Overview

When it comes to unique management endeavors, what does it take to work wonders?

Have you ever wondered why so-called "best management practice" produces mediocre results? What if a team wanted to do something truly spectacular? What if it wanted to make a real impact?

Stunning accomplishments never come from following the management cookbook, no matter how much care and discipline we use in sticking to the recipe. If you want to work wonders, you’ve got to abandon the accepted, linear, day-by-day management mindset and step into the real world. It’s anything but mechanical.

Spiral Up encourages you to think backwards or, more accurately, upside down. Based on a study of more than forty incredibly successful initiatives, the book shows not how to lay a project out step-by-step, but how to let it develop a life of its own.

Linder has identified five tenets of this new management model:
Reach Beyond Your Grasp. Make a difference by stretching, because that’s the only way to accomplish goals that others consider impossible.

Make Space. Allow the initiative to grow and change in unpredictable ways, for this is the only way to achieve results beyond the predictable.

Get It Right. Insist on finding the right answers to the toughest questions, because run-of-the-mill analysis only produces run-of-the-mill solutions.

Energize People. Create an emotional intensity that draws people together, because that’s what makes the team unstoppable.

Spiral Up. Don’t declare victory! Use each plateau as a stepping stone toward the next peak.

Linder encourages would-be champions to start where they are—not by setting out to transform an entire organization—but rather by working one wonder at a time. One exceptional accomplishment will light the way to the next, and the experience will change the champions forever. The advantage of this outlook is that it allows any manager to begin rethinking his or her approach immediately. You don’t need to wait for all the other managers or departments to get on board. They’ll catch the wave soon enough when they see your tremendous progress—and your team’s impact.

Risky? Perhaps, but is it any more dangerous than “best management practice,” which delivers ho-hum results most of the time?

Intriguing? Read what author Jane Linder has learned from in-depth personal interviews with more than 140 extraordinary managers

Good business? Find out what organizations like Safeway, Nortel, Hill & Knowlton, Jacob’s Creek Winery, and even the Lexington, Massachusetts High School Debate Team have discovered about the value of this new perspective.

This book highlights dozens of amazing people who took the less-traveled road where others dared not, and distills those experiences into a new and powerful approach to management that will excite your people, revolutionize your work, and bring truly spectacular outcomes.

About the Author

Jane C. Linder is President of the Progress Board, LLC, a consulting company that specializes in helping clients put good ideas to work. Dr. Linder has been a professor at Harvard Business School, and spent more than a decade as an executive in the technology industry. Her articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, MIT’s Sloan Management Review, and Across the Board, among others, and she is the author of Outsourcing for Radical Change. Dr. Linder lives in Charlestown, Massachusetts.