions that empower and energize the team in order to get the commitment and creativity necessary to meet usurmountable tasks. A question is a question is a question . . .this may be true for Shakespeare but not for Oakley and Skug. Enlightened Leaders are asking very intentional and structured questions called Effective Questions (EQ). The type of questioning they suggest is counter-culteral, not counter-intuitive. The assert that the most effective questions follow this very basic and positive template: Structured Effective Questions: 1) What is already working? 2) What makes it work? 3) What is our objective? 4) What are the benefits of achieving that objective? 5) What can we do to move closer to the objective?

Oakley and Krug understand that "it is vitally important to balance the energy focused on the these two factors: supporting our people and creating results. A closer look at these questions provides that balance. Questions 1 and 2 provide encouragement and growth for people. Questions 3,4, and 5 focus on creating results. "Both factors are essential for long term results." The difficulty that we have is most of the time we are asking core and critical questions in crisis. It is sometimes difficult to see what is working when the company is in the red or being taken over by another or losing core quality employees. The power, however, comes from asking these questions in good times and in bad. By starting with the positive-people come together to problem solve not point fingers. Due to the complexity of today's business the "cookie-cutter hierarchy" does not work. Each organization needs to come up with individual and personal models that allow for business needs to be accomplished in a manner that engages employees. While many are practicing Total Quality Management the power comes from Total Quality Consciousness. This comes when leaders are asking positive and effective questions that raise the employees awareness of what is being accomplilshed and how they contribue to make the vision a reality. A large part of the book is laying the foundation for the importance of questions in getting buy in. But all the questions in the world cannot make an Enlightened Leader. Englightened Leaders come with a framework that have the following core beliefs about people in the workforce: · The most important factor in an organization's success is its people. · The behavior of leadership has a major impact on the people. · People resist being told what to do, and they reading commit to making their own ideas work. · To the extent that people feel cared about and supported, they will go to extremes to help those who help them. · There is tremendous support in numbers. For those of you who are feeling uncomfortable with this emphasis on the "soft side" of business, Oakley and Krug say "get used to it!" When you get to the heart of most business problems there are usually fundemental human issues at the core. Oakley and Krug bring with them several examples of how this framework has truly empowerd and facilitated results from a vast cross sections of business from Hewlett-Packard, U.S Customer Service, Colorado State Patrol, and General Electric. While the book certainly inspires leaders to think about how they engage their workforce and provides examples of the results of this type of leadership. There is little information on "how to get there." Certainly it is a process more complicated than asking the right questions. Traditional leaders and managers may need some more practical scenarios to facilitate the internal and external changes needed to provide the level of awareness that is required of Enlightened Leaders. The book is full of wisdom from the masters including Peter Drucker, John Naisbitt, Tom Peters, Warren Bennis, Peter Block, and W. Edwards Deming. It was dissappointing that none of the voices highlighted were female. After all, Patricia Aburdene helped to write Megatrends. As Peter Drucker says," The best way to predict the future is to create it," there is no better way to create your disired future than asking Effective Questions!

Rating:
Summary: Enlightened Leadership, Getting to the heart of Change
Review: Amazon.com

Enlightened Leadership - Getting to the Heart of Change

By Ed Oakley and Doug Krug

Enlightened Leadership is a common sense, "how to" book for enacting change in an organization. Through the easy reading text or even the summary notes provided at the conclusion of each chapter, strategies are given to utilize the internal work force in envisioning, designing, marrying and implementing change.

Oakley and Krug profess an enlightened leader is one who has a vision and through a variety of strategies, encourages the organization's members to "buy in" and commit to following through with the change. They also indicate enlightened leaders do not necessarily need to be the visionaries. They are individuals who possess the ability to inspire others to create the vision, focus the efforts and encourage fruition. Obviously, if the vision is conceived by the organizational membership, the buy in is reduced.

This book delineates for the leader meaningful strategies/insights to attain beneficial change through "enlightened" utilization of human resources. Oakley and Krug discuss Pareto's Principle - about 20% of your employees will be open to change (the 20% that accomplish approximately 80% of the work) and approximately 80% of your employees will be resistance to change and possibly try to sabotage the new system. The authors call the 20% "Creative Thinkers" (high performers) and the 80% "Reactive Thinkers" (low performers). Creative Thinkers typically have a strong, positive self-concept where Reactive Thinkers self-esteem is typically very low. Knowing that self-esteem is a major factor in the willing acceptance of change, the enlightened leader must concentrate on improving employees' self-esteem along with the vision for change. Oakley and Krug believe it is healthy for individuals' self-esteem to focus on solutions versus problems.

The enlightened leader's challenge is to continue to focus the employees' efforts on positive, constructive solutions for change and enhancement. A strategy to ensure continued focus is called "Effective Questions (EQs)". Asking the right questions that generate creativity and listening with discernment result in continual improvement for the organization and a high level of employee satisfaction. According to Oakley and Krug, EQs positively address mindset issues in a variety of ways: EQs are open-ended, focus on increasing the energy and attention on the desired outcome, ask "what" and "how" instead of "why", assist employees to learn through the process of answering, give credit for answers (right or wrong), are multileveled, create a trust factor with the leader, help leaders become better listeners, provide clarification, and empower and value the employees. It is also important to communicate the intent that prompts the question. Employees will sense whether the employer is attempting to harm or help them.

This book is a useful resource for today's leaders. Leadership today is so different from past leadership roles. Our changing and mobile society requires a leader to talent search and to engage his/her employees in the change process instead of mandating. This book provides tools to assist the leader in focusing the employees on solutions to the problem versus concentrating only on the problem itself and enabling employees to own the paradigm change.

Rating:
Summary: Enlightened Leadership, Getting to the heart of Change
Review: Amazon.com

Enlightened Leadership - Getting to the Heart of Change

By Ed Oakley and Doug Krug

Enlightened Leadership is a common sense, "how to" book for enacting change in an organization. Through the easy reading text or even the summary notes provided at the conclusion of each chapter, strategies are given to utilize the internal work force in envisioning, designing, marrying and implementing change.

Oakley and Krug profess an enlightened leader is one who has a vision and through a variety of strategies, encourages the organization's members to "buy in" and commit to following through with the change. They also indicate enlightened leaders do not necessarily need to be the visionaries. They are individuals who possess the ability to inspire others to create the vision, focus the efforts and encourage fruition. Obviously, if the vision is conceived by the organizational membership, the buy in is reduced.

This book delineates for the leader meaningful strategies/insights to attain beneficial change through "enlightened" utilization of human resources. Oakley and Krug discuss Pareto's Principle - about 20% of your employees will be open to change (the 20% that accomplish approximately 80% of the work) and approximately 80% of your employees will be resistance to change and possibly try to sabotage the new system. The authors call the 20% "Creative Thinkers" (high performers) and the 80% "Reactive Thinkers" (low performers). Creative Thinkers typically have a strong, positive self-concept where Reactive Thinkers self-esteem is typically very low. Knowing that self-esteem is a major factor in the willing acceptance of change, the enlightened leader must concentrate on improving employees' self-esteem along with the vision for change. Oakley and Krug believe it is healthy for individuals' self-esteem to focus on solutions versus problems.

The enlightened leader's challenge is to continue to focus the employees' efforts on positive, constructive solutions for change and enhancement. A strategy to ensure continued focus is called "Effective Questions (EQs)". Asking the right questions that generate creativity and listening with discernment result in continual improvement for the organization and a high level of employee satisfaction. According to Oakley and Krug, EQs positively address mindset issues in a variety of ways: EQs are open-ended, focus on increasing the energy and attention on the desired outcome, ask "what" and "how" instead of "why", assist employees to learn through the process of answering, give credit for answers (right or wrong), are multileveled, create a trust factor with the leader, help leaders become better listeners, provide clarification, and empower and value the employees. It is also important to communicate the intent that prompts the question. Employees will sense whether the employer is attempting to harm or help them.

This book is a useful resource for today's leaders. Leadership today is so different from past leadership roles. Our changing and mobile society requires a leader to talent search and to engage his/her employees in the change process instead of mandating. This book provides tools to assist the leader in focusing the employees on solutions to the problem versus concentrating only on the problem itself and enabling employees to own the paradigm change.

Rating:
Summary: A useful problem-solving strategy
Review: Before you read on, know that I have a bias. I have recently been promoted to a department chief position, so I am actively looking for books on leadership and problem solving. The strength of this book (and I do recommend it) is that it provides a framework for how leaders might think and also provides a very concrete problem-solving strategy that you can consider trying. The authors feel that ideas need to percolate up from below, so that workers buy into change. That's fine, and that's abstract. Then they make it much more useful by giving the reader a general strategy that can be used in a variety of ways. Basically, they tell us, you should not focus on the problem. Focusing on the problem will get you bogged down. You just end up sitting around at a meeting and moaning about how bad the problem is. Instead, change your focus to solutions. Ask your people a specific series of questions such as "What is good about our current processes?" "What works?" "What do we like and want more of?" "What is our goal?" "What small steps can we then take to try to get a little closer to the solutions that will give us more of what works and what we want?"

The book is longer than it needs to be, and tends to be repetitive, but it's a fast read. I have already tried their strategy at a meeting, and I am pleased with the results that I obtained. Any book that gives me the tools to help solve some of my department's problems is a winner. It's a very general and flexible strategy, and I expect to be using it again in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Enlightened Leadership - Getting to the Heart of Change
Review: Enlightened Leadership is a common sense, "how to" book for enacting change in an organizatin. Through the easy reading text or even the summary notes provided at the conclusion of each chapter, strategies are given to utilize the internal work force in envisioning, designing, marrying and implementing change.

Oakley and Krug profess an enlightened leader is one who has a vision and through a variety of strategies, encourages the organization's members to "buy in" and commit to following through with the change. They also indicate enlightened leaders do not necessarily need to be the visionaries. They are individuals who possess the ability to inspire others to create the vision, focus the efforts and encourage fruition. Obviously, if the vision is conceived by the organizational membership, the "buy in" dilemma is reduced.

Oakley and Krug believe individuals' self-esteem is important in the change process. The enlightened leader also knows it is healthy for the individuals' self-esteem to focus on solutions rather than just the problems. The authors give a strategy to ensure continued focus which is called "Effective Questions (EQs)". Many helpful EQ examples are given.

This book is a useful resource for today's leaders. Leadership today is so different from past leadership roles. Our changing and mobile society requires a leader to talent search and to engage his/her employees in the change process instead of mandating. This book provides tools to assist the leader in focusing the employees on solutions to the problem versus concentrating only on the problem itself and enabling employees to own the paradigm change. It was good.

Rating:
Summary: A useful problem-solving strategy
Review: Enlightened Leadership is a common sense, "how to" book for enacting change in an organizatin. Through the easy reading text or even the summary notes provided at the conclusion of each chapter, strategies are given to utilize the internal work force in envisioning, designing, marrying and implementing change.

Oakley and Krug profess an enlightened leader is one who has a vision and through a variety of strategies, encourages the organization's members to "buy in" and commit to following through with the change. They also indicate enlightened leaders do not necessarily need to be the visionaries. They are individuals who possess the ability to inspire others to create the vision, focus the efforts and encourage fruition. Obviously, if the vision is conceived by the organizational membership, the "buy in" dilemma is reduced.

Oakley and Krug believe individuals' self-esteem is important in the change process. The enlightened leader also knows it is healthy for the individuals' self-esteem to focus on solutions rather than just the problems. The authors give a strategy to ensure continued focus which is called "Effective Questions (EQs)". Many helpful EQ examples are given.

This book is a useful resource for today's leaders. Leadership today is so different from past leadership roles. Our changing and mobile society requires a leader to talent search and to engage his/her employees in the change process instead of mandating. This book provides tools to assist the leader in focusing the employees on solutions to the problem versus concentrating only on the problem itself and enabling employees to own the paradigm change. It was good.

Rating:
Summary: Understanding the impact of change is leadership's role.
Review: I have been successful in implementing a high involvement high commitment work environment at both General Electirc and Bell Atlantic. After attending a one day session given by Doug Krug and later reading his book, I realize even more the power of bringing people into the decision process in the right way, by asking the right questions.

The value to me of Enlightened Leadership is being even more aware of how people perceive and process change in their own minds and the sensitivty leadership needs to exercise as we communicate and manage change.

Rating:
Summary: weLEAD Book Review from the Editor of leadingtoday.org
Review: Oakly and Krug provide an understandable and clear definition of what they term "Enlightened Leadership." This type of leadership approach attempts to deal with real underlying problems within organizations rather than their symptoms. It is founded on an approach that leaders must first or concurrently deal with the "mindset" or spirit of their people as well as changing processes or structures. Without positively dealing with attitudes and thinking styles among the organization all efforts of changing structures, systems or processes will meet great resistance and potential failure.

They formally define Enlightened Leadership as "the willingness and ability to draw the vision from their people and inspire and empower those people to do what it takes to bring the vision into reality. Indeed, Enlightened Leaders nurture and encourage their people to be open, creative, and innovative and find what it takes to achieve their shared objectives." This type of leadership gets the "members of the organization to accept ownership for that vision as their own, thus developing the commitment to carry it through to completion."

Much of the book is devoted to asking thought provoking questions in the authors hope that the reader can discover their own answers to an enhanced leadership approach. Much of the content in the book is a result of their personal experience working with their own clients and using their own observations. It is obviously full of valid and helpful information presented in an interesting and easy to read style.