Description
This book contains fifteen chapters organized thematically around key themes but in a non-cumulative way. This means readers can randomly sample topics and sections of the book or dive into a single essay covering one specific issue in more detail (such as biases, mistakes, strategy, foresight, talent or teams). Either way, readers can assess if they agree with the approaches offered or perhaps favor different perspectives. If the latter, they may wish to discuss the issues with some colleagues informally during a break or examine the case more formally in team building exercises to raise the organizations strategic IQ.Sampling the collected sub-sections and chapters (whether in small bites or as one read-through) will help managers refine their own approaches to strategic thinking and leadership. Also, it will help align them better with colleagues or partners who come from different backgrounds, functional responsibilities or cultural orientations. It will soon become apparent to readers that the overall approach to business problems presented is very much behavioral. This means that each essay or case starts by identifying important management problems in some realistic business settings. Before offering any conceptual perspectives or prescriptive advice, each essay seeks to better understand the behavioral context of the problems addressed.This varied case approach seeks to provide practical insights, tips or even full solutions, but not until the essence of the problem and its broader organizational and cultural settings are sufficiently understood. Offering prescriptions without first getting well-grounded behavioual descriptions tend to result in failed interventions. Normative advice that is drawn from text books rather than real slices of life often amount to boxing with shadows on the wall rather than solving the real issues. As such, this book aims to illustrate for managers and leaders how to frame thorny management issues by (i) clearly defining a distinct business problem, (ii) viewing it through multiple lenses and (iii) creatively exploring pragmatic solutions for the short and long runs. This book covers a wide range of managerial problems that leaders may encounter in business, often in unexpected or incomplete ways. Varied essays depict complex situations that organisational leaders encountered and had to resolve. The leadership challenge is to develop meta-skills for thinking strategically about them and then make sound business decisions in the face of uncertainty. Leaders usually confront opportunities and challenges in muddled fashions and their main task is to size them up properly and respond with creativity and wisdom. These leadership challenges require integrative thinking and creative problem solving skills of a kind that is nurtured through hard won experience in the trenches. The kaleidoscopic flavor of this collection of essays reflects a holistic and realistic view of leadership in varied situations that call for innovative strategic thinking, reflective problem reframing, and smart decision making alone and in teams.
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