STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE: CONCEPTUAL TOOLS FOR LEADING CHANGE BY MICHAEL MACCOBY

Genres: Management, Leadership, Nonfiction, Strategic Planning, Human Development.

Rating: 3/5

Recommend to: Entrepreneurs, Start-up founders, Team leaders, Managers.

Number of pages: 208 pages

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THOUGHTS ABOUT THE BOOK:

I picked up this book because one thing in life is certain and that is change will happen. The main difference in business I have found is that people who are flexible and able to adapt to change have a bigger probability to be successful than the ones who don’t. Then there is the “question” how capable are you as a leader at implementing change and preparing your team to have a positive mindset about change and looking for opportunities and not thinking that change is bad. Maccoby argues that a successful leader must understand change, use a systems approach to identify areas of change, and finally, create an organizational climate conducive to the change they wish to see.

When picking up this book keep in mind that Maccoby is a psychoanalyst and his writing style is influenced by his academic nature. By this, I mean that at certain points the book becomes very dull (if you are not an academic like him) because of all the in-depth references from the world of psychology. The author and the theory in the book confirmes what I believe about leadership, so from this point of view, I found the book very interesting. As you will see later in my notes from the book, for a business to be successful you need people with the right mindset (looking for opportunities, developing strategy which is focused on your users/consumers), and by creating an environment in which these people feel safe and motivated to give the best they can. It’s not always about the “bottom line”, the money, or the biggest office. Business is about people, people are emotional, so for a business to be successful and lead people not manage them it needs to understand emotions. For me, this was one of the main messages from the book.

After reading this book I wasn’t sure how to actually do a book review about it. Since the message of the book for me was something I agree with fully but at the same time the way the book was written I found myself struggling at moments if I should continue or not.

MY NOTES FROM THE BOOK:

• How organizations change depends on leaders, their knowledge, and philosophy.
• To change organizations, leaders have to engage the intrinsic motivation of collaborators. Material incentives have never been enough. At times they are even demotivating when people focus on maximizing the money they make rather than what they make or do for the customer.
• Neither employees nor customers are inspired when a company’s sole purpose is profit. But when the purpose is improving the lives of people, now and in the future, companies are more likely to gain and retain customers, recruit and engage talented people and increase profitability.
• There are three different types of leaders: Strategic, Operational and Networking. Every one of them has different roles, personalities, and leadership qualities.
• So your products or services do not become just a commodity ask (interview) your customers how can you better meet their needs.
• To shape and implement strategies, leaders need to engage and motivate collaborators. Furthermore, to adapt to a constantly changing world, strategists must be able to learn from results, perceive threats and opportunities, preparing, if necessary, to modify their strategies.
• Strategic intelligence calls for the following abilities: FORESIGHT (the ability to anticipate currents of change and provide opportunity),VISIONING (the ability to design the organizational system), PARTNERING (the ability to develop productive relationships), ENGAGING,MOTIVATING, and EMPOWERING (gain collaborators who will implement the vision and continuously improve products and productivity).
• Robert Sternberg factored three types of intelligence: ANALYTIC (analysis, memory, logic, and problem solving), PRACTICAL (tact, timing, understanding people and their motives, and communicating effectively), CREATIVE (pattern recognition which is essential to making sense of changes in the business environment).
• Understanding people means understanding what motivates them and how they interact with each other. This understanding helps leaders to predict how people will respond to their initiatives, why they embrace or resist change, and what it takes to engage them in collaboration.
• In contrast to management, leadership is a relationship that can’t be given away. If people follow you because they want to follow you, you cannot hand over that relationship to someone else.
• Like other primates, we have a tendency to form hierarchies because of our drive for mastery. We recognize that leadership may be needed and we sometimes idealize leaders for a while, especially when they appear to be helping us respond to a challenge.
• A study of Swedish leadership showed that idealization can turn to contempt when people decide a leader is no longer useful or has even become a danger to them.
• When working with your subordinates/followers to engage them in projects to improve processes you can drive out fear by treating mistakes as opportunities for learning. Also, make it harder to make mistakes and easier to do things right.
• Ideally, strategic CEO’s will lead change together with key operational leaders and they will avoid the temptation to wall themselves off from a workforce that wants to know what they believe and wants to relate to them.
• Without trust people in organizations work for themselves, not for the organization and its stakeholders.
• The philosophies and actions of leaders can move the culture of organizations and the social character of people either in the direction of human development or the negative direction of conformity and tribalism.
• Many companies define their purpose as profit or return to shareholders but no one excepts shareholders are inspired by this purpose and it does not focus a company on its future.
• Businesses should start with its purpose and values and use them to inspire employees to innovate and provide superior service while creating sustainable increases in revenues and profits.
• How we make decisions depends on our philosophy, what we value. This includes our ethical and moral reasoning. That is why it is important to know the people you work with.
• Values are strengthened when they are supported by the organization’s measurements.
• Bottom line is a trailing indicator describing past results. Future success depends on factors like hiring, retaining and developing talent and finding and satisfying customer needs.
• Understanding personalities means being able to predict, with a high probability of success, how people will behave at work, how they direct their passions and how they respond to challenges.
• Our value drives are shaped by family, school, workplace, sports, and the media (be mindful what you watch and listen to).
• National culture influences social character, particularly in attitude toward authority and collaboration (have this in mind if working in an international company).
• When people are fearful, they may comply, but they don’t take the initiative.
• People/employees resist change because they don’t understand the vision and what it will mean for them and their roles. Also because they fear a loss of authority and clarity with change that makes them share authority.
• Developing strategic intelligence starts with a growth mindset. This includes making an effort to develop oneself with attitudes of embracing challenges, persisting in the face of obstacles, and learning from criticism and from the success of others. You also have to have a systems-thinking mindset, with a focus on purpose.

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