Not just another day at the office or is it? -The surgical technician ducks as a stapler flies past his head during the concluding moments of a lengthy and difficult operation. -The high-powered, internationally known finance guru seeks to turn fortunes around at the university of which he is now...
Not just another day at the office or is it? -The surgical technician ducks as a stapler flies past his head during the concluding moments of a lengthy and difficult operation. -The high-powered, internationally known finance guru seeks to turn fortunes around at the university of which he is now president and finds himself a leader without followers. -The powerful satraps silently sabotage the CEO's desperately needed growth initiative.
These are "moments that cannot be ignored" -- events, actions, comments that stop people in their tracks and, in one fell swoop, make it blindingly clear that an organization is stuck and unable to move forward. And they have become regular occurrences in today's corporations, non-profits, and educational institutions as new forms of work, communication, and technology expose the ways in which an organization's culture -- or "the way we do things around here" -- conflicts with new competitive demands. The result: telling incidents -- all too visible elephants in the room -- that reveal underlying conflicts as well as hidden assets.
In The Moment You Can't Ignore, Malachi O'Connor and Barry Dornfeld tell fascinating "you are there" stories of people and organizations as they encounter and then navigate through and beyond these un-ignorable moments, and show what we can learn from them. They outline the big questions organizations need to ask themselves about identity, leadership, and the capacity to innovate that an understanding of culture can help answer, and deliver powerful insights into recognizing and harnessing hidden assets that point in the direction of a new future.
In our age of porous organizations and constant change, The Moment You Can't Ignore demonstrates that the adage, "culture eats strategy for lunch," is more relevant now than ever.
“The authors bring to life the importance of culture: how very different it is from other elements of change management and how critical it is to take advantage of ‘un-ignorable moments.' Their stories are compelling and memorable.” —Jon Katzenbach, Senior Executive Advisor, the Katzenbach Center, coauthor of The Wisdom of Team, and coauthor (with Zia Khan) of Leading Outside the Lines
“The Moment You Can't Ignore brings us something we have not seen in a long time—a new set of ideas for leaders managing complex and continually changing organizations. This book provides vivid examples of how leaders can create ‘superconducting organizations' capable of successfully managing the rip tides of change that threaten organizational identity, clarity about who is charge, and confidence that they can both adapt to and shape their future. Doing so requires the ability to know and leverage the moments in your organization you can't ignore. This book is a roadmap to being able to identify and leverage those moments.” —David Thomas, Dean and William R. Berkley Chair of Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, and coauthor of Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America
