Leadership

It's great to read an adventure story, a detective, or a novel once it's summer. However, if you feel you'd like to catch up on culture, leadership, and change here's my list of favorite non-fiction books at this point.

On positive leadership, change, and culture

Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self Deception - Getting out of the box (Berrett-Koehler Publishers; 2nd edition, 2015)

Kim Cameron, Positive Leadership - Strategies for extraordinary performance, (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008)

A corporate CEO invited some executives to a meeting from two different levels. He asked a question and then went around the table getting input. When he got to one of the lower level executives, he said: "Sorry, I just want to hear from (the higher level) folks" and moved on.There was an embarrassed silence, and then the meeting went on. The next higher-ranked executive answered the question, and the moment passed.

Seventeen consultants and leaders from four continents spent three days together in a countryside venue on a riverbank. The May 2018 Culture Change Leadership Workshop was intense. The topics: organizational culture, organizational change, the Competing Values Framework and the OCAI, positive leadership, positive culture, change circles, and interaction interventions.

Culture is everywhere where people get together. You don't need to be a co-worker: sometimes you even have a better vantage point as a visitor or a client.

Over the past weeks, I've had many encounters with small companies as a client. As we were rebuilding and furnishing our vacation home we were working side by side with our contractor's employees who tiled the kitchen and bathroom, installed the appliances, rewired the electricity, and so on. Next, I met the boys of the delivery services transporting the new beds and other things that we bought online.