I’m thrilled to announce that my fourth book, Organizing Conversations: Preparing Groups to Take on Adaptive Challenges is out on Kindle. Fingers crossed, the print version will be out in time for Friday’s monthly roundup.
This shortish book (at a little over 100 pages and a shade under 30,000 words, half the length of my other books) was a commission for the Bushe-Marshak Institute’s BMI Series in Dialogic Organization Development and represents something of an endorsement by the OD community for Agendashift and Leading with Outcomes. Despite the length constraint (or was it because of it?) it took me nearly two and half years to complete, but it was worth it. More than ever before I was challenged to clarify the thinking behind the practice in a way that deepened existing commitments to participatory and generative change. Neither do I regret the delay to book 5, Wholehearted: Engaging with Complexity in the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation, but that’s for another day. Except to say that organising (a verb, and with British spelling) will be central to Wholehearted, the star of the show today is Organizing Conversations.
In OD terms, what this book does is to bridge two kinds of dialogue, inquiry and generative conversations, the latter referring to conversations in which people generate ideas on which they are motivated to act. In Leading with Outcomes terms, they correspond to the left and right sides of the picture that appears on the front cover. Inside those are Ideal, Outcomes, Outcomes – the IdOO (“I do”) pattern – and Meaning, Measure, Method, two outcome-oriented conversation patterns. Bridging them are Organise the Strategy (mapping, mostly) and Right to Left (the pattern, also the title of one of my previous books).
It might be described as combining the spirit of dialogic and generative OD with some Lean-Agile rigour, and that is what I believe prompted Gervase Bushe and Bob Marshak to invite me to write it. I started out writing a condensed version of an Agendashift 3rd edition, but with Gervase’s editorial input it ended up being much better than that, and for that I am grateful.
Watch a short conversation with Gervase recorded yesterday evening:
You can buy the Kindle version today – here are links for amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, and amazon.de – and watch this space for the print version.
Upcoming events
Webinars and experience/practise sessions are taking a break now until the autumn.
June
October
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Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”
Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its modules in the recommended order:
Leading with Outcomes: Foundation
Inside-out Strategy (I): On the same page, with purpose
Inside-out Strategy (II): Fit for maximum impact
Adaptive Organisation (I): Business agility at every scale
Adaptive Organisation (II): Between spaces, scopes, and scales
Outside-in Strategy: Positioned for success
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At every scope and scale, developing strategy together, pursuing strategy together, outcomes before solutions, working backwards (“right to left”) from key moments of impact and learning.
