Summary of Fred Kofman's The Meaning Revolution

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 I asked the managers to introduce themselves, and when they did, I challenged them to a wager: if they didn’t know what their job was, they would have to bet a hundred dollars that they didn’t know. Most of them raised their hands.
#2 The primary job of each and every member of the team is to help the team win. The primary job of a defensive player is to help the team win. The primary job of an offensive player is to help the team win.
#3 The customer retention representative struggled with the sound clip of his conversation with Ryan Block. He was trying to do his job, which was to help his company be better, but he ended up doing a great disservice to Comcast through a public relations fiasco.
#4 Leadership is the process of eliciting the internal commitment of others to accomplish a mission in alignment with the group’s values. Leadership is about getting what can’t be taken, and deserving what is freely given.

Sujets

• Leadership
• Business
• Economics
• Gestion et management

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 10 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822506121
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Fred Kofman's The Meaning Revolution
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I asked the managers to introduce themselves, and when they did, I challenged them to a wager: if they didn’t know what their job was, they would have to bet a hundred dollars that they didn’t know. Most of them raised their hands.

#2

The primary job of each and every member of the team is to help the team win. The primary job of a defensive player is to help the team win. The primary job of an offensive player is to help the team win.

#3

The customer retention representative struggled with the sound clip of his conversation with Ryan Block. He was trying to do his job, which was to help his company be better, but he ended up doing a great disservice to Comcast through a public relations fiasco.

#4

Leadership is the process of eliciting the internal commitment of others to accomplish a mission in alignment with the group’s values. Leadership is about getting what can’t be taken, and deserving what is freely given.

#5

As a father-leader, you not only want your children to do their schoolwork, but you also want them to enjoy doing it. You want them to do it because they want to do it, not because you force them to do it.

#6

A leader who offers this deal is asking for your unbridled enthusiasm in return. They are asking you to give your all in service of their great project. They are asking you to exemplify their values and culture, and to hold others accountable for doing the same.

#7

The Meaning Revolution addresses two fundamental questions: why organizations lose and how they can win. It answers the toughest questions: how to align self-interested individuals in the pursuit of a common goal, and how to get people who are fundamentally interested in their own agendas to cooperate with one another in pursuit of a shared purpose.

#8

The most difficult organizational problem is aligning self-interested members in pursuit of a common goal. This cannot be done through economic incentives. The second most difficult organizational problem is getting the right information to the right people at the right time and in the right format to make the right decisions.

#9

Transcendent leadership relies on the inspirational power of nonmaterial incentives. These include employees’ personal sense of meaning, achievement, and self-esteem, as well as shared values and ethics.

#10

An engaging organization enables people to achieve all three of their highest desires: to live, to love, and to leave a legacy. It is the ultimate club of happiness and enthusiasm.

#11

The CEO of Aetna, Mark Bertolini, was skiing with his family when he lost control and broke his neck. He was in constant pain, but he turned to the less conventional interventions of yoga, stretching, and meditation to help him heal.

#12

The most fundamental, unspoken, and universal anxiety in all of us is the fear that our life is being wasted. We worry that our lives won’t matter, that we won’t have made a difference, and that we will leave no trace in this world after we are gone.

#13

Transcendent leaders work to align the individual purposes of those under them into a larger collective purpose that makes each individual larger as well. They understand that if you want to make accountability and cooperation occur at the same time, you must inspire people and create a culture of commitment and connection to a larger purpose.

#14

The pursuit of happiness and the search for meaning are two central motivations in every person’s life. Happiness is about feeling good, while meaning is derived from helping others or contributing to society.

#15

The single-minded pursuit of happiness makes people less happy. What people really want is meaning, and meaning is offered by a transcendent leader.

#16

I have written a book that addresses the most difficult organizational problems. I have been a consultant for companies all over the world, and I have talked to a lot of managers, senior executives, and CEOs about what it’s like to be a conscious leader.

#17

My approach to leadership training is different from the standard things taught in business school. It asks each of us to take a very long, hard, and honest look in an existential mirror. It is part economics, part communications, part family counseling, and part mindfulness and meditation.

#18

The Meaning Revolution explores a paradigm shift from matter to meaning; from compensation, command, and control to purpose, principle, and people. I propose that rather than seeing employees as machinelike entities driven by material incentives, you should see them as conscious beings who want to achieve significance and transcend their limited existence through projects that give meaning to their lives.

#19

Leadership emerges from our human need to make our lives meaningful. We all want to extend ourselves and touch others’ lives, but we don’t want our accomplishments to just be a flash in the pan. We want to rise above our physical limitations.

#20

The leader who wants to become transcendent must go beyond what I describe in Part 2. To marshal fervent followership, the leader must undertake what the mythologist Joseph Campbell called the hero’s journey.

#21

The journey of the leader is fraught with trials that reveal, test, and sharpen his or her spirit. There is a natural pattern to human growth, from unconsciousness to superconsciousness. It is a process that forces you to face your biggest fears, find your greatest strengths, and win the battle to shape your destiny.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The problem with disengaged leaders is that they not only damage their organizations, but also everyone grows more skeptical of their institutions and leaders, which erodes social trust, which is essential for a economy to function.

#2

Leadership is not a position, but a process. Anyone who manages people, from a first-line supervisor to the CEO, needs to lead to be effective. People are not just resources that can be managed like other inanimate things. They are conscious beings who need to be inspired to contribute their best toward the organization’s goals.

#3

The same business phenomenon exists in nonprofit organizations as well. Nonprofit organizations with noble purposes, such as hospitals, schools, and charities, are often burdened with managers who focus on the trivial and petty. They treat people badly, and they fail to listen.

#4

The Gallup Organization has found that the majority of employees, around 60 percent, are actively disengaged at work. These are the employees who are unhappy with their job and the company, and they spread their negative feelings throughout the company and beyond.

#5

The engagement gap is huge, and companies are trying to fix it by implementing programs that make their employees feel cared for. However, these programs are often superficial and based on crude manipulation of people’s feelings to extract more from them.

#6

A client of mine, Bill, told me a tale of how he became disengaged with his company.