Wheel$pin
The Agile Executive's Manifesto - Accelerate Your Growth, Leverage Your Value, Beat Your Competition
By: Mike Richardson
Published: September 14, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 344 pages
ISBN-10: 1614660212
ISBN-13: 978-1614660217
Publisher: No Limit Publishing
"In this new age of increasing uncertainty, turbulence, and volatility,with the speed of business and pace of change accelerating all the time, we aren't sure what is going to happen next. When there is less and less that we can count on with any certainty, we must be able to count more and more on our agility as an organization, team, manager, executive and CEO to cope, no matter what. Whatever happens next, we must have the agility to deal with it", writes organizational agility pioneer and management innovator, Mike Richardson, in his insightful and comprehensive book Wheel$pin: The Agile Executive's Manifesto - Accelerate Your Growth, Leverage Your Value, Beat Your Competition.
The author describes how uncertainty and turbulence are the new business normal, that leaders must be equipped to understand and handle the overall challenge, and develop the skills to to become a three dimensional leader who recognizes the overall problem in all directions and demonstrates the agility to overcome the obstacles.
Mike Richardson recognizes that CEOs, executives, and other business leaders must reassess their existing skills, and and problem analysis abilities, to cope with the complexity of today's rapidly changing and difficult business challenges. The author compares the position of the leader as being in the cockpit of an airplane, with a need to observe, understand, and react to the three dimensions of latitude, altitude, and longitude. Mike Richardson calls the intersection of these three dimensions being In The Driving Seat. The author provides evidence that the leader must navigate the intersection of the static plane of thinking with one of a dynamic plane of thinking.
Mike Richardson (photo left) demonstrates the need for developing skills that are a combination of detail complexity/static skills, and of dynamic complexity/ dynamic skills. The author points to the need to develop and improve the dynamic skills to navigate successfully on the longitudinal plane of thinking. For the author, the longitudinal plane represents the journey forward through ever increasing dynamic complexity. Mike Richardson guides the executive through the development of the higher level skills and thinking to travel along the longitudinal axis successfully. Through becoming a three dimensional CEO or executive, the ability to travel through these planes of thinking, requires the agility and skills to find and remain in The Driving Seat.
Mike Richardson shares three underlying premises that offer guidance to the executive or CEO. Those three premises are as follows:
* Without traction, there is no journey
* Cash is king and growing cash flow by reducing static wheel$pin
* Understanding that the rules of the road have changed
For me, the power of the book is how Mike Richardson combines the theoretical framework of his three dimensional and dynamic thinking premises, with the practical strategies and skills for achieving agility and confidence within The Driving Seat. The author shares his experience as an engineer, as a a director in the automotive industry, and from the aerospace industry to provide background and depth to his concepts. The insight arrived at through the aerospace connection, of the three dimensional nature of the business and the marketplace, guides the author toward his advice for leaders.
The understanding of both dynamic and static ways of thinking and acting follow logically in the wake of the three dimensional journey concept. The author demonstrates his premises well, and provides many graphics and diagrams to illustrate the ideas, and create understanding of the idea of agility and being within The Driving Seat. Overall, the book will guide the CEO or executive to a breakthrough in both thought and in action, to prevent being trapped in the static and ground losing wheel$spin mode.
I highly recommend the practical and breakthrough oriented book Wheel$pin: The Agile Executive's Manifesto - Accelerate Your Growth, Leverage Your Value, Beat Your Competition by Mike Richardson, to any CEOs, business owners, executives, or other business leaders seeking a fresh and holistic guide to overcoming inertia in both thought and action. This book will move you and your company to the next level, through a deeper understanding of the changing dynamics of business, and toward being agile in your thinking and decision making skills.
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