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August 15, 2005
Book Club
Remember, this conference is not only about the formal sessions with the cocktail rounds, powerpoints, and interactive exercises. There are also opportunities for a dozen people or so to sit together and have interesting and powerful conversations. That’s what we did this morning at the Annual Meeting version of the Executive Management Section Leadership Book club. Diane James of the Jacobs Institute for Women’s Health was kind enough to lead the discussion on a great book by Sydney Finkelstein, titled Why Smart Executives Fail: What You can Learn from their Mistakes.
My favorite point from the discussion: we can sometimes be our own worst enemy. There are lots of “positive” things in organizations, like team spirit or company pride, that can end up creating blinders for us. Because it is so important for us to be fulfilling our grand mission, we turn a blind eye to negatives, which should have been warning signs. We won’t share bad news with people, and it brings us down in the end.
Posted by Jamie Notter at August 15, 2005 07:36 AM
Comments
I got up to catch a 6:30 a.m. shuttle to Opryland to be part of this. Some might think that was a bit early after the opening reception, but it was a great discussion that moved from some examples in the book to more association specific experiences with benchmarking and board expectations. Well worth my time investment!
Posted by: Doug Bladecki at August 15, 2005 07:52 AM
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