The subtitle gives a very good overview of the content: “Mapping [...]]]>

Every once in a while a book comes along that is really packed with ideas.  Way more often a book will have an idea or two…maybe even a few.  Steering Through Chaos is one of the former.  Packed is the best way to describe it.

The subtitle gives a very good overview of the content: “Mapping a clear direction for your church in the midst of transition and change.”  Now that I think about it, that’s actually a pretty good mission statement for what Scott Wilson has pulled off in Steering Through Chaos.

Beginning with a chapter on turning points and transitions and ending with one on staying the course (endurance), the book is extremely readable.  With no shortage of engaging stories that make point after point, this is a page turner…and one that you’ll end up making up, highlighting and folding down pages.

A feature that I found to be an added bonus was a collection of short vignettes from other ministries around the country.  Larry Osborne, Dino Rizzo and Greg Surratt are a few of the better known.  Equally engaging are monographs by John Bishop, Troy Gramling and Tim Stevens.

As I worked my way through the book I recognized hints and traces of practices and principles from books that have long been part of my library.  What I appreciated about Steering Through Chaos is not its originality.  Rather, I found it to be a great example of a handbook on ministry in the year 2010 when so much is at stake and up for grabs.

I love Wilson’s closing quote on the promo video:  “To steer the church through the chaos of change and live to tell about it.”

If you’re looking for a resource that will help you navigate the challenge of transition and change…I highly recommend this book.

The latest step in the journey?  Design Thinking: Integrating [...]]]>

The last few months have taken me on a fascinating journey into design thinking.  Books like The Design of Business by Roger Martin, Tim Brown’s Change by Design, and Design-Driven Innovation by Robert Verganti have given me a language and a way of thinking about organizational design.

The latest step in the journey?  Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value.  Edited by Thomas Lockwood, Design Thinking is a collection of articles mapping the development of the discipline.  Very interesting and packed with ideas.

Although I find design cool and interesting in its own right, its really the design of organizations that I’m drawn to.  And it turns out it makes sense.  According to Richard Buckman, there are four orders of design:

• Communication: the creation of signs and symbols to be used in mass communication (we’re all at least at this level)
• Construction: the creation of objects via traditional industrial design
• Interaction: the actions and behaviors of people, as affected by design (many of us are working this edge as we try to design experiences that are conducive to interaction)
• Organization: design considerations in the context of organizations, environments, systems and cultures (this is the piece that is lacking for many of us)

I love Lockwood’s take on the fourth order of design, calling it:

“the sweet spot–the point at which the organization can involve design more integrative and holistic, building design methods into some of the internal systems and processes, and moving design towards a core competency.  This is the desired end state because the real value of design is in discovering and solving all manner of problems (p. 82).”

I’m intrigued by the possibilities of organizational design.  What if all of us learned to be more purposeful about the way our organizations were put together; the way our systems were designed?  Think it might make a difference in outcomes?  Want to come along?  You can pick up your copy of Design Thinking right here.

What happens?  Do you just keep on keeping on?  Maybe because you’ve invested [...]]]>

What happens when the thing your organization is really good at…no longer matters?  You know, when what put you at the top of the charts no longer is in demand?  Or maybe it still is but it’s not exactly what people want anymore?

What happens?  Do you just keep on keeping on?  Maybe because you’ve invested in the scaffolding that holds it in place?

What do you do?  Maybe it’s even the thing you are known for…but if you really look under the hood you can see the signs that it just isn’t working any more?

I love this paragraph from Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken.  He’s describing the season when Coca Cola passed on developing non-carbonated drinks.  After all, they no doubt thought, we’re Coca Cola!  We are all about carbonated!

“The Coca Cola Company had a hard time grasping the significance of branded water and non-carbonated soft drinks, even when the evidence was piling up around it.  The Coca Cola Company was very good at making Coke.  It wanted to keep making Coke (p. 106, Chief Culture Officer).”

Got something you’re really good at making or doing?  Want to keep making it even though sales are dipping?  Even though the signs are everywhere that the times have changed?

Makes you think, doesn’t it?  How many of our organizations are operating [...]]]>

How tuned in is your organization? I asked a friend who had just moved to a new organization, “How’s the new reality?”  He said, “To borrow a phrase from Leonard Sweet, I live in the Google Era, but my work environment is Gutenberg Era.”

Makes you think, doesn’t it?  How many of our organizations are operating as if the Gutenberg press was still an exciting new idea?  Okay…maybe none.  But how many are operating as if yesterday is still the present?

It’s not easy to stay up with the times. It is a challenge. But if you’re looking for help, I want to recommend Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken.

And yet, it’s not enough to have a strategy…even a beautifully worked out one.  Acting on [...]]]>

Sometimes you can tell from the name of something what it’s all about.  I think you can tell from the name of StrategyCentral that I think having a strategy, thinking strategically, and action strategically are all pretty central to effectiveness.

And yet, it’s not enough to have a strategy…even a beautifully worked out one.  Acting on it…that is the key.  So I love this Tom Peters quote:

I … do not denigrate the usefulness of a thoughtful strategy. It’s just that it is … Crystal Clear (to me!) that strategy is in fact unequivocally subordinate to Execution Excellence/Execution Mania/Bias for Action.

Yep.  That pretty well sums it up.  You can have the best strategy, you can even frame it and put it up on the wall, but if you’re not executing…it’s just artwork.

By the way, I’m subscribed to Tom Peters’ daily quote by email.  You can get it on it right here.

Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken develops [...]]]>

I get sent a lot of books.  I skim a lot of them.  There are some that I make a serious attempt because it’s on a topic that grabs me.  A few pull me in from page one and never let me go.  One of those arrived on Thursday.

Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken develops from the premise that culture matters and “until an organization masters culture, it makes the world needlessly mysterious” and “it multiplies risk.”  McCraken’s argument is that culture matters for good and bad reasons.  An understanding of culture “is the place to discover advantage, opportunity, and innovation.”  It’s also “the breeding ground of cataclysmic change.”

This is a book that is packed with stories.  Right off the bat you’re immersed in accounts of companies that missed culture shift (i.e., Levi Strauss missing hip-hop, Quaker Oats overpaying for Snapple, and Coca Cola late to the game of non-carbonated drinks).  On the flip side you’ll hear the stories of companies that got it right.

What’s the point?  It’s McCraken’s belief that although Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and Martha Stewart have a guru reputation, their sensibility for culture can be reverse-engineered.

35 pages in…this will help you.  If you’ve been at all concerned that your organization exists in some kind of time warp, you need to pick up this book.