"Outliers"--An amazing book by MALCOLM GLADWELL--#1 National Bestseller

Malcolm Gladwell has an astounding ability to draw our attention to critical social issues (Crime, Education etc) by co-relating mostly ignored phenomena and facts to unprecedented change. In his recent book- "Outliers", he has once again jolted the conventional wisdom and has provided an intriguing view of exceptional success achieved by very few.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that exceptional success results only from individual talent and sheer determination, Malcolm has taken a deep dive into the circumstances of exceptionl success of well known pople ( Bill Gates--chairman of Microsoft Inc. and one of the richest man in the world, Bill Joy--Writer of UNIX and Java computer languages, Robert Oppenheimer--Physicist who led the American effort to develop  nuclear bomb, Joe Flom--Last living partner of the most powerful law firm in the world ) and has made a convincing argument that:

                  Expectional Success   ==    Talent    x    Cummulative Advantages    x    Inheritances

                                                              In other words       

                  Exceptional Success  ==     Talent    x Opportunities    x    Cultural Traits

The gist of Malcolm's argument is that if we we take away the impact of opportunities and cultural legacies, most of these outliers (exceptionally successful people) could have achieved only a modest success. Through this argument, Malcolm reminds all of us to focus on optimizing systems, policies and practices for providing opportunioties (for cummulative advantages) and re-norming cultural traits (exploiting strengths and diminishing weaknesses) so that talents of many can be sharpened and vigorously applied with increasing resolve. By doing this, society can produce multitude of outliers compared to just very few thus benefiting everyone. "Outliers" IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK WHICH I STRONGLY RECOMEND TO EVERYONE TO READ AND UNDERSTAND THE PRECISE ANATOMY OF SUCCESS,

Amazingly, there is a striking similarity between the gist of Malcolm's "Outliers" and the message advocated in my recently published book--"Organizational Turnarounds with a Human Touch." Although my book is in the context of organizational success compared to individual success in outliers,nevertheless, like outliers, my book also jolts conventional wisdom and provides a radical view of turning aroud an organization from a poor/struggling status to a benchmark/enviable status.

The conventional view which is strongly embraced and perpetuated by most organizational leaders is:

 " Running an organization is a complex affair. It needs special breed of people to lead the charge and is impossible without a heavy dose of money,technology and expertise"

This conventional view which is widely believed and demonstrated results in very few outlier organizations and multitude of others struggling and under-performing. With this conventional view, the sub-performing organizations learn to justify their poor performance by attributing their failure to the complex nature of their work, lack of leadership talent and scarcity of financial and technological resorces at their disposal.

Contrary to the conventional view and based upon my real successes in turning around many organizations in many countries and cultures, I have leaned, reinforced and passionately propagated (through my book) that:

"Running an organization is as simple as functioning of Nature.  . It just requires enkindling true leadership in all through inspiration and it needs continous nourishment and reinforcement of human dignity and human creativity".

Armed with this simple mind-set and focussing on providing opportunities to all through inspirational leadership and by removing impediments like Cultural Pollution (outdated/manipulated values and practices) and Human Mis-alignment (destructive competition), I was able to dramatically improve organizational effectiveness and move many organizations from a deep sea of self-pity to the soaring skies of authentic pride. Although the four stage sequential process of turnaround is detailed in more than 200 pages of my book, but, the gist of that approach is briefly summarized as below:

Ability to Capability----Increase Self-Esteem by creating environments of Simplification,Total Learnig and Sharing.

Capability to Proficiency--- Cultivate Winning Attitudes by removing imprdiments of Cultural Pollution and and Human Mis-alignment.
                                               

Proficiency to Excellence--- Facilitate Growing confidence by institutionalizing the cycle of excellence tool.

Excellence to Thrilling&Recurring Success---Instill Empowering Mentorship through the use of Cycle of Authentic Pride tool.

Making an outlier organization (consistently performing and delighting)  is not about having few super-star leaders and abundance of enablers (money,technilogy,expertise), but it is all about providing opportunities and tools to all by creating environments in which there is a natural evolution of organizational ability to capability to profociency to excellence to thrilling and recurring success.

When explainations and beliefs take the form of conventional wisdom,they become popular notions and get embraced,reinforced and perpetuated as the only truths and majority views. That closes door on looking facts and phenomena in a different perspective thus status quo starts to prevail and get solidified. Since progress is always the result of demonstrating reslessness with status-quo, conventional wisdom must always be challenged and tested. Perhaps, the following words from Mark Twain say it all:
                               "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,
                                it is time to reform (or pause and reflect}"
                        
                                                                                                                
Both of Malcolm'sbook "OUTLIERS" and my book "Organizational Turnarounds with a Human Touch" are bold steps to jolt the conventional wisdom about success and they both provide an intriguing and refreshing perspective about individual and organizational success.

                                                                                    
         
                                
                   

                                      



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ForeWord Clarion Review for "Organizational Turnarounds with a Human Touch" -5 Stars

ForeWord Clarion Reviews

BUSINESS

Organizational Turnarounds with a Human Touch

Baldev Seekri

Trafford Publishing

978-1-4269-5611-9

Five Stars (out of Five)

Baldev Seekri spent over forty years in business, retiring from Texas Instruments, a Fortune 500 company, as a general manager. His extensive experience serves him well as a platform for his engaging book,

Organizational Turnarounds with a Human Touch.

What Seekri does exceedingly well is distill the subject of turnarounds and corporate leadership into the simplest of terms. He says the defining insight into turning an organization around is, "A simple mind-set pursuing a simple process and making the results look simple." Seekri intentionally uses the word "simple" three times in his quote just as he strives for simplicity throughout the book.

Seekri explores the "Simple Mind-Set" in part one of the book, concentrating on the inspirational aspects of leadership, ways to create an environment of total learning, using sharing as a leadership technique, and explaining the role of the creative process and enablers in developing "a human solution" to business challenges.

In part two, which makes up the bulk of the book, the reader discovers a four-phase turnaround process that moves from self-pity to self-esteem, from self-esteem to winning attitude, from winning attitude to growing confidence, and from growing confidence to authentic pride. The author carefully leads the reader through each phase of the process, combining theory with real-world examples. He employs numerous useful diagrams and charts to illustrate the text and includes "a quick refresher" at the end of each phase to reinforce the material covered.

Seekri offers "A Helping Hand" in part three, demonstrating how to make results look simple and discussing how leaders can develop their own "inspiring knack." He defines an inspiring knack as something "that can transform your view of the [turnaround] journey from a forced trip to an adventurous pursuit and can provide you with abundance of true leadership experience and authentic pride in the course and aftermath of your journey."

At the conclusion, the author points out that his book is a "radical" departure from the typical management book in the sense that it "is written from the inside-out by relating results in the practical world and then synthesizing the principles that produced those results." Indeed, it is Seekri’s very real hands-on experience that make the book’s content relevant and applicable.

Organizational Turnarounds with a Human Touch is a masterful work that should be of lasting value to any manager or leader faced with the challenge of turning around an organization.

Barry Silverstein

Response from Mike Ritz-Director Leadership RI

Baldev,

Sorry I haven't responded. So many email piled on from vacation.

I have not finished the book yet, but I've very much enjoyed what I've read. I'm ordering at least one more copy for our office because I want to work through the book with my staff.

I'm very interested in organizing an advisory group around next year's projects - all of which are designed for the class to identify the root of the problems in the state and work toward solving them. This will culminate with a leadership conference in the fall of 2012 when we will release their findings/activities and when we will also bring in various thought leaders from around the world to work on those potentially and others. Would you like to volunteer to be on this advisory group? We'll meet a few times a year to track the students' progress and to discuss the most effective activities/people to include in the conference. I don't want this to be a passive activity where attendees are simply listening to presenters, but rather a conference where attendees are working on blueprints for state solutions together. Leadership Rhode Island has the resources and the human capital to pull it off, but I'd love to have someone with your experience and talent working with us in planning.

Best,
Mike




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From: "baldev seekri"
To: seekri5@comcast.net
Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2011 9:02:42 AM
Subject: Fwd: Discussions with Mike Ritz-Director, Leadership RI on August 5,2011

Discussions with Mike Ritz-Director,Leadership RI

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: baldev seekri
Date: Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 2:14 PM
Subject: Discussions with Mike Ritz-Director, Leadership RI on August 5,2011
To: mritz2@gmail.com



Hello Mike,
How are you? Enjoyed our conversation last Friday. You brought very interesting and thought provoking subjects. Let me comment on one of the subjects and the help my book " Organizational Turnarounds with a Human Touch " can provide.

Setting:
A diverse team of talented leaders sponsored by their parent organizations (Business, State, Social etc) engaged in analysing and achieving a near consensus resolution of a critical community issue.

Desired Outcome:
Team to establish a strategic direction with measurable milestones for lasting impact.

Challenges/opportunities;
1. Diversity
2.Diluted Commitment
3.Time for Resolution


We can call it philosophising, but it is a time tested fact ( substantiated by my own professional experiences) that whenever we are faced with resolving a critical issue or capitalizing on an unprecedented opportunity, it is like going on a journey with positive anticipation of rewarding results. Very few individuals, teams and organizations achieve the desired results and for others, their efforts become a showcase of formalities and frustrations. What factors determine. the success or failure of the journey are:
1. Perceptual view of the journey.
2 Mind-Set for the journey
. 3. Methodology to conduct the journey
4. Facilitation for the journey
Considering the challenges/opportunities of this particular case, the selective contents of this book can positively impact on the above mentioned four success factors. Let me briefly elaborate on those as follows:

1.Perceptual View: How the issue or opportunity is viewed in the first place has a profound impact on the outcome. In chapter 5 of the book (pages 81-82), there is an explanation of the dynamics of that view. That dynamics will help the team to view the project as as an adventurous quest for a worthwhile goal and spark their inspiration.

2. Mind-Set: After the view gets clarity, the next important element for the team is to learn how to approach the Issue/opportunity. Here is where most of the false starts are made leading to frustrations and premature demise of the journey. An extensive discussion of the simple mind-set covered in the first four chapters of the book (pages 3-72) will help the team to approach the issue/opportunity with a mind-set of simplicity, inspirational leadership and reliance on the supremacy of human creativity.

The above-stated first 2 steps are extremely important and are a Mental Preparation for an effective effort ,

3. Methodology: With a good clarity of the view and the right tone of the mind -set, the team is now ready to plunge into actions for resolution. The quality and speed of their progress will be dictated by the quality of the methodology they choose. It is my experience that due to the diversity of the team and the limited time, there is always a strong temptation to leapfrog to solutions. Leapfrogging can result into pseudo short-term accomplishment, but it is always fatal in the long run. To thwart leapfrogging tendencies and achieve a real, speedy and uplifting resolution, the team can use the cycle of excellence tool (developed by me in 19991 and used in numerous similar situations for about 2 decades) in chapter 10 (pages 220-229). By following the assessment, questioning, benchmarking and Sharing steps of this tool in a sequential manner, the team will arrive at a consensus based authentic solution and will also experience an amazing improvement in their smartness, creativity, wisdom and humility.

4. Facilitation: Last but not least success factor is the quality of facilitation. In a diverse team, there is a wealth of knowledge and diversity of ideas. Only a good facilitator or guide can stimulate and expose them in a non-threatening manner. What is required here is the art of unimposing leadership and the skill to make the cause common, worthwhile and uplifting. The facilitator can and must gain following insights from this book
A. True Leadership; chapter 2&3 (pages 21-54 )
B. Empowering Mentorship (pages 261-265)
C. Anatomy of Commitment (pages 200-206)

IN CONCLUSION, the contents of this message are not to provide a customized solution to the issue/opportunity, but to highlight the above-mentioned basic things which most teams and facilitators are capable of doing and should be doing in the first place.

Mike,it was real pleasure talking to you. In whatsoever form and shape I can help you and your team for this noble cause, Please let me know. I strongly feel that an exposure of these few selective pages from the book can add a lot of value to your cause.

Beast Wishes and take care,
Baldev Seekri

conversation with Bush Chaudhary

Had an intresting discussion with Bush.Although I had known that he has a unique ability to view any subject matter from different angles, nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised that he can read between the lines and get to the isight within the message.

He raised a number of intresting questions about turning around not only struggling organizations but als transforming good organizations from good to great. This gave me an opportunity to point out a number of episodes mentioned in the book to answer those proving questions.

Discussions like this add a great value not only to the validity of this book, but also open more doors for propagating the message of the book widely.

This is first posting

Congratulations to Mr baldev seekri for the outstanding book" Organizational Turnarounds with a Human touch"

kul bhushan