BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Winning in the future
30th April 2021
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I remember a conversation with a woman in a well-known global business about a year ago, just after lockdowns had been imposed throughout Europe. She said that she was really concerned at how ill-equipped she felt many of her organisation’s leaders would be to support people through what was clearly going to be some very turbulent times. When I asked her why, her reply was very simple and stark. She said, “because so many of them do not really value and are not really interested in their people and now that we are all working from home, you can see immediately that all they really care about is figures and results.”
Twelve months on we now know the Covid 19 pandemic has brought and continues to bring a huge amount of disruption to our organisations and working lives. Business models and the role and quality of leadership have been profoundly challenged. People have had to adapt quickly to new ways of working and many organisations now function in ways that would have seemed unimaginable a year ago.
In his latest book, called The Advantage, author and consultant Patrick Lencioni, powerfully puts his finger on what many of us have begun to implicitly understand through the Covid experience; namely that some organisations, just like some individuals, are much more likely to sustain success and indeed flourish in times of challenge than others. He argues that this potential advantage, ultimately, is not to be found in the things that traditionally leaders have relied on, like faster innovation, better strategy, leaner production but in something much more straightforward and uncomplicated and absolutely to do with people and culture. He calls it organisational health!
The Advantage gives a powerful introduction and exploration of what organisational health is and how it can be achieved. It also puts down a real challenge to leaders who are responsible for guiding their businesses and organisations into the post Covid era in which success will increasingly rely on conducting business in a new way.
For the last 30 years Contact Consulting has built a reputation for the development of excellent people leadership and management skills. If you would like to discuss further please get in touch.