Książki

Every day, leaders and managers at all organizational levels face extraordinarily perplexing choices and situations. More so than ever before, they find themselves caught in the middle of issues that seem impossible. For example, they find themselves: struggling to deliver bottom-line results--even though they know they are sacrificing investment in future product development; deciding to forgo going home to spend time with their children because they are finalizing an important acquisition; wanting to hire a highly talented worker, but told by HR that the salary offer they need to extend exceeds company guidelines. These leaders feel theyre damned if they do and damned if they dont. But what seems impossible is usually a paradox--and it is possible to manage paradoxes effectively. Unfortunately, many leaders and managers arent accustomed to dealing with these paradoxes, and are easily thrown by them. Confused and under pressure, they respond in traditional ways: seeing issues and situations in black and white; being decisive; taking a strong, inflexible position. But doing so is not effective in a world of ambiguity, complexity, and volatility. In fact, it often results in bad decisions and missed opportunities. CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE suggests a better, more viable approach to decision making: and not or thinking. This approach posits that if you can hold two seemingly conflicting concepts in your head simultaneously (the and), you can navigate your way between them to find an effective response -- as opposed to seeing situations as right or wrong (the or), which will likely lead to an ineffective response. Based on extensive interviews with fifty CEOs and top executives and with 100 high potential leaders at Fortune 500 companies, CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE takes familiar dilemmas that often seem impossible to resolve satisfactorily, and shows how to apply a simple five-step approach to and not or thinking to find a solution: (1) acknowledging the conflict, (2) analyzing the options, (3) weighing risks and benefits, (4) bringing others to the conversation, and (5) subsequently making an informed "and" decision that balances, integrates, and/or innovates from the seemingly-impossible choices with which you started. The book is filled with real-life examples that illustrate and not or thinking in action at companies such as GSK, Nike, PayPal, Microsoft, Dell, Lloyds, Johnson&Johnson, Deutsche Post, Apple, and Joie de Vivre.

The Unfinished Leader: Balancing Contradictory Answers to Unsolvable Problems