Slack
Thursday, July 5th, 2007I bought this book a long time ago and put it down. I recently picked it up again and it instantly become, again, one of my favorite books.
On leadership:
Lack of power is a great excuse for failure, but sufficient power is never a necessary condition of leadership… In fact, it is success in the absence of sufficient power that defines leadership.
What do leaders to gain trust of people:
They acquire trust by giving trust. The giving of trust is an enormously powerful gesture. The recipient gives back loyalty as an almost autonomous response.
When is the right time to introduce change:
Growth is the rising tide to life all boats. The period of growth is one in which people are naturally less change-resistant. It is therefore the optimal time to introduce any change. Specifically, changes that are not growth-related should be timed to occur during growth periods. This is not because they are strictly necessary then, but because they are more likely to be possible then.
On middle management:
The key role of middle management is reinvention. … The fact that managers have time on their hands gives them time for reinvention. The extra time is not waste but slack … In order to change companies have to learn that keeping managers busy is a blunder.
On status meetings:
Get rid of them. They are ceremony. If you spot a meeting where after you’ve participated, you check out, and then another person talks about their status, and then another, zzzzzzz., then get rid of that meeting.
