I have a set of materials that I view as valuable for management and changing organizations. Some are serious and, perhaps, scholarly. Others are more cultural or emotional. They might, also, be life guides.

  1. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, Edwin H. Friedman: Friedman was a rabbi and therapist who believed that people’s work, religious, and personal lives were intertwined in complex ways. He consulted with many organizations, including NASA in its post-Apollo malaise. The most essential element of leadership, he maintains, is that the leader must be self-differentiated and non-anxious. There needs to be a stout stake that defines the organization, and it is the leader’s job to pull towards that stake.  With regard to organizations he describes the fallacy of empathy and the concepts of sabotage. I was introduced and coached in his theories by Dr. Pat Esborg, a organizational expert trained in sociology and psychiatric nursing.  Esborg is a co-author on High-end Climate Science: Development of Modeling and Related Computing Capabilities.
  2. Outgrowing Self-Deception, by Gardner Murphy. Murphy was a psychologist. The value of this book is two fold. First, it provides insights into why people, and by extension, organizations become stuck in patterns of behavior that are not advancing. Second, in the final chapters it examines the progress of science and psychology in terms of breakthroughs that challenge power structures. For example, the religious belief that Earth was the center of the Universe and by divine reasoning, planets and the Sun revolved around the Earth in perfect, concentric circles.
  3. Discourses, by Niccolò Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy, a Roman historian, is both enlightening and disheartening. It discusses the importance of leaders and the succession of leaders. It identifies attributes of successful and failing nation-states, which can extend to organizations. Though Machiavellian has come to mean deceitful, that is not what this book is about. It is a record of human behavior; it is disheartening because we seem to be, collectively, unlearning. The Discourses amplify Friedman’s messages of leaders requiring self-differntiation.
  4. Too Soon Old, Too Late Wise, by Gordon Livingston. Livingston was a psychiatrist. For leading and changing organizations the message of this book is to act on what people do, not what they say. Persistent gaps between what people say they want and what they actually do are effective traps.
  5. Burn It Down, This American Life. This radio episode is on changing the toxic culture in the Amsterdam Fire Department. It is a management “case study.” It describes the challenge of achieving culture change and the resistance to culture change.
    1. In the piece they talk about it taking “6 years” for culture change.  I actually think 6 is short.  It emphasizes that persistence and continuity are essential for changing organizations.  It demands self-differentiation of the leader and leading towards strategic organizational goals – the stout stake of leadership.
    2. The article also describes the disruption and volatility that occurs with new mayors, new chiefs – or in my cases, new program managers and line managers. That is one of the key issues that one needs to manage. This is difficult if each manager gets to make an organization or program “their own.” Individualism needs to be replaced with the organizational mission and managing towards that mission.
  6. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams. This classic American play explores greed, subtext, mendacity, and disgust. It features a strong woman in a society of sexism and racism. It helps you think.  “What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?” … “Just staying on it I guess, long as she can.”
  7. The Godfather. This classic movie describes organizations. It would be a case study for Machiavelli. I have often felt that leading organizational change placed me in the role of consigliere.
    1. ” I hoped that we would come here and reason together. And as a reasonable man, I’m willing to do whatever’s necessary to find a peaceful solution to these problems.”
    2. Always keep in mind, traitors can come from within. “Listen, whoever comes to you with this Barzini meeting, he’s the traitor. Don’t forget that.”
  8. Hidden Brain: How to Open Your Mind.In this 2021 episode, psychologist Adam Grant pushes back against the benefits of certainty, and describes the magic that unfolds when we challenge our own deeply-held beliefs.  Points out the importance of tension in organization, and the fallacy of reducing tension.  Also the need to separation relationship/personal conflict from task conflict.  Desirable bias, agreeable bias.

    Additional Resources

    1. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What you Don’t Know, by Adam Grant, February 2021
    2. “The Effects of Conflict Types, Dimensions, and Emergent States on Group Outcomes,” by Karen Jehn, Lindred Greer, Sheen Levine and Gabriel Szulanski, in Group Decision and Negotiation, April 2008.
    3. ”The Effective Negotiator- Part 1: The Behavior of Successful Negotiators” and The Effective Negotiator-Part 2: Planning for Negotiations, by Neil Rackham and John Carlisle, in Journal of European Industrial Training, l978
      1. Offer options
      2. Ask questions
    4. “Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams,” by Amy Edmondson in Administrative Science Quarterly, June l999
    5. “Social functionalist frameworks for judgment and choice: intuitive politicians, theologians, and prosecutors,” by Philip Tetlock in Psychology Review, 2002
    6. “Refusing to apologize can have psychological benefits (and we issue no mea culpa for this research finding)”, by Tyler Okimoto, Michael Wenzel and Kyli Hedrick n European Journal of Social Psychology, November  2012