About this item
Highlights
- Is your company run by a team with no name?
- About the Author: Bob Frisch, managing partner of The Strategic Offsites Group, has worked with organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to German mittelstand family businesses to the U.S. Department of State.
- 208 Pages
- Business + Money Management, Management
Description
About the Book
"Is your company run by a team with no name?At the top of every organization chart lies a myth--that a Senior Management Team makes a company's critical decisions. The reality is that critical decisions are typically made by the boss and a small group of confidants--a "team with no name"--outside of formal processes. Meanwhile, other members of the management team wonder why they weren't in the room or even consulted ahead of time. The dysfunction that results from this gap between myth and reality has led to years of unproductive team building exercises. The problems, Frisch shows, are ones of process and structure, not psychology.Who's In the Room is based on interviews with CEOs at organizations ranging from MasterCard to Ticketmaster to The Red Cross. Understand and embrace the way decision-making actually happens in their organizations Use these "teams with no names" to best advantage Engage the Senior Management Team in the three critical tasks for which it is ideally suited Organizations will get better decisions and superior results by unleashing the full potential of their Senior Management Teams. And bosses will see a dramatic drop-off in people coming into their offices asking, "Why wasn't I in the room?""--Book Synopsis
Is your company run by a team with no name?
At the top of every organization chart lies a myth--that a Senior Management Team makes a company's critical decisions. The reality is that critical decisions are typically made by the boss and a small group of confidants--a "team with no name"--outside of formal processes. Meanwhile, other members of the management team wonder why they weren't in the room or even consulted ahead of time. The dysfunction that results from this gap between myth and reality has led to years of unproductive team building exercises. The problems, Frisch shows, are ones of process and structure, not psychology.
In Who's in the Room? Bob Frisch provides a unique perspective to this widely misunderstood issue. Flying in the face of decades of organizational psychology, he argues that the solution lies not in addressing behaviors, but in unseating the senior management team as the epicenter of decision making. Using a broad portfolio of teams--large and small, permanent and temporary, formal and informal--great leaders match each decision to the appropriate team in a fluid, flexible approach that you won't find described in management textbooks.
Who's in the Room? is based on interviews with CEOs at organizations ranging from MasterCard to Ticketmaster to The Red Cross.
- Understand and embrace the way decision-making actually happens in their organizations
- Use these "teams with no names" to best advantage
- Engage the Senior Management Team in the three critical tasks for which it is ideally suited
Organizations will get better decisions and superior results by unleashing the full potential of their Senior Management Teams. And bosses will see a dramatic drop-off in people coming into their offices asking, "Why wasn't I in the room?"
From the Back Cover
Praise for Who's in the Room?"Many business observers talk about executive decision making, but few take you inside the meeting rooms the way Bob Frisch does, or make you rethink what goes on there. Who's in the Room? will cause a lot of leadership teams to set aside time to talk about how decisions are--and should be--made in their organizations. For most of those teams, that will be a unique and much-needed discussion."
--Walt Macnee, vice chairman, MasterCard Worldwide
"Bob Frisch's thirty years of experience in the executive suites of the world's largest companies have led to provocative new insights into how decisions get made at the highest levels of organizations. Whether you fully agree with his premise or not, this book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of top team effectiveness."
--Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California; and author, Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership
"Who's in the Room? puts forward a pragmatic, easily implemented way for companies large and small, across industries and borders, to rapidly improve the quality of their decision making and the effectiveness of their leadership teams. It highlights some basic truths about how leaders lead, how teams behave, and how organizations work, that will have you changing the way you run your company by the time you finish reading it."
--Doug Stotz, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Bank of Montreal
"Rarely does a book reset the way we at look at something and truly shift our basic assumptions about routine activities. Who's in the Room? is one of those books. It will permanently change your thinking about how organizations should be led."
--Michael Treacy, coauthor, The Discipline of Market Leaders
Review Quotes
"Great guide for any leader to use in mapping out his or her advisory teams"
--800 CEO Read
"Authoritative and pragmatic look at how to make the right calls"
--Julian Birkinshaw, Management Today
"Offers real-world strategies for making the best of how organizations seem to work"
--The Leader Lab
"How to structure organizational teams in a way that is both more realistic and more productive is at the heart of Frisch's book"
--CIO Magazine
"What you really want from a book on organizational decision making and leadership"
--New York Journal of Books
"You'll know his advice is working when you see a dramatic drop-off in people coming into your office and asking, "Why wasn't I in the room?"
--Matthew May, Amex OPEN Forum
"Who's in the Room? falls in the great category...due to the book's ability to jar your perspective of how teams do and should operate."
--Michael Wade, Execupundit
About the Author
Bob Frisch, managing partner of The Strategic Offsites Group, has worked with organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to German mittelstand family businesses to the U.S. Department of State. Bob's work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Fortune.