Enlightened Leadership: Why Pay Someone Else to Tell Your People What They Already Know?

by Ed Oakley

Book Overview

Being able to change to keep pace with a rapidly changing world is the key to business success in the '90s. Enlightened Leadership is a practical, hands-on guide to breaking through the barriers to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0962825506
• ISBN13: 9780962825507
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Stone Tree Pub.
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent

From Kosovo: I use the book here in Kosovo for Leadership and Management Training for Public Safety Insitutions. I found the book in 2004 while attending University and heard a lecture by Mr. Krug. The book is as relevant today as it was then, a great work which examines alternatives to traditional managment practices and perspectives. From every class I have observed "light bulbs" go off in the students heads as reflected by their keen interest in reading and discussing the material. Contradictory to the post communist mind set here in management practices, this book has been an awakening.

A useful problem-solving strategy

Before you read on, know that I have a bias. I have recently been promoted to a department chief position, so I am actively looking for books on leadership and problem solving. The strength of this book (and I do recommend it) is that it provides a framework for how leaders might think and also provides a very concrete problem-solving strategy that you can consider trying. The authors feel that ideas need to percolate up from below, so that workers buy into change. That's fine, and that's abstract. Then they make it much more useful by giving the reader a general strategy that can be used in a variety of ways. Basically, they tell us, you should not focus on the problem. Focusing on the problem will get you bogged down. You just end up sitting around at a meeting and moaning about how bad the problem is. Instead, change your focus to solutions. Ask your people a specific series of questions such as "What is good about our current processes?" "What works?" "What do we like and want more of?" "What is our goal?" "What small steps can we then take to try to get a little closer to the solutions that will give us more of what works and what we want?"The book is longer than it needs to be, and tends to be repetitive, but it's a fast read. I have already tried their strategy at a meeting, and I am pleased with the results that I obtained. Any book that gives me the tools to help solve some of my department's problems is a winner. It's a very general and flexible strategy, and I expect to be using it again in the future.

Meno's Manager

"The manager is dead!" Just like Neitzche's madman, Oakley and Krug assert that management as we have know it cannot exist in the current environment of vast information and rapid change. We do not need the military model that has been thriving in Corporate America. The world of the 21st century requires more than a mindful puppeteer bringing his/her men in the line of battle. The emerging model is not individual with the answers, but the individual with the questions. If this sounds too much off the mark, think about the last project you were involved in. How many questions were you asked? How much time did it take to get your team on board? Did they ever come on board? If you are like many, the answers are perplex. But you know intuitively that the best ideas are your own. Why would that not be any different for your employees? The Enlightened Leader is one who can ask the most effective questions that empower and energize the team in order to get the commitment and creativity necessary to meet usurmountable tasks. A question is a question is a question . . .this may be true for Shakespeare but not for Oakley and Skug. Enlightened Leaders are asking very intentional and structured questions called Effective Questions (EQ). The type of questioning they suggest is counter-culteral, not counter-intuitive. The assert that the most effective questions follow this very basic and positive template: Structured Effective Questions: 1) What is already working? 2) What makes it work? 3) What is our objective? 4) What are the benefits of achieving that objective? 5) What can we do to move closer to the objective?Oakley and Krug understand that "it is vitally important to balance the energy focused on the these two factors: supporting our people and creating results. A closer look at these questions provides that balance. Questions 1 and 2 provide encouragement and growth for people. Questions 3,4, and 5 focus on creating results. "Both factors are essential for long term results." The difficulty that we have is most of the time we are asking core and critical questions in crisis. It is sometimes difficult to see what is working when the company is in the red or being taken over by another or losing core quality employees. The power, however, comes from asking these questions in good times and in bad. By starting with the positive-people come together to problem solve not point fingers. Due to the complexity of today's business the "cookie-cutter hierarchy" does not work. Each organization needs to come up with individual and personal models that allow for business needs to be accomplished in a manner that engages employees. While many are practicing Total Quality Management the power comes from Total Quality Consciousness. This comes when leaders are asking positive and effective questions that raise the employees awareness of what is being accomplilshed and how they contribue to make the vision a reality. A la

Understanding the impact of change is leadership's role.

I have been successful in implementing a high involvement high commitment work environment at both General Electirc and Bell Atlantic. After attending a one day session given by Doug Krug and later reading his book, I realize even more the power of bringing people into the decision process in the right way, by asking the right questions. The value to me of Enlightened Leadership is being even more aware of how people perceive and process change in their own minds and the sensitivty leadership needs to exercise as we communicate and manage change.

The best book on leadership!!!

Filled with practical advices on leading change and renewal. The bottom line of changing paradigm instead of outward behavior is an eye opener. Many thought provoking questions and tools are sprinkled generously across the book. Good summary at the end of every chapter allows quick recap. Read it and be changed!!!