Insight Inventory
Great Outcomes Consulting uses the INSIGHT INSTITUTE’s inventories to help clients learn their communication preferences. Leann chose INSIGHT for three important reasons: It’s objective and nonjudgmental; it is descriptive; and it’s easy to learn and apply quickly. To order inventories for your organization, click here.
Articles
Telling Someone What To Do Isn’t Coaching
Recommended Books
Good to Great
If you want to know of what it takes to build a great business or be a better leader, this book provides excellent insights. You’ll likely recognize such business catch phrases as “right people in the rights seats on the bus” from this book. If you think you are irreplaceable or the people with whom you work are all idiots, this book will challenge you to look in a mirror. (Or not. People with over-sized egos tend to question everyone’s intentions except their own. In which case, you’ll read the book and affirm that you are the highest level of leader, even while the “yes” people around you run for cover when you come to work.)
The Great Game of Business
This book picks up with the tactical detail where Jim Collins leaves off. Jack Stack will inspire you and describe specific ways of engaging the people throughout the organization. If you believe information is power and, therefore, you hold it close to the chest, be ready to be challenged. If you believe information is only powerful when it’s in the hands of the people throughout the organization, you’ll be affirmed in that belief. And if you are one of those managers who are too busy to share what’s happening in the organization, stop deluding yourself: You’re too busy because you aren’t giving your team the information and the authority they need to help you look good and the organization succeed.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
This fable is one of the best written ones around. It smacks of reality instead of fantasy. Even better it identifies the problems with so many teams and gives specific examples of how to help a team reach its potential. You’ll recognize common themes from Good to Great and The Great Game of Business.
Raving Fans
It’s another fable, more fantasy than reality, but it delivers good content. While large businesses can benefit from the key messages in this book, small to medium-sized businesses are likely to be able to make the adjustments more readily to create Raving Fans from among their customers and clients. One of the best messages is to focus on 1% improvements – in other words, small changes do make big differences in your business. No surprise, once again, sharing of information and empowering people closest to the customer are central to success.
The Checklist Manifesto
This is a new favorite – and a “must read” for anyone who cares about health care and excelling in their own business. Checklists keep critical and sometimes just important activities from slipping through the cracks and, thereby causing problems that need to be solved. But it’s not just about checklists; it is also about how critical communication is among people who share common goals. Too often, individuals and groups in the same organization compete for resources, attention of the leader or the spotlight – all actions that are counterproductive, getting in the way of helping the organization succeed, and, in some organizations, are catastrophic. Imagine what could be achieved by taking to heart what Dr. Gawande recommends!
