Book Review #1
Seven Miracles of Management - Alan Downs
1998 Prentice Hall.
This is a very business focused management book, but written from a spiritual sense… hence the word miracle. It talks of 8 ‘miracles’: Manifestation, Reciprocity, Honesty, Forgiveness, Passion, Esteem, Transcending the Past.
Well written book… not too long.
Highlights:
Managing is nothing more than taking people, materials, and funding, and making the relationship of these disparate items greater than the sum of the parts. In other words, creating something more than what was before (xxiv introduction).
Nothing new in our reality comes into being without first being born of an idea (page 2).
On bureaucracy: …consider the organization where there is a breakdown of manifestation. We all know it; it is called the bureaucratic organization. In this company, ideas don’t flourish and consequently, creative solutions never manifest (page 4).
The process of manifestation (page 6):
- Visualization
- Commitment
- Affirmation
- Realization
Senior managers seldom think in ways that one might simplistically view as ‘rational’. Instead, when the pressure is on and the stakes are high, intuition was the tool most likely to be used for decision making (page 10).
The effective manager of the organization is a gardener of ideas, creating a fertile and receptive environment for iedas to flourish and mature. Of the joy of harvest is to come, the manager must first cultivate the humans field of ideas (page 27).
A great section on page 25 discusses the WAY to implement new ideas:
…build joint commitment to the idea and act as if the new idea were already a reality. She begins to confidently establish all of the processes necessary for the new idea. Most important the manager begins to speak of the new idea with positive, reinforcing affirmantions. She uses every opportunity to speak with both actions and words about the new idea…as they see pictures of the new reality, they slowly begin to accept the new idea for themselves. Once stakeholders own the new idea, a critical mass of unity forms and idea begins to manifest.
On past experiences:
We give memories extraordinary power over our lives… Past events cannot reach into the present and control us unless we allow them to do so.
Summary:
Profound, simple book that outlines some very Christian ideas. The one lesseon remembered… how to implement new ideas.
