Judgment - How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls by Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis - Book Report/Review Example

Judgment Analysis Paper THESIS MENT The essay is based on reviewing the book d Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls’ by Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis. The objective is to understand the importance of judgment call and decision action for leaders that can assist them to make proper judgment. Furthermore, different judgmental areas of leaders have also been defined in the essay. BOOK REVIEW Overview of the Message. There are several books on management and leadership, however the book presented by Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis namely ‘Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls’ is quite unique in the sense that it takes different viewpoints of leadership by inspecting leadership judgment. The key message of the book is that leaders are basically assessed by the quality of judgment they make throughout their occupation. It is always thought that judgment is something that cannot be learnt rather it is advocated to evolve over time. However, Tichy and Bennis have found method to assist leaders to improve their capability to make effective judgment. They also have articulated leadership judgment as a simple and understandable procedure. Leaders at every organizational level make judgment regarding employees, strategy and crisis situation. Tichy and Bennis demonstrated the type of knowledge required in order to make successful decision and how leaders can effectively use such knowledge in order to execute the judgments (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). In the first chapter, the authors proclaimed that effective leaders not only make better decisions but they are also capable of making the appropriate judgment. Effective leaders are those who are better at entire judgment procedure that starts from observing the requirement for an appeal of judgment, to framing the organizational issues, to figuring out the serious ones and to organizing as well as stimulating the teams towards accomplishing the organizational goal. Tichy and Bennis in their book have stated that there is a framework containing three crucial areas within which every judgment are made. Among various other judgments, the decision regarding people are most critical than decisions taken regarding strategy or on any crisis situation. The authors stated that effective judgment is a procedure rather than an event. Every judgment starts when a leader identify the requirement of taking decision and frame them accordingly. The procedures of making judgment continue through execution and alteration phases. The authors also stressed the significance of acquiring sufficient self-understanding as making a right decision is not a sole performance; rather there is requirement for gaining the support of team members. Tichy and Bennis have also employed an individual framework while representing constituents of leadership judgment. Specifically, they described multiple exemplary and practical decisions with respect to their, preparation, judgment, implementation and assessment stages (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). Key Lessons for You. In the book, Tichy and Bennis have delivered a brilliant explanation regarding how winning leaders make great calls and further stressed that effective leaders also assist others to make great judgment. The book is of high interest and provides value for corporate level managers. Furthermore, the book also provides substantial benefit, particularly for individuals who prepare for starting business career. In the book, the authors stated that it is imperative for individuals to understand that the procedure of making great judgment which necessitate a parallel, ongoing procedure of increasing knowledge regarding self, the social network, the organization and the setting where such decision is made. JUDGEMENT CALLS Drawing from the idea of the book, it can be stated that during the life stage, every individual make several judgment calls and as people progress to the position of a leader, the significance of judgment call is exaggerated as their judgments have growing influence on the lives of others as well as on the success of organization. Irrespective of implication of the term call, the judgment calls made by leaders are not observed as single point event. Leaders cannot risk the failure of unsuccessful judgment call and the moment of making call arrive in the middle of decision making process. There are basically three judgment areas namely people, strategy and crisis (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). People. People are the most potential area in judgment call. The reason is that people have great influence on organizational operations, as good people can fix a wrong judgment call, where bad people can distort an excellent judgment call. If the leaders are unable to make smart judgment calls regarding people, or if people are managed in poor manner, then the leaders will not able to set sound way and strategy for the organization, nor will they deal with crisis situation in efficient way. For example, in Hewlett-Packard (HP), Mark Hurd, the CEO and president has turned the miserable failure of Carly Fiorina, his successor by proper judgment call on people. In order to enhance the business performance of HP, Mark Hurd has laid-off about 15,000 employees and after merger with Compaq, he further released about 26,000 employees. He also bought few executives and make cost cutting a key priority of the organization. Although for some leaders, such movement can be considered as unpopular judgment call but that call ultimately started paying off through increased profit (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). Strategy. Every leader has a role to lead the organization towards success. Thus, when a leader finds that the existing strategic path is unable to lead towards success, it is his/her duty to search for a new strategic path. For example, in General Electric, Jeff Immelt, the CEO and chairman has changed the old strategic path by transforming it to a technology growth organization. He introduced various new technologies and also made several acquisitions in order to pursue the new strategy. His strategic judgment call has added significant value to the organization. Immelt stated that irrespective of selecting a proper business, selecting proper strategy is of much important. Furthermore, in order to fix a business, only proper business operation is insufficient, rather there is need to make strong strategic call. Such call necessitate considerable amount of time in order to understand the business that has the potentiality to become successful (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). Crisis. Poor judgment during any crisis situation can cause significant harm to any organization. The catastrophic outcome brought by bad judgment call on crisis moment often appears rapidly. In order to effectively deal with crisis situation and to make proper judgment call, there is need to observe the entire condition carefully. For example, David Novak, the CEO of Yum! Brands has effectively directed the organization by undertaking proper judgment call on a crisis situation appeared in 2005 due to avian flu. Several Chinese consumers become afraid of eating chicken food items and as a consequence, the profit of one of the key brands of Yum! Brands, KFC has reduced considerably. During the judgment call phase, Novak decided to continue selling chicken irrespective of the influence of avian flu. Furthermore, he has also decided to educate the public regarding the safety of chicken products when it was cooked thoroughly. Furthermore, the corporate team of Yum! Brand has been provided materials to the store managers and the employees situated in worldwide retail outlets in order to provide exploration to any queries regarding health concerns of the customers. By delivering a clear view on crisis leadership, Novak effectively dealt with the crisis situation. He has ultimately realized that the judgment call on crisis situation was effective and at present, the Yum! Brand is successfully operating its business worldwide and KFC is also selling record amount of chicken products to the Chinese communes. David Novak has stated that leaders should not jump into wrong solution in order to deal with a crisis situation, rather there is need to observe the entire scenario of business and attempt to inspire people to deal with crisis situation (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). YOUR STORYLINE Define concept and best scenario and why. By the very nature, the concept judgment call can generate numerous consequences for an organization. Judgment call is different than vision and strategy of an organization, although it assimilates the components of both. Judgment call contains three components. The first component is an idea regarding making the organization successful. The second component is the articulation and support regarding organizational values, and the third component is a strategy for creating the energy required in order to achieve the objectives. Judgment call necessitates a context in which the leaders can make the decision. One method to develop such context is to establish a storyline that defines organizational identity and direction. When the requirement of judgment appears, leaders can match the likely outcome of a decision against the storyline in order to obtain a rich picture regarding required activities (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). It has been observed from reviewing the book that leaders should concentrate on creating a viewpoint and align the team as well as the key stakeholders in order to make a proper decision. It provides insight in order to raise leadership judgment abilities. The bottom line of judgment is recognizing the entire context carefully. Indeed the authors, not only have been able to define most critical judgment calls, but also translated these into practical framework (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). Articulate your teach point of view. In order to make proper judgment call, a teachable point of view is required. From my experience good judgment is highly critical for any effective leader in order to accomplish success. Leadership in my perspective is not a procedure or program rather it is a human function that arrives from the heart and also consider the feeling of others. Furthermore in my viewpoint, making judgment as a part of a key leadership activity is the determination of the success or failure for an organization. The most effective leaders are capable of articulating a judgment and execute it by performing with other organizational members. During my university program, I have used own childhood story as vivid diagram of leadership outline in every role I have held in the career life. My leadership teachable point of view is being imaginative and finds proper solution when there are limited potentials of any problem. My teachable point of view defines judgment call is not a discrete event rather it is a procedure which entrenched in organizational procedure and is influenced by set of relationships. Additionally, the effectiveness of a judgment call in my perspective should not be assessed according to perception or idealized style rather it should be assessed on the basis of consequences it generates. Judgment is so critical that it cannot be delayed to be framed and developed. Whenever required, leaders should make time to create a teachable viewpoint and align the team and stakeholders. Knowledge Assessment. By reviewing the book I came to the understanding that successful leaders are lifetime learner. They create and obtain knowledge so that they can perform smartly and make better judgment throughout the professional life. The best leaders are those who work hard in order to improve themselves and simultaneously develop next generation of future leaders. This dualism, i.e. striving to develop oneself and simultaneously trying to teach others lies at the core of great leadership. In practice, successful leaders take complete advantage of four different types of knowledge (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). Self-Knowledge. It might seem absurd, but leaders require self-knowledge. The self-knowledge help to teach others which involve benchmarking other effective leaders in order to observe their thoughts and practices they used for accomplishment of organizational objectives, cooperating with other team members in order to create steady and constant prospects to learn, producing formal learning platform so that organizational members can involve in progressive learning program without any obstructions, setting timeline to reflect the past scenario in order to drag out the experiences and lessons which might be useful in future and inspecting the teachable point of view in order to seek innovative and better ways to enhance and incorporate new components of knowledge. The key fact is that leaders do not know every aspect of business, and thus one must seek individual quest to create knowledge (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). Social Network. From the viewpoint of Tichy and Bennis, strong leaders do not try to do everything themselves. They often set up a close social network comprising trusted advisors who can provide proper suggestions and guidance. Social network is beneficial for organizing a discussion on critical organizational issues in dynamic ways. Furthermore, social network is also able to observe at every side of the issues with knowledgeable rigor. It brings specialist skills in diverse fields of knowledge. In simple terms, in order to become effective leader and make proper judgment in future, there is need to develop network of trustable people who are able to provide good instruction. However, in order to be successful in utilizing social network, there is need to consider the blind spots of every advice provided by different individuals. The type of resources that can be expected from social network are deep understanding in certain fields of the organization, industry knowledge, practical understanding of organizational capabilities, information on regulatory proposals, access to private knowledge and creative problem solving ability which is beyond industry conventions. Hence, establishing social network can be regarded as core aspect to the success of leader (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). Organizational knowledge. At present, more and more organizations are recognizing the requirement to harness the combined brainpower of the employees in order to remain competitive in the market. In order to establish judgment capability, there is need to utilize organizational knowledge by involving every members. Use of organizational knowledge can enhance individual abilities in order to make effective judgment calls. There are three key levers which can assist in encouraging large scale organizational knowledge creation, such as creating the operational procedure, providing every members with leadership development training and setting up formal extensive enterprise wide knowledge development platform. Connecting these three levers help leaders to use organizational knowledge. The key intention is to constantly generating new knowledge and capture in practice methods (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). Contextual Knowledge. Contextual knowledge is also a useful aspect of making an effective judgment call. It is another important asset worth exploring. There are certain possibilities of extracting knowledge from the context namely involving the board members in the workshops or training, observing closely about the method of dealing with different organizational challenges, establishing formal leadership program by conjunction of college or universities for the training of future leaders and establishing council by comprising important external stakeholders. Judgment is crucial genome for every successful leader and the effectiveness of leadership is always judged by others in terms of performance of their respective organizations. The book provides various examples of good and bad judgments taken by leaders and it can be observed that successful judgments require proper scanning of environment, establishing beneficial relationships, having courage to take decision, creating teaching cycle and measuring the outcome of the decision. In future, I also desire to make proper judgment call in order to enhance my business career. The key strategy for attaining such success is to enhance the knowledge by considering the aforementioned four aspects namely self-knowledge, social network, organization and context as leaders cannot be aware about everything in an organization (Tichy and Bennis 1-285). Work Cited Tichy, Noel and Warren Bennis. Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls. United States: Penguin Group, 2007. Print. Read More