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Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Colloboration
 
 
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Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Colloboration [Hardcover]

Warren G. Bennis (Author), Patricia Ward Biederman (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

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For years, Warren Bennis has written about leadership in works such as Learning to Lead, Beyond Leadership, and the bestselling On Becoming a Leader. His aim in these well-received titles was to catalog the traits and styles of leadership that help individuals excel in their work. In his new book (and already another bestseller) Organizing Genius, Bennis declares the age of the empowered individual ended: what matters now is "collaborative advantage" and the assembling of powerful teams. Drawing from six case studies that include Xerox's PARC labs, the 1992 Clinton campaign, and Disney animation studios, Bennis and coauthor Patricia Biederman distill the characteristics of successful collaboration, showing how talent can be pooled and managed for greater results than any individual is capable of producing. Organized in easily digested chapters and written in clear, concise prose, Organizing Genius will be useful to folks finding their way in new organizational structures. The lessons Bennis and Biederman offer in the final chapter of the book don't constitute the obvious advice most business books convey; these are real experiences gleaned from the stories of collaboration they surveyed.

From Publishers Weekly

University of Southern California business professor Bennis and Los Angeles Times reporter Biederman examine six "Great Groups" whose work affected and sometimes changed the modern world. They are the Disney organization and its animated films; the Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center, which designed the first user-friendly computer; the Clinton presidential campaign of 1992 for what the authors deem a remarkable victory; Lockheed's Skunk Works, where the U-2 spy plane and the Stealth bomber were developed; Black Mountain College in the foothills of North Carolina, which lasted only from 1933 to 1956 but attracted many major artists; and the Manhattan Project, whose scientists created the atomic bomb. All of these groups, the authors stress, consisted of enormously talented people with a sense of mission, who worked under a strong leader and were imbued with pragmatic optimism. Each segment is so well told that it has lessons for all.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews
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 (7)
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3.6 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars Packed With Knowledge!, Jun 9 2004
By 
Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Organizing Genius (Paperback)
Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman describe the qualities that generate "Great Groups," capable of meaningful creative collaborations. Despite the myth of individual achievement and heroic leadership, the authors delve into major breakthroughs accomplished by group effort. Often Great Groups unite around the vision of a charismatic leader and work toward that leader's goal with obsessive commitment. Bennis and Biederman spend much of the book describing the workings of a half dozen such groups - from the Manhattan project to the founders of the Disney Studio to Bill Clinton's campaign team. These case histories read like individual short stories, but they each tell the saga of a driven creative collaboration. The authors conclude with lessons you can apply to bring the dedication of Great Groups to bear within your organization. We recommend this clearly written, logically organized book to leaders and collaborators in any industry, with two caveats. First, acquiring the requisite charisma is up to you. And, second, as to the authors' fulsome praise of obsessive work habits, well, that's so '90s.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Really Great Insights, Mar 18 2004
By 
Rolf Smith (Fredericksburg, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Organizing Genius (Paperback)
I got tremendous value out of this book. While I did not see or connect with all the Great Groups that Bennis used as case studies, there are powerful ideas and insights in every one of them. I have summarzied his 15 "Take Home Lessons" in a one page handout and include it in the materials for our School for Innovators and on operational Thinking Expeditions. I also got a video of "Fat Man & Little Boy" - the Manhattan Project (which is cited in the book) and have referenced it often as an example of a powerfully urgent Great Group coalesces and collabortes differently. For anyone trying to not just launch a fastforward team, but who also wants to inspire that team to greatness, this is a must read. Caution: this is not a "how to do it" book - rather it tells the story and paints the picture, and its up to the reader to take his or her own learnings and how to out of it (iontuitively).
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3.0 out of 5 stars Some great points dissolved in useless text, Mar 30 2003
By 
Alexis Smirnov (Brossard, Quebec Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Organizing Genius (Paperback)
This book explores common treats of what author calls a "Great Group". The book tells the stories of a dozen groups creating breakthroughs in many different domains from creation of Disney's first animated feature film, to the development of the first Apple computer.
The author uncovers and shows characteristics of Great Groups using numerous and at times repetitive examples. The last chapter summarizes the lessons.
I have a mixed feeling about this book. Even though I found that messages contained in this book are extremely valuable, I don't think authors found the best way to present them. Most of the volume of the book is taken by numerous stories about how a particular group worked. Many of the tales add little to the core message of the book and merely dissolve them in irrelevant material. My advice the author: the title of this book should have been "Organizing Genius. Stories of creative collaboration". Or even better - instead of writing a book the author could have written fantastic article that spells out all the same messages without wasting reader's time. Pretty much every chapter digests of other sources, so if you're interested in each particular group, I think you'll find much better accounts elsewhere.
See my weblog (just google it) for a more detailed review.
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