Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization

Arms you with powerful tools for overcoming resistance to change and creating a culture of collaboration, engagement, and employee empowerment Your people are your most valuable asset, and if you want them to excel (and your profits to soar), you'll need to abandon your traditional command-and-control management style and adopt a collaborative, open leadership approach one that engages and empowers your people. While this isn't a particularly new idea, many leaders, while they may pay lip service to it, don't really understand what it means. And most of those who do get it lack the skills for putting it into practice. In Flat Army you'll find powerful leadership models and tools that help you challenge yourself and overcome your personal obstacles to change, while pushing the boundaries of organizational change to create a culture of collaboration. * Develops an integrated framework incorporating collaboration, open leadership, technologies, and connected learning * Shows you how to flatten the organizational pyramid and engage with your peoples in more collaborative and productive ways without undermining your authority * Explains how to deploy a Connected Leader mindset, a Participative Leader Framework, and a Collaborative Leader Action Model * Arms you with powerful tools for becoming a more visible leader who demonstrates the qualities and capabilities needed to become an agent of positive change

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments x CHAPTER 1: THE MONA LISA IS SO SMALL! 1 My Fears 5 Whose Job Is Leadership, Anyway? 7 Engaging Defi nitions 9 Why Is Engagement Good? 14 Why Is Disengagement Bad? 16 The Organization vs. Life Itself 18 Why This Book? Why Flat Army ? 20 CHAPTER 2: HOW D WE GET SO RIGID? 27 The Grocery Store of Hierarchy 29 Monarchy as a Catalyst? 32 War Games and the Industrial Revolution 34 The Dark Side 36 Organizational Learned Helplessness 41 CHAPTER 3: THE CONNECTED LEADER 46 Open Says Me 48 The Connected Leader Chasm 50 Falling into the Chasm 52 From the Harmful to the Hopeful 55 An Apple Story 55 A Johnson & Johnson Story 57 The Flat Army Philosophy 60 The Connected Leader Attributes (CLA) 61 The Three Be s of General Sherman 63 The Participative Leader Framework 67 The Collaborative Leader Action Model 69 The Pervasive Learning and Collaboration Technologies Models 70 CHAPTER 4: BECOMING A CONNECTED LEADER 72 Trusting 74 Involving 77 Empathizing 79 Developing 82 Communicating 86 CHAPTER 5: BEING A CONNECTED LEADER 90 Analyzing 92 Deciding 95 Delivering 98 Cooperating 101 Clowning 105 CHAPTER 6: BEYOND THE CONNECTED LEADER 110 Coaching 112 Measuring 116 Exploring 119 Adapting 122 Bettering 125 CHAPTER 7: THE PARTICIPATIVE LEADER FRAMEWORK 132 The Untutored Eye 132 Say It Forward 134 Guanxi 136 Autopoiesis 139 Know Who You Know: Neighbor Networks 140 Putting It All Together 145 The Participative Leader Framework 146 Continuous 147 Authentic 148 Reciprocal 148 Educating 149 Direct Professional and Personal Networks 149 Contribute and Consume 150 Participative Leader Framework in Action 152 CHAPTER 8 : THE COLLABORATIVE LEADER ACTION MODEL 155 Heterarchy Is Not Anarchy 158 Hat Tip to Wirearchy 160 Shell of the CLAM 162 Connect (With Others) 165 Consider (All Options) 166 Communicate (The Decision and Action Plan) 168 Create (The Result) 171 Confi rm (The Result Met the Target) 174 Congratulate (Through Feedback and Recognition) 176 When to CLAM and When Not to CLAM 178 Degrees of Flawless Execution and Collaborative Engagement 182 Worst Practice 182 Bad Practice 183 Good Practice 184 Best Practice 184 CHAPTER 9: LEARNING AT THE SPEED OF NEED 187 Does Organizational Learning Matter? 190 70 20 10 or 3 33? 192 Formal Learning 196 Informal Learning 200 Social Learning 204 CHAPTER 10: TOOLS, RULES AND JEWELS OF BEING A FLAT ARMY LEADER 210 Click Next for the Cons of Collaboration 213 Conversation 215 Micro-Blogging 216 Instant Messaging 217 Comments 218 Discussions 219 Email 220 Content 221 Wikis 221 Video Sharing 222 Blogs 224 Webjams 225 User-Generated Content 226 Context 227 Search 228 Personal Profiles 229 Badging 230 Ratings 231 Tagging 232 Collaboration Technologies and Sales 2.0 233 The Technology Strikes Back 235 CHAPTER 11: FLAT ARMY IN ACTION 239 NHS 239 Good Rockin Tonite 241 Research in Motionless 244 The Spirit of Hitachi 247 Lessons from Scotiabank 249 Zappos 251 HCL Technologies 252 Flat Army at TELUS 254 CHAPTER 12: THE CULTURE QUEST OF FLAT ARMY 260 Flat Army Philosophy 263 Rolling Out Flat Army 267 Impact: Direct Team 268 Impact: Organization (indirect teams) 273 Afterword: In Collaborative Conclusion 281 Endnotes 285 About the Author 301 Index 303

About the Author :
Dan Pontefract is the Head of Learning & Collaboration at TELUS (www.telus.com). He is responsible for the overarching leadership development, learning and collaboration strategy for the company. He has driven a philosophical and cultural shift in the way TELUS views and experiences learning. Called "Learning 2.0", it's a social, informal and formal learning and collaboration model for all 40,000+ team members, bringing TELUS to the forefront of learning leadership. Dan also championed the introduction of the TELUS Leadership Philosophy (TLP), an open and collaborative-based leadership framework for all TELUS team members, alongside a litany of social collaboration technologies. When he's not cycling, he's goofing around with Denise, Claire, Cole and Cate. You can reach him at www.danpontefract.com.