In twenty-seven innovative briefings, Levitt discusses management theory and practice and emphasizes the importance of such skills as listening and learning. "Knowledge is peculiar. It has the special quality of enriching those who receive it without impoverishing or diminishing those who give it away. But the most precious of all knowledge can be neither taught nor passed on...the most important thing is the general manager knows and does involve that kind of knowledge--inherent, authentic, and resistant to teachability but not to learnability."—from Chapter 3, "Management and Knowledge"
The question of how to improve organizational effectiveness through better people management is always top of mind. This book challenges incorrect and oversimplified assumptions and much conventional management wisdom - delivering business commentary that helps business leaders make smarter decisions.
First published in 1981, this was the first book ever to be written explicitly for the right side of the reader’s brain. Much has been made of the research conducted into the left side of the brain – home to language and logic. The right side works in images, whole patterns and undefined feelings – none of which can be verbalized. This more elusive thinking often functions as what is loosely called ‘intuition’. In Atlas, de Bono shows us how to use the right side. It is an atlas because it is a visual reference of images and illustrations that point the reader in the right direction (literally). For anyone who has ever been told to trust their instinct, or who is concerned with management and decision-making, this book is a de Bono classic.
From the winner of the INCOSE Pioneer Award 2022 The world has become increasingly networked and unpredictable. Decision makers at all levels are required to manage the consequences of complexity every day. They must deal with problems that arise unexpectedly, generate uncertainty, are characterised by interconnectivity, and spread across traditional boundaries. Simple solutions to complex problems are usually inadequate and risk exacerbating the original issues. Leaders of international bodies such as the UN, OECD, UNESCO and WHO — and of major business, public sector, charitable, and professional organizations — have all declared that systems thinking is an essential leadership skill for managing the complexity of the economic, social and environmental issues that confront decision makers. Systems thinking must be implemented more generally, and on a wider scale, to address these issues. An evaluation of different systems methodologies suggests that they concentrate on different aspects of complexity. To be in the best position to deal with complexity, decision makers must understand the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches and learn how to employ them in combination. This is called critical systems thinking. Making use of over 25 case studies, the book offers an account of the development of systems thinking and of major efforts to apply the approach in real-world interventions. Further, it encourages the widespread use of critical systems practice as a means of ensuring responsible leadership in a complex world. The INCOSE Pioneer Award is presented to someone who, by their achievements in the engineering of systems, has contributed uniquely to major products or outcomes enhancing society or meeting its needs. The criteria may apply to a single outstanding outcome or a lifetime of significant achievements in effecting successful systems. Comments on a previous version of the book: Russ Ackoff: ‘the book is the best overview of the field I have seen’ JP van Gigch: ‘Jackson does a masterful job. The book is lucid ...well written and eminently readable’ Professional Manager (Journal of the Chartered Management Institute): ‘Provides an excellent guide and introduction to systems thinking for students of management’
This book discusses critical thinking as a tool for more compassionate leadership, presenting tried and tested methods for managing disagreement, for anticipating and solving problems, and for enhancing empathy. Employing a lighter tone of voice than most management books, it also shows how and when less-than-rational mechanisms such as intuition and heuristics may be efficient decision-making tools in any manager’s toolbox. Critical thinking is useful for analyzing incoming information in the context of decision-making and is crucial for structuring outgoing information in the context of persuasion. When trying to convince a client to buy a service, an executive board to fund a project, or a colleague to change a procedure, managers can use the simple step-by-step guides provided here to prepare for successful meetings and effective pitches. Managerial thinking can be steadily improved, using a structured process, especially if we learn to think about our thinking. This book guides current and would-be managers through this process of improving and metathinking, in connection with decision-making and persuasion. Using examples from business, together with research insights from Behavioral Economics and from Management and Organizational Cognition, the author illustrates common pitfalls like hidden assumptions and cognitive biases, and provides easy-to-use solutions for testing hypotheses and resolving dilemmas.
“A guide that introduces system thinking, thereby demystifying the management process and helping you see your entire situation and a clear path forward.” —Eric Dean, CEO, Whereoware Every manager knows a business is a system, yet very few have studied systems thinking or system dynamics. This is a critical oversight, one which Simple_Complexity remedies. Simple_Complexity reveals the fundamental system archetype at work in your enterprise and prescribes new and exciting ways to re-invigorate your management thinking. Picking up where the greats in management thought leave off, Simple_Complexity provides a systems context that powerfully enriches traditional management thought and practice. “Willy takes the powerful but complex discipline of systems thinking, lays it bare for everyone to see and comprehend through real and practical examples. He helps readers understand that systems invariably comprise and touch every activity and part of the enterprise and not understanding them can lead to devastating results.” —Lance Drummond, Executive in Residence Christopher Newport University, Luter School of Business, Board Member Freddie Mac “Simple_Complexity will push your thinking about organizations and the people who manage and populate them to a new level. You will never view organizations in the same way again.” —Michael Fraser, President & CEO, National Technologies Associates, Inc. “[A] practical little book on leadership. Here is someone with (a) real-world experience, (b) advanced academic credentials, and (c) a humble spirit, and he is willing to do one thing: he translates fresh ideas from systems thinking into language that anyone with a lick of ambition can understand and use.” —Nathan Harter, author of Cultural Dynamics and Leadership
The modern world is networked and always working. Organizations no longer have the luxury of time. Expertise is no longer confined to a couple of smart guys in corner offices, reviewing information to which only they have access and issuing instructions through layers of middle-men to nine-to-fivers who carry out the dictates and feed paper back up the chain, awaiting the next set of instructions. Today’s successful organization is decentralized and never stops moving. In fact, organizational success is a lot like soccer. Every player is both a specialist and generalist. Responsibility on the field is distributed, and everyone on the team works for everyone else. Communication among players is constant. Soccer is 90 minutes of systems thinking in action. Soccer Thinking for Management Success is by a soccer fan and player who has spent a career building and running teams and organizations. He draws on insights from leaders, known and not-so-well-known who use soccer thinking to succeed. This is not just another book on how to be a great leader by a famous person. This is a management and leadership book by, and for, the rest of us.
Named one of "10 Must-Read Career and Leadership Books For 2022" by Forbes The ultimate guide to the essentials of strategy and management, from one of the world's top business thinkers. Over a stellar career, Roger Martin has advised the CEOs of some of the world's most successful companies. From the beginning, he noted that almost every executive he talked to had a "model"—a framework or way of thinking that guided their strategy and activities. But these models tended to become automatic, so much so that when one didn't work, the typical response was just to apply it again—with greater enthusiasm. Martin took a fresh, critical approach to helping. When company leaders came to him with fundamental questions—How do you decide where to play and how to win? What is the key to shaping and changing corporate culture? How can you design a successful, sustainable innovation process?—his first response was to break the spell of the current model with a memo articulating a new way to think about the problem at hand and a more powerful and effective way to successfully overcome it. Over time, these ideas worked their way into Martin's many Harvard Business Review articles. Now, for the first time, they appear together in A New Way to Think. With his trademark incisive intellect and clarity, Martin covers the entire breadth of the management landscape—illuminating the true nature of competition, explaining how company success revolves around customers, revealing how strategy and execution are really the same thing, and much more. Reading like a series of one-on-one sessions with one of the world's leading business thinkers, A New Way to Think is an essential guide for any current or aspiring business leader.
The subject of leadership and managerial psychology exists as a sub-branch of psychology within the fields of industrial and organizational psychology. There still appears to be ongoing debate regarding the core pathology for gaining managerial expertise in professional roles relative to having suitable leadership skills and managerial knowledge beyond the direct daily work involved in organizations. Professional organizations inherently include varied levels of sensitive human interactions, which further necessitates their management professionals to have leadership styles that are adjustable contingent on a given situation. Relative to this edited book, managerial psychology is being utilized in a way that may subsequently seek to develop a series of scientific theory principles where the focus is to develop managerial axioms that advance contemporary existing knowledge surrounding professional management logic. The Handbook of Research on Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Managerial and Leadership Psychology provides value uncovered by a collaboration of generalists and specialists who bring professional managerial and leadership opinions to light through narratives and research inclusive of fundamental theory principles that can be applied in practice and academia. This edited reference is focused on the enhancement of management research through managerial psychology while highlighting topics including business process knowledge, management in diverse discipline situations and professions, corporate leadership responsibility, leadership of self and others, and leadership psychology in a variety of different fields of work. This book is ideally designed for leadership and management professionals, academicians, students, and researchers in the fields of knowledge management, administrative sciences and management, leadership development, education, and organization development sub-branches or specialty practices.
This radical text presents central management questions that managers and students need to work with and understand. Key debates in management theory are taken out of their academic setting and discussed in relation to management experience. Exercises, examples, illustrations and summaries bring the problems and dilemmas alive for the student. From people management to organizational culture; leadership to learning; institutional power to individual innovation; the multi-faceted territory of management is explored and opened up.
