Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization

by Dan Pontefract

Overview

Your people are your most valuable asset, and if you want them to excel (and your profits to soar), you'll need to abandon your traditional command-and-control management style and adopt a collaborative, open leadership approach—one that engages and empowers your people. While this isn't a particularly new idea, many leaders, while they may pay lip service to it, don't really understand what it means. And most of those who do get it lack the skills for putting it into practice. In Flat Army you'll find powerful leadership models and tools that help you challenge yourself and overcome your personal obstacles to change, while pushing the boundaries of organizational change to create a culture of collaboration. • Develops an integrated framework incorporating collaboration, open leadership, technologies, and connected learning • Shows you how to flatten the organizational pyramid and engage with your peoples in more collaborative and productive ways—without undermining your authority • Explains how to deploy a Connected Leader mindset, a Participative Leader Framework, and a Collaborative Leader Action Model • Arms you with powerful tools for becoming a more visible leader who demonstrates the qualities and capabilities needed to become an agent of positive change

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781773272191
Publisher:	Pontefract Group Consulting Inc.
Publication date:	06/02/2022
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Dan is the founder and CEO of The Pontefract Group, a firm that improves the state of leadership and organizational culture.



He is the best-selling author of three books: OPEN TO THINK, THE PURPOSE EFFECT and FLAT ARMY. A renowned speaker, Dan has presented at four different TED events and also writes for Forbes, Harvard Business Review and The Huffington Post. Dan is an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, Gustavson School of Business and has garnered more than 20 industry awards over his career.



Previously as Chief Envisioner and Chief Learning Officer at TELUS—a Canadian telecommunications company with revenues of $14 billion and 50,000 global employees—he launched the Transformation Office, the TELUS MBA, and the TELUS Leadership Philosophy, all award winning initiatives that dramatically helped to increase the company’s employee engagement to record levels of nearly 90%. Prior to TELUS he held senior roles at SAP, Business Objects and BCIT.



Dan and his wife, Denise, have three children (aka goats) and live in Victoria, Canada.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments x

CHAPTER 1: THE MONA LISA IS SO SMALL! 1

My Fears 5

Whose Job Is Leadership, Anyway? 7

Engaging Defi nitions 9

Why Is Engagement Good? 14

Why Is Disengagement Bad? 16

The Organization vs. Life Itself 18

Why This Book? Why “Flat Army”? 20

CHAPTER 2: HOW’D WE GET SO RIGID? 27

The Grocery Store of Hierarchy 29

Monarchy as a Catalyst? 32

War Games and the Industrial Revolution 34

The Dark Side 36

Organizational Learned Helplessness 41

CHAPTER 3: THE CONNECTED LEADER 46

Open Says Me 48

The Connected Leader Chasm 50

Falling into the Chasm 52

From the Harmful to the Hopeful 55

An Apple Story 55

A Johnson & Johnson Story 57

The Flat Army Philosophy 60

The Connected Leader Attributes (CLA) 61

The Three Be’s of General Sherman 63

The Participative Leader Framework 67

The Collaborative Leader Action Model 69

The Pervasive Learning and Collaboration Technologies Models 70

CHAPTER 4: BECOMING A CONNECTED LEADER 72

Trusting 74

Involving 77

Empathizing 79

Developing 82

Communicating 86

CHAPTER 5: BEING A CONNECTED LEADER 90

Analyzing 92

Deciding 95

Delivering 98

Cooperating 101

Clowning 105

CHAPTER 6: BEYOND THE CONNECTED LEADER 110

Coaching 112

Measuring 116

Exploring 119

Adapting 122

Bettering 125

CHAPTER 7: THE PARTICIPATIVE LEADER FRAMEWORK 132

The Untutored Eye 132

Say It Forward 134

Guanxi 136

Autopoiesis 139

Know Who You Know: Neighbor Networks 140

Putting It All Together 145

The Participative Leader Framework 146

Continuous 147

Authentic 148

Reciprocal 148

Educating 149

Direct Professional and Personal Networks 149

Contribute and Consume 150

Participative Leader Framework in Action 152

CHAPTER 8 : THE COLLABORATIVE LEADER ACTION MODEL 155

Heterarchy Is Not Anarchy 158

Hat Tip to Wirearchy 160

Shell of the CLAM 162

Connect (With Others) 165

Consider (All Options) 166

Communicate (The Decision and Action Plan) 168

Create (The Result) 171

Confi rm (The Result Met the Target) 174

Congratulate (Through Feedback and Recognition) 176

When to CLAM and When Not to CLAM 178

Degrees of Flawless Execution and Collaborative Engagement 182

Worst Practice 182

Bad Practice 183

Good Practice 184

Best Practice 184

CHAPTER 9: LEARNING AT THE SPEED OF NEED 187

Does Organizational Learning Matter? 190

70–20–10 or 3–33? 192

Formal Learning 196

Informal Learning 200

Social Learning 204

CHAPTER 10: TOOLS, RULES AND JEWELS OF BEING A FLAT ARMY LEADER 210

Click Next for the “Cons” of Collaboration 213

Conversation 215

Micro-Blogging 216

Instant Messaging 217

Comments 218

Discussions 219

Email 220

Content 221

Wikis 221

Video Sharing 222

Blogs 224

Webjams 225

User-Generated Content 226

Context 227

Search 228

Personal Profiles 229

Badging 230

Ratings 231

Tagging 232

Collaboration Technologies and Sales 2.0 233

The Technology Strikes Back 235

CHAPTER 11: FLAT ARMY IN ACTION 239

NHS 239

Good Rockin’ Tonite 241

Research in Motionless 244

The Spirit of Hitachi 247

Lessons from Scotiabank 249

Zappos 251

HCL Technologies 252

Flat Army at TELUS 254

CHAPTER 12: THE CULTURE QUEST OF FLAT ARMY 260

Flat Army Philosophy 263

Rolling Out Flat Army 267

Impact: Direct Team 268

Impact: Organization (indirect teams) 273

Afterword: In Collaborative Conclusion 281

Endnotes 285

About the Author 301

Index 303