University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Leading For Innovation And Organizing For Results
Book

Leading For Innovation And Organizing For Results

Iain Somerville, Marshall Goldsmith and Frances Hesselbein
Wiley, 2002
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Editorial Rating

8

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Recommendation

Some 23 experts on management from academia and the private sector share their ideas on how you can take that bloated bureaucracy and turn it into a nimble and innovative machine. The book offers no quick fixes, as illustrated by the authors’ observation that innovation is a culture, and not an event. Of special interest is the included list of practices that squelch innovation. getAbstract recommends this book, which was inspired by management science pioneer Peter F. Drucker, for executives and all devoted students of the management arts.

Summary

Adaptive Man

Famed management guru Peter F. Drucker defined innovation as, "Change that creates a new dimension of performance." That new dimension, of course, is the constant struggle to produce faster and with more efficiency. Drucker goes even further, arguing that businesses exist to accomplish two things only: To engage in marketing activities and to innovate. For today’s leaders, innovation is more important than marketing or any other function. In a rapidly changing marketplace, the creative and innovative contributions of each worker must be successfully tapped.

Given that humans are the product of evolution, a process of continual change and adaptation over thousands of years, how is it that we have come to view ourselves as resistant to further evolution? Does it make any sense that out of some 50 million species, it is only ours that balks at the "c" word, change. Once people and their organizations are viewed as complex and adaptive biological systems, their intractability seems suspect. In fact, it becomes much easier to drive successful organizational change if you begin with the premise that people are creative and able to change as needed.

The...

About the Authors

Frances Hesselbein  is chairman of the board of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management. She is the former CEO of Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. Marshall Goldsmith is a founding director of the Financial Times Knowledge Dialogue, a coaching network that connects executives with thought leaders around the world. Iain Somerville is managing partner of Somerville & Associates, and former managing partner with Accenture.

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