Issue No. 592 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting urges you to skip the lectures and the PowerPoints and harness the power of storytelling—with two short business fables. And this reminder: read our new toe-tapping blog, Johnny Be Good, spotlighting 45 songs from yesteryear—with guest blogger color commentaries! Plus, click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), and click here for My Top-10 book picks from 2023 and my Book-of-the-Year pick for 2023. Plus, click here for my review of Lead With Prayer.
Customize your own “That’s not how we do it here!” t-shirt in time for your next strategic planning meeting! Visit Amazon.
For fun this week, I asked ChatGPT to give me a list of the Top-10 bestselling business books written in the “fable” or “novel” genre. What’s your favorite fable? Of the 10 business fables/novels mentioned, I had read five of them, including:
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni
• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• Leadership and Self-Deception, by The Arbinger Institute
• The One Minute Manager, by Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
• Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service, by Kenneth H. Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles
Sometimes, a good short story (without editor-mandated footnotes, endnotes, an index, and a 100-book bibliography) is more than adequate to pack a punch—and deliver one memorable concept. So here are two Big Idea books wrapped in small packages. Enjoy!
BIG IDEA #1 of 2: That's Not How We Do It Here! A Story about How Organizations Rise and Fall—and Can Rise Again, by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber. Order from Amazon. Listen on Libro (2 hours, 53 minutes).
Been there. Done that. You have a great idea for improving this or that (fill-in-the-blanks) in your company or organization. One problem: The naysayers have their own ridiculous rule: “That’s not how we do it here!” (We should wear those t-shirts on strategic planning days!)
Gratefully, coauthors John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber are on a mission in the Kalahari in southern Africa—to attack that soul-crushing response to great ideas big and small. The literary device: a short story about a clan of meerkats (you read that right!).
The clan is facing new challenges (vultures, drought, disharmony, and more). The bureaucracy doubles down, but with no solutions. Enter Nadia, “a bright and adventurous” meerkat who is kind and thoughtful, but gutsy enough to leave the clan in search of help. Along the way:
• We’re introduced to a facilitator’s methodology for prioritizing the best idea out of seven nominations. (“Vote with your feet.”)
• We learn a meerkat clan’s protocol for running an idea up the flagpole. How do I get an appointment with the clan’s leader? (“Just go talk to her!”)
• And you’ll appreciate the two-by-two quadrants with “leadership” and “management”—and “what they each accomplish when well done.”
There’s also humor. The story concludes on page 137 with “The End. (Well, almost.)” In their practical application wrap-up, the authors write, “Unless you simply dislike fables for adults—in which case let us say we are extremely impressed that you had the discipline to make it past page 10—your mind has already been thinking about what here reminds you of your real-life experiences…”
The final 20 pages are worth gold. Three of the four quadrants in the leadership/management scenarios may remind you of your organization:
• Option 1: “Innovative, adaptive, and energetic—BUT chaotic”
• Option 2: “Well run—BUT bureaucratic, unable to change quickly”
• Option 3: “Doomed”
You’ll have to read the book to learn how the meerkats created a fourth option: “Well run AND innovative, adaptive, and energetic.”
Note: You’ve likely read other resources from John Kotter, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, often called “the world’s foremost authority on leadership and change.” See the “iceberg” book below and check out his classic bestseller, Leading Change.
BONUS! View this 10-minute interview with John Kotter, “How to Stop Good Ideas from Getting Shot Down,” from Harvard Business Review.
BIG IDEA #2 of 2: Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions, by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber. Order from Amazon. Listen on Libro (2 hours, 9 minutes).
I mentioned one of my Top-10 books for 2022, In the Kingdom of Ice (recommended by Jim West), to my friend, Dick Bahruth. Dick then reminded me of the wonderful business fable, Our Iceberg Is Melting. The revised and updated 10th anniversary edition (2016) of Kotter's and Rathgeber's book includes new material and a Q&A with the authors.
Did I mention that this fable is about penguins, not meerkats? It’s also fun and memorable. Why a fable about penguins to champion change management? In the Q&A (the last 10 pages), John Kotter explains:
“I’ve been studying for a long time how people learn. And I think it is pretty clear that our brains are hardwired for stories. A good story is easy to absorb and remember, especially if it has emotional components.” He notes that interesting animal stories have “some basic points in them that, because they stick around in your mind, can actually change what we do.”
Coauthor Holger Rathgeber added, “The whole thing started when I was asked to spend two to three hours with a large audience of managers and executives focusing on John’s Eight Steps from his Leading Change book. It was clear to me that a PowerPoint presentation wasn’t a good way to do this. So I created a very rough plot about a colony of penguins sitting on an iceberg that is melting.”
You’ll love the humor—because you’ve likely heard similar suggestions in recent team meetings! What should the penguins do about their melting iceberg? “Another bird suggested they find a perfect iceberg. No melting, no exposed caves, no fissures, just wonderful in every way so that their children and grandchildren would never, ever have to face a crisis like this again. Perhaps if they appointed a perfect-iceberg committee?”
IDEA: Inspire several team members to read one or both books and then, perhaps, create eye-catching posters for your breakroom—featuring snappy quotes from the books.
DISCLAIMER! Interestingly, ChatGPT included this disclaimer to my earlier question. Apparently, AI recognizes that it (he or she?) doesn’t have all the answers: “I don't have real-time data on current book rankings, but I can provide you with a list of some popular business books in the ‘fable’ or ‘novel’ genre up to my last knowledge update in January 2022. Keep in mind that rankings can change over time, and new books may have been released since then. For the latest and most accurate information, I recommend checking current bestseller lists or book retailers.”
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Reflect on a presentation, speech, or sermon you heard recently. Did it include a PowerPoint or a story? Think about the next presentation you will give. If the first century's technology had included PowerPoints, would Jesus have used that tool—or would he have continued to use parables? (What’s your favorite parable from the New Testament? Why?)
2) Robert Hisrich (who passed away in 2023), was a prolific business author and university prof. Back in 1990, I convinced him to coauthor a business story with me to communicate his basic marketing principles. Published by Wolgemuth & Hyatt, you can find used copies on Amazon for this 116-page quick read, Marketing Your Ministry: Ten Critical Principles. (Note: The 10 principles are summarized in “The Program Bucket” in Mastering the Management Buckets.) See Critical Principle #6: “Don’t be the eighth lemonade stand in a row of nine.” For discussion: apply that principle to our current products, programs, and services.
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 11: Hall of Fame Sports Stories
Book #62 of 100: The Cubs Way
For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #62 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
The Cubs Way:
The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball
and Breaking the Curse
by Tom Verducci
Books #61 through #65 spotlight five stunning sports stories with leadership and management lessons. And how’s this for timing? Major League Baseball’s spring training starts in just 30 days. The Chicago Cubs meet the Chicago White Sox in Mesa, Ariz., on Feb. 23. Play ball!
• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: The Cubs Way
• Listen on Libro (13 hours, 1 minute)
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson).
Read my review for 10 big management morsels I gleaned (out of 54 nominees) from this stunning book: how a leader and a manager turned around the losing tradition of the Chicago Cubs. Amazing. (Did I mention that the Cubs won the World Series in 2016—their first World Series win since 1908?)
To develop the communication skills of a future team leader, Manager Joe Maddon gave infielder Addison Russell (“too quiet for a middle infielder”) a reading assignment: Stephen King’s historical novel, 11/22/63. “Maddon asked Russell to report back every 50 to 100 pages to discuss it.” By the way, Russell hit a grand slam in Game 6—just the 19th player to do so in a World Series.
I couldn’t resist: Click here to join Harry Caray in a rousing chorus of “Take me out to the ball game.”
Song #3 of 45
"Shout"
We launched a new blog in 2024, “Johnny Be Good,” and we're recruiting guest bloggers to write about the "45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop," from the book by Marc Myers, The Anatomy of a Song. Read Blog #3 of 45, “Shout,” sung by the Isley Brothers. And thanks to John’s friend, David K., today’s guest blogger, who began his musical career in first grade! Reminder: Guest bloggers invited! More info here.
A Revolutionary Movie!
Think of the movies you’ve seen in recent years that are still memorable. (I can still quote the lines!) Often, a well-told story is far more effective than a PowerPoint, a lecture, or sermon. That’s why I so appreciated the film, Jesus Revolution, featuring Kelsey Grammer as Pastor Chuck Smith. Read my short review. And for more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.
PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. “The Good Samaritan” and “The Parable of the Sower” are just two of the many parables that Jesus shared to make a memorable point. Jesus was a superb storyteller. (No surprise. He is the Son of God!) Need help with your organization’s storytelling? Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social). And check out our new company, FiveHive Studios.
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