Structure

I heard Patrick Lencioni  speak at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit  and that prompted me to pick up his latest book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business . I’ve been a fan of Lencioni’s work for a while....

It’s the spark that ignites a fire. It’s that initial fragment of an idea that finds other fragments and eventually assembles itself like a jigsaw puzzle into the next big thing. Each component of the core offering comes together bit by bit and piece by ...

As I mentioned in my review of Dialogue Mapping , my friend Paul Culmsee  and I met many years ago and continue to speak despite the 12 hour time difference between us. Last year Paul and Kailash Awati  (whom I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting) coauth...

Years ago I came to understand how learning worked in the trades model. The apprentice was – literally – following the instructions of a journeyman or master to complete small repeatable tasks. The journeyman would start to detach from the small repeatable tas...

The first quote from the book in my notes is, “Anyone who has spent time in an organization knows that dysfunctional behavior abounds. Conflict is frequently avoided or pushed underground rather than dealt with openly.” This is the heart of why I kne...

I’ve been a consultant for 25 years or so. In that time, I’ve seen some truly stellar organizations, a lot of so-so organizations, and a few that are seriously dysfunctional. When I was prompted in a session to take a look at the book Reinventing Orga...

What makes some organizations grow and thrive and others wither and die? That's just part of the question that Edith Penrose set out to answer in Theory of the Growth of the Firm . Her book was initially published in 1959 and was reprinted after her...