Hi Bruce - I posted this comment on my blog and wa...

2008-07-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

Hi Bruce - I posted this comment on my blog and wanted to cross-post to yours as well.

Good stuff and thanks for making me take a step back and think about what I said.

You make some excellent points here...and are 99% correct.

I think what bothered me about the book the most was the comment about 'creating a sense of urgency' and the description of how to 'create' that urgency. My thoughts, which I may not have described well in my original post, is that you shouldn't have to 'create' anything....the sense of urgency should already be a part of the culture of the organization. The term 'create' is what bothers me most as it conjures up an idea of 'making something out of nothing'.

Now...back to your critique.

How does this urgency come into existence? At some point it does have to brought to the forefront of the organizational mindset....perhaps that is what 'create a sense of urgency' really meant to the authors.

Your points on Political acumen and art of persuasion are spot on...I definitely downplayed these as a necessary skill set for leaders to have. These are skills that are necessary tools for any leader to have...especially to keep the jackass' at bay :) The bothersome aspect to these skills were how the book authors were telling readers to use these to 'play the game' rather than change the game.

The book was "Creating the Project Office: A Manager's Guide to Leading Organizational Change"...which turned out to have some really interesting topics in it. I still can't recommend it completely though because I felt that the authors were pointing people down some roads that just don't follow my own thought processes on leading organizational change.

Comments on Bruce's Brain: Organizational Change is like Sausage

Hi Bruce - I posted this comment on my blog and wa...