I read it once and took some notes. Haven't looked back on either the source nor my notes (until now!), but the book came to me at a time when I was dealing with a lot of inner-organizational bureaucracy on a small-scale, but was utterly frustrating.
The book gave me new frameworks, and was reco'd to me from someone within the org who I was confiding in on the top-level. But ultimately, the frameworks weren't enough to change necessary structures – because those in power and with influence didn't want to change their attitudes, goals, and approaches.
As "negative" as that sounds, the book helped in part for me to understand the four major buckets for how decisions get made:
• command, from on high to everyone below you who must carry out the orders
• consult, to invite input but still one leadership board/ leader makes the final call
• vote, where majority decides what'll happen after being presented with options
• consensus, where a decision is made only after everyone agrees
These frameworks helped me to understand that whatever was causing obstructions/ friction, was because people in power were presenting things as if they were based on consultations leading to majority votes, but ultimately, there was a lot of game-playing from the top leaders who wanted to use those tactics as cover to ultimately have their own way.
Helped me to accept that things were the way they were, and there was no need to exert unnecessary energy. And from then on, to discern first and foremost what the decision-making dynamics are in any group endeavor, be it small-teams or entire orgs, and to go from there.
I'll either write quotes from a book by hand or type it out on some word processor. But there are times I've typed out or written out entire chapters from a book. And one book I almost transcribed pretty much from end to end.
I think it's pretty inefficient. And I definitely don't recall perfectly. But it does help a lot of the info lodge in deeper than just active reading. Might just be a belief I hold, and I don't really recommend others to do it because it's definitely a lil kooky and time consuming.
I read it once and took some notes. Haven't looked back on either the source nor my notes (until now!), but the book came to me at a time when I was dealing with a lot of inner-organizational bureaucracy on a small-scale, but was utterly frustrating.
The book gave me new frameworks, and was reco'd to me from someone within the org who I was confiding in on the top-level. But ultimately, the frameworks weren't enough to change necessary structures – because those in power and with influence didn't want to change their attitudes, goals, and approaches.
As "negative" as that sounds, the book helped in part for me to understand the four major buckets for how decisions get made:
• command, from on high to everyone below you who must carry out the orders
• consult, to invite input but still one leadership board/ leader makes the final call
• vote, where majority decides what'll happen after being presented with options
• consensus, where a decision is made only after everyone agrees
These frameworks helped me to understand that whatever was causing obstructions/ friction, was because people in power were presenting things as if they were based on consultations leading to majority votes, but ultimately, there was a lot of game-playing from the top leaders who wanted to use those tactics as cover to ultimately have their own way.
Helped me to accept that things were the way they were, and there was no need to exert unnecessary energy. And from then on, to discern first and foremost what the decision-making dynamics are in any group endeavor, be it small-teams or entire orgs, and to go from there.
Very cool stuff, for me at least.