|
The Oz Principle: Getting Results through Individual and Organizational Accountability (精装)
by Roger Connors, Tom Smith, Craig Hickman
| Category:
Accountability, Organizational effectiveness, Personal improvement |
| Market price: ¥ 268.00
MSL price:
¥ 248.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Organizational effectiveness is a challenge. This book will convict those in the victim cycle to take accountability for their actions. |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
|
| |
AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 9 items |
|
|
Rolf Dobelli (MSL quote), Switzerland
<2007-01-12 00:00>
If you are looking for a simple guide to a complex business and career problem, preferably a guide based on children's literature, this is for you. The consultant authors believe that a "victim" culture, consisting mainly of refusal to accept accountability, is one of the gravest problems facing businesses in general and business people in particular. The victim culture stalls organizations and individual careers. Therefore, this book offers a guide to overcoming your personal victim culture through various self-help techniques, and to overcoming organizational victim cultures by related managerial practices. We understand and advocates personal and corporate accountability, the underlying theme of the book. And if the Oz metaphor is, perhaps, a little stretched here, just go with it. The advice is sound enough. Then, like Dorothy, the tin man, the lion and the scarecrow, you, too, can journey down the Yellow Brick Road to a magic kingdom where your every wish will be granted. What more can you ask for in a business book? |
|
|
Robert Morris (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-12 00:00>
The authors' central metaphor is eminently appropriate. They correlate L. Frank Baum's plot and characters with situations in the contemporary business world inorder to answer this question: How can accountability enable individuals and thereby their organizations to achieve the results they seek? The metaphor is developed as follows: The Yellow-Brick Road: "Getting Stuck in the Victim Cycle"; There's No Place Like Home: "Focusing on Results"; The Lion: "Mustering the Courage to Accept Accountability" The Tin Woodsman: "Finding the Heart to `Own' Accountability for One's Self"; The Scarecrow: "Obtaining the Wisdom to Assume Full Responsibility for Solving One's Problems"; and Dorothy: "Exercising the Means Needed to Solve Those Problems."
Granted, Dorothy and her three companions (four if counting Toto) proceed together on the journey to the Emerald City and, along the way, depend upon each other to overcome all manner of obstacles. However, keep in mind that the Emerald City is not the ultimate objective for any of them. Dorothy's, for example, is to return home to Kansas. The purpose of that journey, Baum suggests, is to learn what they do not know inorder to recognize what they already have.
The authors suggest that the same is true of most (if not all) of those who comprise a "cult" of victimization which ducks responsibility while telling everyone else what to do. According to Charles Sykes, "Crisscrossing the trip wires of emotional, racial, sexual, and psychological grievance, American life is increasingly characterized by the plaintive insistence, I am a victim." (Those with any direct and extensive experience with 4-7 year olds immediately recognize this as the adult version of "the blame game.") Connors, Smith, and Hickman examine what they characterize as "the destructive force of victimization" and suggest a step-by-step process by which to overcome it. Specifically, they explain HOW to proceed from consciously or unconsciously avoiding accountability for individual or collective results "Below the Line" to accepting accountability for individual and collective performance "Above the Line." I agree with the authors that a majority of workers choose to believe that they have no control over their jobs. They view themselves - and justify themselves - as "victims of circumstance."
This book can be invaluable both to individuals and to teams because it will help them to understand how and why "the destructive force of victimization" results in low productivity, customer dissatisfaction, ineffectiveness, wasted talent, and dysfunctional teams. Those who saw the film no doubt recall the scene in which Dorothy and her companions learn that the Wizard of Oz has no magical powers whatsoever. Only then do they grasp the meaning and importance of the Oz Principle: Assume full responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, actions, and results inorder to direct and control your destiny. Most of those who see themselves as victims have a choice: remain "Below the Line" and suffer while blaming others for that suffering, or, rise "Above the Line" to fulfill what Maslow describes as "self-actualization." In this thought-provoking as well as eloquent book, the authors explain HOW to rise above denial, self-pity, and recrimination; better yet, HOW to to draw upon sources of wisdom and strength within to achieve health, happiness, and prosperity. To paraphrase Pogo, "We have met the Wizard and he is us."
If at all possible, read this book in combination with Bossidy and Charan's Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done; Hammer's The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade; and Canfield, Hansen, and Hewitt's The Power of Focus: How to Hit Your Business, Personal and Financial Targets with Absolute Certainty. |
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-12 00:00>
I was fortunate enough to be captivated by the title of this book when it first appeared in 1994. I read, enjoyed, and applied the principles of this book in my own professional and personal life. Before saying anything more, I strongly recommend this book to anyone who thinks there is room for improvement in their own life. If you believe you can be a better person by becoming more accountable for all your thoughts, feelings and actions, then you need to read this book. The concepts are not subject to the vagaries of time and society. They are simple truths and common sense.
Rereading the latest edition of The Oz Principle has helped cement its rightful place among "easy to read books that pack an impactful message."
The book follows a metaphor with which we are all familiar. This metaphor allows us all to see how easily we get caught in the role of the victim and how easily we play and perpetuate the blame game in our lives.
The Steps to Accountability are placed before the reader in a way that invites him or her to see a situation for what it really is, own his or her role in that situation, solve the challenges presented by the situation and then to finally proactively act on the situation and do whatever needs to be done.
I have recommended this book to hundreds of people over the years. I have yet to have anyone tell me it was a waste of time to read. Most of the time, people tell me how easy it was to read and grasp the concepts within it.
This is truly one of the few books that has proven its worth professionally and personally over time. I rank it among the top ten best books written on how to get the most out of life.
If you believe in personal integrity, if you believe in honor and virtue in the workplace and home, if you think there is room to improve and grow in your life, then this book is for you. You will always be accountable to yourself. Find out how to make the most of your time. |
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-12 00:00>
When asked what their job is, most people will define it in terms of their title or as the list of activities they perform day by day. Never mind that despite all of their honest efforts, they may not be hitting their targeted results. Or worse yet, they may think that as long as they did their part, it doesn't matter that the team may have failed to achieve its goal.
The OZ Principle encourages the reader to challenges that old belief and to take accountability not only for one's individual results, but for the the results of the team. It suggests that "reasons" become "excuses" when we stop trying to overcome obstacles and find solutions. The operative question becomes a mantra of sorts for the truly accountable person as he/she continues to ask, regardless of one's circumstances, "What Else Can I Do?" (to acheive the desired result).
For those who habitually fall "Below the Line", and play the proverbial "Blame Game", this shift in attitude may be a hard pill to swallow. Coupled with the reality that those managers who play the wizards may either be expected to solve all of their people's problems, or may make the mistake of reliquishing their responsibility as coaches in the performance equation. Through a series of real life corporate case studies, The Oz Principle presupposes that, although it may be natural to point fingers, make excuses; to avoid or procrastinate, it is simply not productive. When an individual and/or a team achieves results, it is because they are operating most of the time "Above the Line", climbing the "Steps to Accountability" by finding ways to see it, own it, solve it, do it. For those who need a dose of motiviation, the awareness of our "joint accountability" for results and the consequences for our accomplishments, or lack thereof, is enough to keep this reader striving to stay "Above the Line."
|
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-12 00:00>
Using the Wizard or Oz as a metaphor, the authors convey the idea that a culture of victimization weakens people. The power to overcome victimization and achieve success lies within oneself. For an organization to succeed, employees must become willing to accept individual accounta- bility. The book provides an approach to changing individual attitudes and shows how individuals can implement leadership and a culture of accountability in their own organization. Key action steps of the principle in taking accountability are: see it (the issue); decide to own it; personally work to solve it; and individually commit to do it. This book zeros in on a crucial issue offering a pragmatic approach that links individual and organizational success. The idea of a culture of accountability can be seen as the flip side of the all-to-common cultures of fear, blame, risk avoidance and dependency. |
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-12 00:00>
In my years of attempting to implement performance strategies, I've found few processes that foster consistency, buy-in, and results like The Oz Principle. This common-sense approach to achieving individual, departmental, or organizational accountability allows all employees to get on the same page in pursuing the course and ultimately arriving at full accountability. It's a must read and a must do! |
|
|
Roger Bowman (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-12 00:00>
The book is written for you, the individual, to read and to contemplate. The intent is to help break the reader of the malaise of inaction, which often follows when obstacles to success abound in any endeavor. I found it enlightening and reinvigorating. Through a clever use of analogies to the Wizard of Oz characters, the book leads you to the conclusion that the ability and the authority required to achieve your goals are already within your grasp, just as the Oz characters already possessed their heart, courage, and brain prior to seeking the Wizard. Whether you are a contributor or manager, this book acknowledges that real obstacles exist to accomplishing any worthwhile goal, but points out that successful people and successful teams move beyond excuses and take action to solve their problems. In that regard, I must respectfully disagree with Mr. David Morgan's characterization that this book is a contradiction. The chapters guide you through a structured thinking process that helps you to separate real obstacles from perceived obstacles and to identify actions that will overcome the challenges you face. It also helps dissipate the feeling of powerlessness which inevitably accompanies a lack of progress towards a goal. That is, perhaps, the most empowering facet of the book. I highly recommend reading it. |
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-12 00:00>
The collaborative work of management consulting experts Roger Connors and Tom Smith, with the assistance of author Craig Hickman, The Oz Principles: Getting Results Through Individual And Organizational Accountability is now available in a substantially revised and newly updated edition. Drawing upon concepts, characters, and scenarios from the classic The Wizard Of Oz authors Roger Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman offer crucial lessons for facing the challenges of the modern business world. The importance of accountability, both individual and collective, cannot be understated; The Oz Principle shows how to harness the drive human nature to claim achievements and live up to greater heights for effective financial success. |
|
|
Tim Hotter (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-12 00:00>
Finally, a leadership book that goes to the heart of a management term. Accountability has long been a heard term in the world of management. But how many of us trully hold people accountable, including ourselves? The OZ principle goes miles in explaining how all of us, because we are human, have a tendency to become a "victim" of circumstances that cause us and others to operate below the line. To operate more frequently above the line, thereby contributing to the success of the organization, the book uses the OZ characters to protray how to constantly look at ourselves and others and make the choice to rise above the circumstances and excuses and just get the job done. |
|
|
|
1 Total 1 pages 9 items |
|
|
|
|
|
|
