The new book from Steven J. Spear and Gene Kim takes a look at what makes for winning organizations and develops what they call a new theory of performance management - why do some organizations really seem to fly year-over-year while others do not? Why is it that some organizations can really take advantage of the tricks and techniques of Lean or DevOps or Theory of Constraints or agile software development or <pick your approach>, while others never seem to find their footing? Wiring the Winning Organization attempts to answer these questions. The book takes the readers through three key areas that leaders wire up winning organizations: Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification.

An article on CIO.com about Why IT project still fail gets me riled up. All the reasons listed are simply solutions in reverse - solutions that get suggested over and over again in various venues. The fact that projects “still” fail might suggest that these problems aren’t the real problem, that they are symptoms of a deeper cause. It’s only once we resolve the deeper cause that the problems will lessen or go away entirely.

We all make mistakes - big and small. But what do we do with them? How do we react? How do the people around us react? Mark Graban’s latest book, The Mistakes that Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation is an interesting combination of anecdotes from his My Favorite Mistake podcast along with guidance on developing the environment where making mistakes is an opportunity to learn and grow.

Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling was written back in 1988. Does it still make sense? The obvious thing for me in re-reading and discussing the book with some colleagues is that the concepts apply more broadly than only sales environments. In any large change project, the change agents are always selling - working to make the change happen and make that change become an embedded way of operating.

This reading’s key takeaway: Practice!

A Radical Enterprise: Pioneering the Future of High-Performing Organizations by Matt K. Parker is a curious book. It describes a vastly different way of working in organizations that enables significantly better outcomes - an exciting scenario. At the same time some of the stories and prescriptions made me either disappointed in my own ways of working or think that there is a deep canyon between my current ways of working and this radical new enterprise.

I heard a different way to articulate conflicts today on a podcast that might help shed some light or give some different language. Rather than thinking about the actions people want to take as causing the conflict, think of them as positions. And the positions come out of interests. People get entrenched in their positions, as it often seems the only way to meet their needs. But when we articulate the situation more clearly, we can start checking underneath - how does that position satisfy that interest? (How does that action meet your need?) Articulating the conflict often helps us see there maybe there are some things in common as well as understanding the assumptions we have about why our position is “right.” This new terminology adds to the options I have when thinking about these kinds of situations.

Jamie Flinchbaugh has a new book out about problem-solving, People Solve Problems: The Power of Every Person, Every Day, Every Problem. The basic setup is reasonable - we all solve problems all the time, how should we think about it? I like how this isn’t a set of specific directions for problem solving, but rather what any approach to problem solving should have from the individual contributors through to the leaders.