Robert Sutton Archives - Don Kasprzak

Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best…and Learn from the Worst by Robert Sutton. Robert is a professor of management science at Stanford University and a researcher in the field of evidence-based management.

Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst by Robert I. Sutton PhD

In 2017 he published The No Asshole Rule. I must admit it was a book that leaves an impression upon readers. Good Boss, Bad Boss does reference this work but is a much better delivery.

Robert also previously published Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less, which reveals how to strive for excellence and not allow your organization to become just mediocre.

Basically, Robert shares the difference that good bosses are certainly connected with the teams they lead. This is based upon research proving performance and humanity make all the difference. Robert’s research certainly displays case studies with leaders who both struggled or overcame challenges to lead their teams.

One of the strongest impressions is understanding that regardless of industry or work demands, a good boss will be a shield to their teams from within their organization — often this means leadership. Robert is also delivering a real world view.

Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less by Stanford professors Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao. This book is a wonderful, insightful read for today’s world. Robert Sutton continues to provide deep analysis for successful leaders. Those leaders in turn generate (and sustain) ideal performers. Coronavirus is challenging business to fundamentally re-think their core business model.

Scaling Up Excellence will help organizations understand how to embrace change faster and effectively in the short term. And short term as of mid April may be forecasting this into December 2020.

Let me begin with a new twist for business projects. Conduct a pre-mortem. Organizations conduct post mortems to discover where tasks failed. Sutton’s pre-mortem can drive project goals or reveal scope creep.

The key is dividing your team into two. One team will imagine project delivery as a success specifically down to the details. The second team takes the opposite road, also in great detail. Bring your teams back together and place all points on a whiteboard. Find your hits and misses in a new way and determine if your scope is accurate enough to deliver.

Scaling Up Excellence provides great case studies and academic research. From start-ups, pharmaceuticals, airlines, retail, financial services, education, non-profits, and healthcare. All benefit from pre-mortems.