Leading in Times of Crisis: Navigating Through Complexity, Diversity and Uncertainty to Save Your Business [Hardcover]

According to David Dotlich, Peter Cairo, and Stephen Rhinesmith, "whole leaders" are those who "use their head to set strategy, their heart to connect with the world, and their guts to make instinctive and intuitive decisions based on clear values." Nonetheless, for various reasons, "we still too often see top business executives attempting to solve problems or seize opportunities using only their head...or their heart...or their guts." That said, the fact remains that some decisions are best made primarily with reason, others primarily with emotion, and others primarily with instinct or intuition. Moreover, determining which is most appropriate for each decision requires highly-developed judgment in combination with sufficient real-world experience. This is what Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis have in mind in their book, Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls, when asserting that what really matters "is not how many calls a leader gets right, or even what percentage of calls a leader gets right. Rather it is important how many of the important ones he or she gets right." They go on to suggest that effective leaders "not only make better calls, but they are able to discern the really important ones and get a higher percentage of them right. They are better at a whole process that runs from seeing the need for a call, to framing issues, to figuring out what is critical, to mobilizing and energizing the troops." According to Tichy and Bennis, there is a framework of three "critical domains" within which all decisions are made. Judgments about people are the most difficult, and most critical; the others involve strategy and crisis. They stress that good judgment calls are a process, not an event. Each begins when a leader recognizes a need and frames the decision to be made, with the process continuing through execution and adjustment. They also stress the importance of possessing sufficient self-knowledge because making a right call "isn't a solo performance; support teams are vital." Dotlich, Cairo, and Rhinesmith wholeheartedly agree.

With a unique combination of intellectual rigor and linguistic eloquence, they identify and then discuss nine ways for business leaders to "navigate" what they characterize as "a perfect storm," one that involves "a rare convergence of complexity and diversity, a convergence that challenges all our leadership assumptions. Imagine leaders as captains steering ships through this perfect storm. The old charts are outdated, and even the smartest strategists have not yet been able to adequately map a new world." Moreover, they go on to point out, "Every time someone conducts a study of the new territory, a storm starts shoaling the terrain and changing the navigation lanes. As fast as leaders develop new strategies, powerful external forces render them obsolete." Hence the need for leaders to rely on their own beliefs (i.e. be guided by their own moral compass, by what Bill George calls one's "True North") and instincts (a strong sense of what is correct, accurate, reliable, trustworthy, etc). "Like the best captains trying to keep their ships afloat during the fiercest storms, leaders have to depend on what they know to be true. They also have to depend on the advice and suggestions of others"; as Tichy and Bennis emphasize, "possessing sufficient self-knowledge because making a right call isn't a solo performance; support teams are vital."

After identifying the nine ways to navigate the perfect storm through whole leadership, Dotlich, Cairo, and Rhinesmith devote a separate chapter to each within clusters of three: Navigating the Wave of Complexity (Chapters 3-5), Navigating the Wave of Diversity (Chapters 6-8), and Navigating the Wave of Uncertainty (Chapters 9-11). Then in Part Three, they explain how to develop whole leaders and teams by aligning a company's talent to navigate the storm, aligning members of a team around whole leadership, how to develop one's self as a whole leader, and a "Final Thought" by which to explain why whole leaders will succeed.

When concluding their book, they review some of the challenges discussed: "Blowing up your business model, turning green without bleeding red, leading an unfamiliar workforce, relying on what you believe in." These are indeed formidable challenges. How must whole leaders respond to them?

1. Act Authentically: "The more confusing and uncertain the world becomes, the more people want leaders who are real...[What helps] is knowing that their CEO will be exactly the person they expect, will respect them enough to be authentic, and will deserve their continuing respect."

2. Balance Money and Meaning: "Leaders are confronting what we refer to as the [begin italics] money-meaning gap [end italics], and the future will make this gap wider and more difficult." Therefore, "To win the war for talent, to build brands, to function effectively in a global environment - all this involves managing meaning."

3. Develop the Capacity to Connect: "The best leaders in the future will be connectors and collaborators, not just in terms of bringing people together but also allying disparate ideas and organizations. Interdependence is the watch word for he future, and people who can facilitate connections will have a huge advantage over those who can't." Organizations that develop and retain an abundance of such people have a hue advantage over those that don't. "This means being able to connect the [right] dots - to figure out how seemingly unrelated concepts or views can be brought together in a synergistic whole."

Note my frequent use of the word "how." Those who read this book will especially appreciate the fact that David Dotlich, Peter Cairo, and Stephen Rhinesmith are diehard pragmatists who rely almost entirely on empirical, verifiable evidence when identifying the "what" of developing and executing whole leadership; they devote most of their attention to explaining how to achieve those separate but related, independent objectives.

Congratulations to them for collaborating so well on what I consider to be a brilliant achievement. Bravo!

Contemporary executives have more to manage than leaders did at any time in the past. They're like plate spinners, juggling to keep all their firms' interests - customers, employees, investors, regulators, suppliers and the environment - from crashing to the ground. David L. Dotlich, Peter C. Cairo and Stephen H. Rhinesmith bring years of leadership expertise - and the results of 20 interviews with senior executives about 21st-century management - to this examination of leading in a "complex, diverse and uncertain" world. Clearly, the old command-and-control, problem-solving, analytical ways of piloting a firm are out; what's in and crucial is a new leadership model combining the strengths of leaders' "head, heart and guts." While occasionally repetitive and trite, this informative book includes useful end-of-chapter questions, plus helpful graphics about preparing yourself and your team to be "whole leaders." getAbstract recommends this text as a practical addition to the libraries of seasoned executives, middle managers and those climbing the corporate ladder into the future of business. Just be aware that, as one expert in the book cautions, you "can spend decades climbing the ladder - only to realize too late" that you "have placed it against the wrong wall."

Authors Stephen H. Rhinesmith and Peter C. Cairo are Senior Partners at Oliver Wyman Leadership Development and David L. Dotlich works as a senior consultant on behalf of the firm. They recently received this endorsement of their book Leading in Times of Crisis: Navigating Through Complexity, Diversity and Uncertainty to Save Your Business from Professor Richard Boyatzis and, with permission, wanted to share it with Amazon customers.

"The theme of whole leadership is so crucial these days. Our past metaphors and models have been so narrow, this may be our only hope of changing the mindset of management. The themes of complexity, diversity and uncertainly are felt by everyone and well integrated with their head, heart and gut model. The book deserves to be read by millions if not billions!"

Professor Richard Boyatzis, Departments of Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Case Western Reserve University, Adjunct Professor of Human Resources, ESADE, co-author with Dan Goleman and Annie McKee of the international best seller, Primal Leadership, and co-author with Annie McKee of the recent Resonant Leadership."