Amy Gallo of The Harvard Business Review writes about Nilofer and The New How, sharing specific approaches on executing strategy within your company and case studies.
We’d love to see your comments at the end of the article!
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by Nilofer Merchant |4/5/2010
Businesses keep replacing people, thinking that “Joe” didn’t do his job. The reality is that businesses are not systemically able to innovate or set direction well. With the help of each of us, we can step forward to change the system.
Nilofer speaks with Charlie Dyer of Knews Radio 94.3 about the New How and Co-laboring. Listen here.
Business Week published a great extract from The New How. Tells about how I learned firsthand about the Air Sandwich.
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I like this. The MIT/Sloan Management Review writes…
If nothing else, Nilofer Merchant’s The New How: Building Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy is ambitious. While many management gurus go on about the value of employee empowerment, Merchant spends an entire book showing not only how strategy with input from all employees is better than strategy from a few people at the top, but also how to make it happen.
I met Peter Deitz recently in Toronto, and was pleased to see in his latest post how useful The New How has been to him. he writes,
“In developing strategies, I have lacked a framework with which to consistently create collaborative and high-impact strategies. Fortunately, it’s this framework that represents the biggest gift in Merchant’s The New How. The author lays out a wonderfully methodical and (in theory) simple-to-implement process to help organizations surface break-through ideas from their team, avoid obvious pitfalls, and cultivate co-ownership of new strategies from the start.”
I love reviews like this one because they recognize the power of The New How as extended beyond business.
In essence what Merchant is implicitly addressing is the relationship between power and legitimacy in a firm. As such, the book has value that extends beyond the business world, as the proper relationship between power and legitimacy is also a critical component of effective governance, or in fact in any institution where leadership is at issue.
Collaborative leaders focus on making decisions by including the input of everyone who works on the project and whose work will be affected by the decision. The act of getting “buy-in” from all of your stakeholders increases employee engagement and commitment.
Read about the seven responsibilities collaborative leaders need to take on to unlock the power of people and their ideas on BizMore.
“Why did you write the book?” I love that question as it lets me expound on the experiences that make The New How a passion for me. It’s not just an “Air Sandwich” or “MurderBoarding” because there are real world stories behind each of them.
I enjoyed my interviewed with Deepika Bajaj of the Invincibelle Column blog. She posted the entire interview on her blog.
Cord Cooper writing in IBD, quotes from the New How.
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Chances are, you’re already familiar with the concept of the Air Sandwich, if not the term itself. An Air Sandwich is what happens when the leadership within an organization issues orders from 80,000 feet and lobs them down to the folks at 20,000 feet. Without the benefit of feedback, questions, or even a reality check from below, this strategy isn’t destined for blazing success.
Read the entire article.