Breaking Free of Bonkers: How To Lead In Today's Crazy World Of Organizations

Hachette, 2017
"Breaking Free of Bonkers" is a new book by three organisation consultants at Ashridge Business School which offers a radical rethink of how people, at all levels, lead in big organisations.

In business and in public life, we have come to assume that "business knows best" and to place our faith in an unholy trinity of clever strategy, heroic leadership, and transformational change to "save us" and make the world a better place.

What these false gods are about is a preoccupation with management and control, the idea of driving change in organisations towards a predetermined outcome.

The conventional wisdom leaves out the subjective, the emotional and the instinctive, and the relationships and tacit understandings that make organisations successful.

What can we do? We do not have to give in or give up. Rather, we need to trust ourselves (which requires an appropriate level of self-examination), trust the group around us (that too is likely to involve some tough conversations), and connect more widely, building community to make common cause with others. We should focus on what we can do with others, not burden ourselves with what is impossible.

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