Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration by Warren Bennis & Patricia Ward Biederman
I first read this book a few of years ago and recently reviewed it in preparation for a new role at work. As before, I found it to be an extremely insightful resource on the attributes of great, innovative teams.
The majority of the book provides accounts of the following "great" groups:
- The Walt Disney Studio
- Xerox PARC
- The Apple Macintosh Team
- The 1992 Clinton Campaign Team
- Lockheed's Skunk Works Group
- Black Mountain College
- The Manhattan Project
As stated in the introduction, the authors attempt to systematically examine these groups in the hope of identifying their "collective magic". In the final chapter they summarize their findings into the following 15 points.
- Greatness starts with superb people.
- Great Groups and great leaders create each other.
- Every Great Group has a strong leader.
- The leaders of Great Groups love talent and know where to find it.
- Great Groups are full of talented people who can work together.
- Great Groups think they are on a mission from God.
- Every Great Group is an island - but an island with a bridge to the mainland.
- Great Groups see themselves as underdogs.
- Great Groups always have an enemy.
- People in Great Groups have blinders on.
- Great Groups are optimistic, not realistic.
- In Great Groups the right person has the right job.
- The Leaders of Great Groups give them what they need and free them from the rest.
- Great Groups ship.
- Great work is its own reward.
Generally speaking I agree with all of these points. The closest I've come to working in a Great Group was my first job building a big-iron ccNUMA machine. That group and experience had many of the elements listed above and a decade later I recognize how rare of an opportunity that was. I suspect others from the team feel the same way based on the reminiscing we do whenever any of us cross paths.
Clearly the leaders of Great Groups are responsible for creating an appropriate environment for the team to flourish. In my role as the leader of an advanced development engineering team I've tried my best to follow this guidance with I think moderate success. As my role and responsibility expands I need to place greater focus on creating the right environment - to that end this book will be a valuable resource.
