This book was given to me early in my career by a mentor.
It makes a clear and concise statement ...
If you're working in a dysfunctional organization and you're unable to make the needed improvements to a level that will remove your frustration with the dysfunction - time to find a new job.
There are nearly an unlimited number of self-proclaimed consultants who claim to have the solution for any dysfunction you may encounter. If you just follow their advice and process, the organization will improve.
Trouble is, you can't fix the organization, and it's trouble by reading a book, hiring a consultant, applying a process ― unless the leader of the organization comes to recognize that He or She is the problem.
Jacko (in his books below) tells a story on his podcast, of being asked by a CEO in San Diego to come to help him fix his staff and get them more productive. His answer was no sir I would be coming you've not recognized that the problem is with you - you're not a mature enough leader to realize that, but when you do call me back
While this Irish book is from the 1970s and didn't address all the technology-based trouble we've created for ourselves - people playing with their iPhones during the stand-up meeting, people having no understanding of where their paycheck comes from, continually confusion between symptom and cause (no understanding of Root Cause Analysis), it's still a starting place. It's an under-$10 book, buy it and read.
Next read about actual leadership, not from leadership coaches in our Agile development world, but leadership advice from people who, when something goes wrong other people Die or are irreparably harmed in some way, economically or other ways.
Here are 4 other books on leadership and fellowship to counter the nonsense of untrained, inexperienced leadership consultants quoting from their marketing brochures. Each of these books is written by hands-on experienced leaders in the presence of uncertainty and many times leading in the presence of danger. Each has served me well in my career of leading mission-critical, high-risk, high reward projects, with the techniques and methods described in these books and taught in a military leadership course, and applied in action both in the field of combat in the office at work.
These styles may not be for everyone, but if you work on a must succeed project, in a must succeed domain, in the presence of uncertainty, consider learning from those who have succeeded in those domains and the domain I put all this learning to working in Making the Impossible Possible and the book of the same name Making the Impossible Possible Leading Extraordinary Performance -- The Rocky Flats Story
