Diagnostic mentoring is our approach to better management. It is open-source and widely published in our books. Our books highlight different aspects of better management. Here is your choice:
THE PERFORMANCE TRIANGLE
Diagnostic mentoring to manage organizations and people for superior performance in turbulent times
Lukas Michel, LID Publishing, London, October 2013, ISBN: 978-1907794414
To win in an increasingly dynamic, ambiguous, and volatile environment, leadership teams in most industries must be agile – able to flexibly react to early signs and act on them quickly. The only thing we truly know about the future is that it will be different. We need to build organizations that can cope with these challenges rather than embarking on disruptive change processes. To do this, leaders face the dilemma of empowering people without losing control.
An agile organization needs good decision-making at all levels – from the centre to the periphery – tapping into the full potential of the people, the operating model, the information technology, and leadership practices.
Decisions are made by people. It is so obvious: People are the most important assets. But good intensions alone are not good enough to win your game in a competitive and knowledge-driven environment. First, this means collaborating and relating with people to provide means for finding purpose rather than command and control; second, to provide choice, raise awareness about what is important, and help people remain focused on the things that matter most – the Inner Game technique that helps people to translate knowledge into action and performance. The result is relentless innovation as the prerequisite for growth in a competitive environment.
MANAGEMENT DESIGN
Managing people and organizations in turbulent times
Lukas Michel, LID Publishing, London, 3rd Edition, 2021, ISBN: 978-1-911671-67-1
Management in turbulent times needs greater vision and foresight. This book offers an exciting visual-thinking approach to help managers, leaders and entrepreneurs think through their options and find a way that best meets the needs of their businesses, that supports their talent to perform at their peak, and simultaneously builds the capabilities to cope with turbulent times. The author presents management as a system or a model through a combination of graphics, diagrams and text.
Management models are immensely valuable and will enable managers to more easily think, make decisions, behave and act in line with the company’s overall strategy and objectives. Moreover, when management models are articulated and shared, it can save time, focus attention and release productive energy. This book essentially helps managers to gain a better perspective of their businesses and key activities. It becomes a valuable tool for managing companies and people in these ever-changing and turbulent times.
PEOPLE-CENTRIC MANAGEMENT
How managers use four levers to bring out the greatness of others
Lukas Michel, LID Publishing, London, 2020, ISBN: 9781912555994
Today’s dynamic business environment requires new ways to manage, lead, work, and organize. Traditional paradigms of efficiency, agency theory, transactions and scale are replaced or augmented with principles that focus on people, self-organization, and purpose for greater innovation and growth.
To expand on his previous books, Lukas Michel presents new research, practical applications and the experience with People-Centric Management, agile organization and work on the system to establish new management where people unlock their talent, master greater challenges and perform at their peak. The book offers the legendary People-Centric Diagnostic that forces the reader to decode and rethink the many assumptions underlying their management model and systems. In combination, the people-centric model, the three-step process and action agenda will help executives establish leadership everywhere to succeed in a dynamic environment.
AGILE BY CHOICE
A workbook for leaders
Lukas Michel, LID Publishing, London, 2021, Publication date: 19. August 2021 (UK). 16. November 2021 (U.S.)
Agility in business has become one of the most important management topics of recent times. The ability to create and respond to change in order to succeed in an uncertain and turbulent business environment is the essence of agile. Agile spans people and organizations. It’s the dominant capability of effective leadership in a dynamic context. For agile to reach its full capacity, it needs to permeate organizations to establish leadership everywhere.
At its core, agile leadership is about people, with people-centricity being the mirror image of agile. The shift to agile starts with the leader who makes a deliberate choice to enable people rather than ‘command and control.’ The decision to shift to agile requires an experience which most executives don’t have. Most leaders’ experiences stem from control being the backdrop behaviour they have grown up with. Control always dominates agile and has infiltrated traditional organizations, limiting their ability to establish enabling leadership throughout.
This book is a practical workbook for leaders on their journey to achieving agility. Gentle nudges push leaders to make their decision and initiate their personal shift to agile. The book moves the conversation over agility into practice, exercising measures and techniques that will encourage leaders to adapt with changing times. To help leaders to make that personal shift, it offers ideas and tools to master agility in their organizations.
Designed to be sensible and self-reflecting, the book also includes an appendix of over 20 exercises that have been tried and tested with executives all over the world in their successful pursuit of agile. Leaders who have used the Agile by Choice exercises report to having crossed the Rubicon to people-centric and agile. With that experience, their organizations have established leadership everywhere.
DIAGNOSTIC MENTORING
How to transform the way we manage
Lukas Michel, LID Publishing, London, 2021, Publication date: 4. November 2021 (UK). 8. March 2022 (U.S.)
The time has come for better management. But better management is not merely about adding new labels to the current ways of doing things; it is much broader than efficiency and alignment.
In this book, Lukas Michel offers senior executives and managers tools to understand a new way of discussing and thinking about management and work, which requires us to take on a broader perspective of the company and its culture. It's every manager's prime job to manage better: to change the way they lead people and how they organise work in the new (post-pandemic) business context.
The book discusses the role of the operating system to do that and clarifies managerial priorities and goals. This then sets the stage for Diagnostic Mentoring - the methodology that enables the transformation of the way we manage.
Since 2002, we create twins of organizations with the AI-based operating system for dynamic leadership.
Management Insights is an independent and privately owned company with headquarters in Zuoz, Switzerland.
For more information, contact Lukas Michel, founder and author, or our partners across the world.
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