paradigm shifts hit the fan
My Management & Organizational Learning class has three required texts:
1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
2. The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
3. The Leadership Handbook by Peter Sholtes
While getting my undergraduate degree (a BBA), the 7 Habits was so frequently referenced that I thought I had a stronger familiarity with its principles than I really do. Heck, I've had to do reports on the 7 Habits before, but the book was only ever a reference book, not something that I was required to read cover-to-cover as I am in my current class. I am pleasantly surprised to really be enjoying this book. I am typically skeptical of self-help books, probably mostly because my mom was always so obsessed with them and used to give them to me as gifts for my b-day and Christmas, which I always scoffed at with all the rebellion and annoyance a teenage girl directs at her mom. But also, because those self-help books that I have ventured to read have been full of wordy ways to state points I found very obvious and simplistic and frustrated me with its overstated "no shit"-edness. While I was knowledgeable of the 7 Habits in concept, reading through Covey's explanation and connections between them has been both very interesting and very compelling. The 7 habits have become so cliche to any business student, that I am nearly chagrined with how revelational I'm finding them. I appreciate the way he gives personal and very relatable examples from his life. It's a book whose next chapter I eagerly await rather than dread.
I am struggling big time with The 5th Discipline. (SPOILER ALERT: it's "systems thinking"). It's as dry as a popcorn fart. I've got a lot of reading to go in that book so I'm trying to keep an open mind, but so far, it seems that what I've read in the first 68 pages could have been summed up pretty succinctly in about 10 pages with no loss in making its point. The author makes is very clear, repeatedly, that his work is based completely off of the teachings of that old TQM ninja, W. Edward Deming-san. I wonder why no professor of either my undergraduate or graduate classes hasn't just made us read any of Deming's works directly. I feel as if I've had years of Bible study without ever being told to read the Bible. I.e., just like being back in catechism at ol' St. Leo's, where I was forced to go for 12 years and cannot recall ever once being asked to crack open the Bible. I took it upon myself to read it - well, at least the New Testament, while I was in college. I do not anticipate taking it upon myself to read Deming, however, just so's we're clear on that.
The Leadership Handbook - eh. I do like the way it's organized and it employs a lot of interesting little stories and anecdotes to help convey concepts. I've only read 2 chapters so far, so again I need to keep an open mind, but so far all Sholtes has done is shoot down every normal method of managing people I've ever been exposed to in my career. I'm waiting for him to get around to making suggestions on just what we 'leaders' should be doing differently and hope it's not all about telling us how we suck and we've just got it all wrong. I also worry that he isn't going deeply enough into normal human behavior and performance issues. Ok, ok, I get It, and I totally agree that we are all part of a system and organizational problems are symptoms of a troubled system and not directly the fault of its employees - actually I am pretty keenly in agreement with much of that - but let's not discredit the fact that there are some behavioral factors within some employees to contend with as well. I am uncomfortable with how little he's acknowledged that thus far, but, I still have a lot of reading to go.
Ugh. I have been reading too much dry material. This is why I typically read a smutty romance novel at the end of each semester. I needs me a heroine with a lavish name, like Octavia or Raven, who gets swept off her feet by a muscley, poetry-quoting man who is destined to a large inheritance with a fancy title. Pronto, please!