Know What You Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They HappenProblems remain hidden in organizations for a number of reasons, including fear, organizational complexity, gatekeepers who insulate leaders from problems that are coming up, and finally, an overemphasis on formal analysis in place of intuition and observation. This book lays out the key skills and capabilities required to ensure that problems do not remain hidden in your organization. It explains how leaders can become effective problem finders, unearthing problems before they destroy an organization. The book explains how leaders can become an anthropologist, going out and observe how employees, customers, and suppliers actually behave. It then goes on to present how they can circumvent the gatekeepers, so they can go directly to the source to see and hear the raw data; hunt for patterns, including refining your individual and collective pattern recognition capability; "connect the dots" among issues that may initially seem unrelated, but in fact, have a great deal in common; give front-line employees training in a communication technique; encourage useful mistakes, including create a "Red Pencil Award"; and watch the game film, where leaders reflect systematically on their own organization's conduct and performance, as well as on the behavior and performance of competitors. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - GovMarley - LibraryThingI expected more from this book. Essentially you must ask questions, share information, encourage your team to take smart risks, and incorporate after-action reviews into your routines. I did enjoy the ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - simbacat - LibraryThingAn excellent insight into problem finding and how to establish the environment that encourages information sharing, blameless analysis and speaking out about problems and issues so that they are addressed and not marginalised and ignored. Read full review
Contents
1 | |
Chapter 2 Circumvent the Gatekeepers | 27 |
Chapter 3 Become an Ethnographer | 53 |
Chapter 4 Hunt for Patterns | 73 |
Chapter 5 Connect the Dots | 95 |
Chapter 6 Encourage Useful Failures | 119 |
Other editions - View all
Know What You Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen Michael A. Roberto No preview available - 2009 |
Know what You Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen Michael A. Roberto No preview available - 2009 |