Hot Groups Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization

by Lipman-Blumen, Jean; Leavitt, Harold J.

• ISBN13: 9780195144055
• ISBN10: 0195144058
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-06-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Many corporations, in their attempt to create innovative products and services, have focused on the concept of building teams. While many groups fizzle, on rare occasions the members of a group will experience an extraordinary eruption of excitement, transcending an organization's rigid confines to achieve astonishing results. These individuals are lucky enough to be members of a "hot group," a phenomenon lucidly and enthusiastically described in this groundbreaking book. Drawing on decades of research and experience with groups and organizations throughout the world, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt have written an intensely engaging book about a phenomenon that will become increasingly important in our rapidly changing world. Expertly carving a path through this unmapped terrain, they lucidly demonstrate how managers and executives can ignite hot group sparks in their own organizations. The inspiring case studies found throughout Hot Groups illustrate that well-nourished hot groups can profoundly transform any type of organization.

Author Biography

Jean Lipman-Blumen is the Thornton F. Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. Her recent book The Connective Edge received wide acclaim. Harold J. Leavitt is the Kilpatrick Professor Emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is the author of Corporate Pathfinders and Managerial Psychology.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Tom Peters
Preface	xiii
Part I: Hot Groups: What They Are and Why They're Hot
The Hot Group State of Mind: What Is It? Where Is It? Why Does It Matter?	3	(14)
Hot Groups: Why Now?	17	(18)
How Hot Groups Think: Left Brain? Right Brain? How About Both?	35	(14)
How Hot Groups Work: Fast, Focused, and Wide Open	49	(30)
Part II: Who Leads Hot Groups? And Who Seeds New Ones?
Leaders of Hot Groups I: Three Kinds of Leadership	79	(20)
Leaders of Hot Groups II: Some Options for the Leader of a New Group	99	(26)
Leaders of Hot Groups III: Leaders Who Seed Many Crops of Hot Groups	125	(22)
Part III: How Do Hot Groups Operate?
Hot Groups' Structures and Strategies: How Do We Get There from Here?	147	(18)
Hot Groups and the Organization: A Marriage of Inconvenience?	165	(12)
Using Hot Groups to Improve the Organization: Some More Marriage Counseling	177	(14)
Why Some Hot Groups Fizzle While Others Sizzle: Four Cautionary Tales	191	(20)
Hot Groups and the Individual: What's in It for Me? And What's Not?	211	(14)
The Organizational Surround I: Where and When Do Hot Groups Thrive?	225	(14)
The Organizational Surround II: Hot Groups Also Grow in Unexpected Places	239	(14)
Part IV: An Optimistic View of What's Ahead
Things Change at Different Speeds	253	(12)
Differential Rates of Change Augur Glad Tidings	265	(18)
Notes	283	(8)
Index	291