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The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century Hardcover – Illustrated, 27 Sept. 2010
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Organizations today face a crisis. The crisis is of long standing and its signs are widespread. Most proposals for improving management address one element of the crisis at the expense of the others. The principles described by award-winning author Stephen Denning simultaneously inspire high productivity, continuous innovation, deep job satisfaction and client delight. Denning puts forward a fundamentally different approach to management, with seven inter-locking principles of continuous innovation: focusing the entire organization on delighting clients; working in self-organizing teams; operating in client-driven iterations; delivering value to clients with each iteration; fostering radical transparency; nurturing continuous self-improvement and communicating interactively. In sum, the principles comprise a new mental model of management.
- Author outlines the basic seven principles of continuous innovation
- The book describes more than seventy supporting practices
- Denning offers a rethinking of management from first principles
This book is written by the author of The Secret Language of Leadership―a Financial Times Selection in Best Books of 2007.
- ISBN-109780470548684
- ISBN-13978-0470548684
- Edition1st
- PublisherJossey-Bass
- Publication date27 Sept. 2010
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions15.24 x 2.41 x 22.86 cm
- Print length336 pages
Product description
Review
Review
―Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California & author of the just published: Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership
“Denning goes to the root of the management issues confronting companies today. Focusing on seven core principles, he lays out a pragmatic roadmap for shifting the corporation from a focus on scalable efficiency to a focus on delighting the customer and each other, while achieving even higher levels of productivity. In the process, he creates a space where we all can more fully achieve our potential.”
― John Hagel, Co-Chairman, Deloitte Center for the Edge
“The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management delivers. It delivers insight into why today’s broken institutions don’t work. It delivers the principles and practices that can reinvent them. It delivers powerful examples of organizations that are doing it ―and some that aren’t ― and it delivers the tools to help you start digging a new foundation.”
―Jim Kouzes, award-winning coauthor of the bestselling The Leadership Challenge and The Truth About Leadership; Dean’s Executive Professor of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University
“To reinvent America and the world, we desperately need radical, new leadership and management. Stephen shows the way.”
―Mark Victor Hansen, Co-creator of the series Chicken Soup for the Soul®
“The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management is the paradigm shift we have been looking for to guide us as we evolve. This is the first book that focuses on what is truly important to being successful.”
―Matt Hlavin, President, Thogus Products Company
“The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management reframes the way we think about management in a practical, application-driven way. A must-read for anyone in a management position!”
―Ed Scanlan,CEO, Total Attorneys
“This book contributes with principles on radical management and continuous innovation to support an Agile mindset in your entire organization.”
―Michael Holm, CEO, Systematic Software
“I’ve spent the last 35 years of my professional life bushwhacking my way towards what I now know, thanks to Steve Denning, is the nirvana called Radical Management. It is a place where delighting customers is the religion and creativity, passion and learning are revered. Denning’s Radical Management is the antidote to the greatest disease in the workplace today, mental resignation due to lack of purpose. Radical Management should be required reading for anyone entering the work force or looking to reignite their inner bushwhacker!”
―Sam Bayer, CEO, b2b2dot0
“The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management accomplishes what no leadership book has been able to do in recent times. It delivers clear insights on the impediments keeping most institutions today from success. Beyond that though it provide tools and means of overcoming these barriers in novel and often counter-intuitive ways. A must read for leaders attempting to move to the next level of performance.”
―Rob Cross, Professor, University of Virginia
From the Inside Flap
"This is a book about a radically different way of managing. . . . It leads to workplaces that are more productive and more fun. These workplaces feel different."
from the Introduction
In this provocative book, Stephen Denning introduces the seven principles of radical management, along with more than seventy supporting practices. Radical management focuses the entire organization on the goal of constantly increasing the value of what it offers to its clients, not merely producing goods or services or making money for shareholders. The seven interlocking principles comprise a new mental model of management: focusing the entire organization on delighting clients; working in self-organizing teams; operating in short client-driven iterations; delivering value to clients with each iteration; fostering radical transparency; nurturing continuous self-improvement; and communicating interactively. The principles and practices simultaneously inspire high productivity, continuous innovation, and deep job satisfaction, and result in surpassing client expectations.
Rather than offering a quick fix for today's complex workplace problems, radical management rethinks the nature and purpose of management. It addresses the questions: "What is good? Who is it good for? Is it good for the organization? Is it good for those doing the work? Is it good for those for whom the work is done? Is it good for society at large?" At the very foundation is open communication. Managers and workers must communicate interactively, using authentic narratives, open-ended questions, and deep listening, rather than treating people as things to be manipulated.
The principles and practices outlined in this book create a work environment that lifts up the human spirit and inspires the exhilaration of extraordinary performance.
From the Back Cover
In this provocative book, Stephen Denning introduces the seven principles of radical management, along with more than seventy supporting practices. Radical management focuses the entire organization on the goal of constantly increasing the value of what it offers to its clients, not merely producing goods or services or making money for shareholders. The seven interlocking principles comprise a new mental model of management: focusing the entire organization on delighting clients; working in self-organizing teams; operating in short client-driven iterations; delivering value to clients with each iteration; fostering radical transparency; nurturing continuous self-improvement; and communicating interactively. The principles and practices simultaneously inspire high productivity, continuous innovation, and deep job satisfaction, and result in surpassing client expectations.
Rather than offering a quick fix for today’s complex workplace problems, radical management rethinks the nature and purpose of management. It addresses the questions: “What is good? Who is it good for? Is it good for the organization? Is it good for those doing the work? Is it good for those for whom the work is done? Is it good for society at large?” At the very foundation is open communication. Managers and workers must communicate interactively, using authentic narratives, open-ended questions, and deep listening, rather than treating people as things to be manipulated.
The principles and practices outlined in this book create a work environment that lifts up the human spirit and inspires the exhilaration of extraordinary performance
About the Author
STEPHEN DENNING is a leading writer who consults with organizations in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia on leadership, management, innovation, and business narrative. In 2009, he was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University, U.K. He is the author of The Secret Language of Leadership―a Financial Times selection in Best Books of 2007, and a 800-CEO-READ selection as the best book on leadership in 2007.
Product details
- ASIN : 0470548681
- Publisher : Jossey-Bass; 1st edition (27 Sept. 2010)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780470548684
- ISBN-13 : 978-0470548684
- Dimensions : 15.24 x 2.41 x 22.86 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 529,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 1,186 in Business Team Management Skills
- 4,014 in Business & Economic History
- 5,491 in Business Motivation Skills
- Customer reviews:
About the author

Stephen Denning was born in Sydney, Australia. He studied law and psychology at Sydney University. After doing a post-graduate law degree at Oxford University, he joined the World Bank where he worked for several decades in various management capacities, including Program Director of Knowledge Management from 1996-2000.
He is the author of eight books, including The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century, which is being published by Jossey-Bass in October 2010.
His book, The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative, was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2007.
The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative, was named in 2005 by the Innovation Network as one of the twelve most important books on innovation in the past several years.
Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership Through Storytelling was published in 2004. He has also published Storytelling in Organizations (2004) and The Springboard (2000) as well as a novel and a volume of poetry.
Denning consults with organizations in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia on topics of leadership, management, innovation and business narrative.
In 2000, he was named as one of the world’s most admired knowledge leaders (by Teleos) and in 2003, he was ranked as one of the world’s top two hundred business gurus by Tom Davenport and Larry Prusak in their book, What’s the Big Idea?
In 2009, he was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University.
Denning’s Web site (http://www.stevedenning.com) has an extensive collection of materials on radical management, leadership, innovation, knowledge management and business narrative.
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As Denning already knows and understands full well, the institutional constraints that must be eliminated comprise a system (i.e. the status quo) that current senior managers worked hard to establish and are certain to defend. Most change initiatives fail or fall far short of their goals because of resistance that is essentially cultural in nature, the result of what James O'Toole so aptly characterizes (in Leading Change) as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." How to overcome such resistance?
Denning advocates what he characterizes as "radical management," based on seven principles. My own opinion is that none of these principles is "radical." On the contrary, as studies conducted by several dozen highly reputable firms and research teams have revealed beyond any doubt, all organizations that achieve and then sustain superior performance have strategies ("hammers") and tactics ("nails") based on these principles.
In ancient Greece, the literal meaning of the word "barbarian" was "non-Greek." Perhaps at least some senior managers now responsible for the system to which Denning refers (i.e. one that "relentlessly constrains the capacity of people to contribute, limits the firm`s productivity, and practically guarantees that clients will be dissatisfied") view the seven principles as "radical." Hopefully, they will read this book and, more to the point, recognize what they must do to institutionalize the system Denning has devised.
Readers are provided with a wealth of information, insights, caveats, and recommendations. For example:
The differences between traditional and radical management
A review of the seven principles (introduced on Page 4)
A set of integrated measures
A mini-briefing on three stages of capitalism
An explanation of why self-organizing teams succeed
Using iterative work patterns
Where iterative approaches don't apply
Understanding phantom work jams
Identifying and removing those jams
The management mindset problem
All this (and much more) is provided in the first seven of twelve chapters. The succeeding five chapters are equally valuable in terms of what Denning explains and affirms. Readers will especially appreciate the fact that he devotes a separate chapter to each of the seven principles, concluding each with a set of Practices. For #1, 9 of them; then for the others, #2 (7), #3 (15), #4 (14), #5 (13), #6 (10), and for #7 (10). In Chapter 4, he also includes four Tactics for introducing radical management into "even the most intractable high-end knowledge culture." Readers will also appreciate Denning's skillful use of real-world examples (e.g. World Bank, Easel Corporation, Curb Records, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Ernst & Young, NUMMI, and Toyota) that illustrate one or more key points.
I have read and reviewed all of Stephen Denning's previously published books and consider this to be his greatest achievement...thus far. Bravo!
Top reviews from other countries
Many of these sources directed me to Stephen Denning’s book, ‘The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management’. In it Denning outlines the development and organizational environment, the pitfalls of using dated and inappropriate methods, and the application of methods and mindsets that work. He is passionate about the approach and he is clear that it is not a prescriptive set of detailed practices but an ideology, a new way of thinking about managing dynamic projects.
Denning does an excellent job at laying the foundation for this new methodology, one that is both easy to understand yet difficult to implement. He outlines the fail points that can derail the approach, environments where it is not appropriate, and he describes how anyone within the organization, regardless of authority, can spread the message and drive change.
This book is a must read not just for project managers, but for anyone engaged in the development and delivery of dynamic projects. If you get just a single take-away from this book it should be this; 1) Delight the customer with incremental value, 2) Develop a sustainable rhythm, 3) Have fun. The old focus on performance metrics of cost, schedule, and quality with take care of themselves.
Read this book and share it and what you learn with others. Become the person on your team that leads your organization to a more effective and satisfying way of working. Then continue to read other works on Agile, Scrum, Lean and similar methodologies to expand your personal toolkit and your ability to apply the right approach to any given project.
My story or how I got to writing this review:
When I entered project management in the early nineties the practice was new to the company so my experience was gained through informal trial and error. Over time I developed a personal project management toolkit that allowed me to be successful but I continued to be conflicted with the prevailing hierarchical management practices. Projects were delivered mostly on schedule, but were plagued with missing or underperforming functionality. In addition, management dictated the team work excessive hours to maintain delivery with no connection with the ‘why’ of what they were doing.
Efficiency, quality, performance and personal satisfaction were low and I focused much of my time following each delivery trying to restore a sense of team and to improve on those low metrics. My project management peers shared the same issues and together we learned and established process standards to improve the development cycles. The process improved but only marginally. As the company grew the challenges became greater. We talked about how we worked as a small start-up, on the floor shoulder-to-shoulder without regard to who was best experienced to lead. The team made decisions collectively and because we had just a handful of clients we were all aware of their role and expectations.
In retrospect we were fairly successful in delivering software using our own modified waterfall technique. Projects began using pure waterfall processes with requirements fully defined and approved before moving into development. But once we were deep into development itself, changes came often and pushing back was pointless. With each new project or new release we continued to start with the same waterfall premise because we thought that if we applied more process and tighter control we would achieve success to the satisfaction of all. We never did; not fully.
I tell this story because if you were learning project management in the early nineties this was likely your story as well. Formal industry practices and standards driven by organizations like the Project Management Institute were not part of our common language.
Today project management is taught in high schools, colleges and most project management positions list PMP or similar certification as a requirement. Much progress has been made but for projects that are dynamic in nature with only some of the requirements known up front, the traditional waterfall process and the hierarchical management practices are not appropriate. PMI and other standards centric organizations held to the classic waterfall methodology and continued to refine and focus on ‘the process’ but the shift to more dynamic development in the workplace has driven them to expand their practices or become less relevant.
Those entering the project management profession have at their disposal a wide array of tools and methods that have been refined through years of experience and documented by people such as Denning to learn from. In the future better products leading to happier clients and developers will be the norm and the ideal of Radical Management will be seen as standard practice.
Für das "Radical Management" stellt Denning sieben Prinzipien auf:
1. Fokus darauf, die Kunden zu begeistern (nicht nur zufrieden zu stellen)
2. Arbeit in selbstorganisierten Teams
3. Kundengesteuerte Iterationen (regelmäßige Annäherungen an das Arbeitsziel)
4. Jede Iteration soll konkreten Nutzen bringen, auch wenn er nur gering sein mag
5. Völlige Offenheit über Hindernisse, die Verbesserungen im Wege stehen
6. Permanente Selbst-Verbesserung des Teams
7. Interaktive Kommunikation
Statt einer konventionellen Hierarchie und Projektplänen mit Managern als Antreibern sollen die Mitarbeiter selbst die Kundenanforderungen verstehen und sich selber realistische Ziele setzen, die ihrem Tempo entsprechen. Weil das mehr Spaß macht und Erfolgserlebnisse bringt, gibt es kaum noch Reibungsverluste. Demokratisierte Strukturen erhöhen die Produktivität.
Die Sache hat einen Haken, auf den der Autor nicht eingeht: Selbstbewusste Mitarbeiter werden keine schlechte Führung mehr akzeptieren, und so geraten unfähige Topmanager unter Druck. Aber das ist Denning egal. Hauptsache, die Arbeit funktioniert besser. Denning will die Hindernisse für die Weiterentwicklung der Produktivkräfte wegräumen, etwa Innere Kündigung, Passivität und inkompetente Führung. Das ist ein mutiges Ziel, eben "Radical Management".
Die beschriebenen Methoden lassen sich bei Knowhow- und Hightech-Arbeitsplätzen anwenden. In einem Discount-Supermarkt wird Radical Management kaum funktionieren.
Denning ist es gelungen, einige wirklich neue Ideen zu formulieren, gut zu erklären und zu begründen. Management-Theoretiker wie Peter Drucker genügen nicht mehr für das 21. Jahrhundert. Wer innovative Firmen managt, sollte dieses Buch gelesen haben.
