Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization

Really loved this book. Inspiring. Thought provoking.

Takeaways from reading the book:- Page 8: We are seeing a rise of the need for finding purpose, meaning, happiness, personal satisfaction, and fulfillment of what is inside of us. This change, which has values at its center, is one of the largest changes we have seen in the last 100 years.- Page 90 + 182: People, who work for Bridgewater, ask themselves this: Do I worry more about how good I am or about how fast I am learning? People are rewarded for being open about mistakes, because mistakes are seen as opportunities for growth.- Page 124: What would happen if we design our organizations for practice instead of only for performance? When many changes are happening around us, practicing becomes more important. When you say to people that you are practicing, you are not expecting - and others are not expecting you - to perform perfectly. By naming - what you are doing - "practice", you signal that you are experimenting, learning, trying something out, and working at getting better at something.- Page 275: To feel safe in a company means that when a person reveals one of his / her weaknesses, he / she experiences an enhancement of his / her place in the organization - not a diminishment. People around the person support him or her in being open and wanting to grow as a human being.

Very inspiring book, all the stuff have practical and scientific point of view so I think it’s really complet and you can take a good look how these companies work

This is one of the most profound books on organizational psychology that I have every read. The authors depict in detail what are the key attributes of an organisation that brings about vertical personality development of its members on all levels. The theory is written concisely and easy to grasp and the pragmatic aspects (how is it done and how to transform into a DDO) are elaborately explained with reference to three example organisations (which was very insightful for me). The book is easy to read for the most part. And I really like the cover ;-).I recommend the book to anyone looking for scientifically founded forms of collaboration that are effective in terms of business value and at the same time fullfil the human need for thriving and happiness for everyone involved.

Excelente libro de lo mejor que he leído en el desarrollo de la cultura organizacional de verdad lo recomiendo mucho. Ojalá que estuvieran más económicos eso es todo

Les travaux de Kegan & Lahey (Immunity to change - 2009, How the way we talk can change the way we work – 2000, entre autres) sont des incontournables en développement des personnes et des organisations. Le plus récent ouvrage – An everyone culture -2016 -vient enrichir la collection en reprenant la méthodologie propre à Kegan & Lahey, directement appliquée à la dimension de l’équipe. D’une façon pratique et complète, les auteurs nous expliquent, preuves à l’appui, comment réussir une transformation organisationnelle et développer le potentiel des organisations et des individus qui les composent.Comme coach je suis très sensible et réceptive à ce genre de travaux, pourquoi?D’abord, ils sont largement soutenus et appuyés par la recherche et la science.De plus, ils mettent les individus au cœur d’une dynamique organisationnelle réussie.Ils clament haut et fort que les adultes peuvent et doivent se développer de façon continue, allant jusqu’à dire que si ce besoin n’est pas comblé, la performance, la santé de l’individu et par conséquent, de l’organisation, s’en trouveront affectées.Mon intérêt premier vise la personne. Mon regard se pose sur ses motivations profondes, ses valeurs, ses croyances, ses habiletés et ses limitations dans son processus de développement. Et c’est par les personnes qu’une organisation peut se développer. C’est logique n’est-ce pas? Alors pourquoi encore aujourd’hui, n’y accordons-nous pas encore assez d’attention?Keagan & Lahey nous proposent une approche solide et exigeante. Ils nous expliquent dans les détails l’importance de considérer l’organisation et son fonctionnement comme un incubateur du développement des personnes. Une réalité qui demande engagement, détermination et courage de chacune de ses composantes, du premier au dernier, et ce, chaque jour.Votre organisation supporte réellement le développement des personnes si :Elle vous aide à identifier un défi personnel, important pour vous et qui a une valeur pour elle – un défi que vous pourrez travailler de manière à vous développer.Des membres de l’équipe sont au courant de cet axe de développement et vous supportent dans vos efforts. Ce soutien est tangible, bien réel. Votre objectif est important pour eux autant que pour vous-même.Vous avez l’occasion de pratiquer, de vous exercer à développer cette nouvelle compétence quotidiennement.Lorsque cette compétence est acquise, on la reconnaît, on la célèbre et, lorsque vous êtes prêt, on vous offre la possibilité de poursuivre votre développement.Si c’est votre réalité, je suis convaincue que vos affaires, votre profitabilité, la qualité de votre milieu de travail ainsi que la satisfaction de votre clientèle en retirent de grands bénéfices. Bonne lecture!

This is one of the most important business / personal development books you might read.If you are interested in organizational change and have been around the block once or twice, you may have found yourself a bit disenfranchised or frustrated by flavor of the month attempts at "change." Or, you may be mystified why most leadership development doesn't seem to stick. Or you may have read about concepts like "learning organizations," "integral theory," "employee engagement" and the like but have no idea how to implement such things. If any of this sounds familiar to you, then this is the book you've long awaited.Here, you will hear a breathtakingly refreshing refrain--if you want your organization to be a learning organization, or get employees engaged, or "grow" employees, you don't need a program, a workshop, a training, a change initiative or any of the other things you've likely heard of, or tried, and don't stick. According to the authors, you need three things:1. Home -- You must create an environment where people feel safe enough to grow and change.2. Edge -- Each person in your organization needs to identify what, exactly, their growing edge actually is (everyone, no exceptions).3. Groove -- You must embed practices in "way we do things around here" that actively support and challenge people to grow--on a daily basis.A lot of books about change are based on beliefs and pet theories. Here's another refreshing change... this book is based on 25 years of adult development research by two Harvard professors. Further, it isn't solely academic research they are basing it on. They've studied three extremely successful companies who are already "there" as "deliberately developmental organizations." Further, they've helped other companies prepare for and begin that journey.And for you, personally, the chapter on how to identify your own growing edge (Chapter 6 -- Uncovering Your Biggest Blind Spot) takes you through a powerful, four step process that will help you see in stark relief why you probably haven't been able to change the one thing that most holds you back. Do that exercise (as I did), and then imagine everyone in your organization knowing the same thing, and supporting one another in making their one big change. In that one step alone, you are going to realize what most organizations can't change, try as they might, no matter the good intentions they have.And then there is Chapter 2 on adult development, the science behind it. It is fantastic. Clear. Accessible. There, the authors cover three stages of adult development--based on science and research--and the differences between the stages. And, guess what. Less than 2% of the population has reached the highest stage. You should know what that stage is, and you might want to consider--as I have--what achieving that stage of development might mean to you, your leadership, your life, your company. And, yes, the authors do tell you how to move yourself and others along those stages.The personal development aspects of this book, alone, are worth the price of admission. Maybe you aren't that interested in organizational change, or don't feel you are in a position to effect organizational change, but are greatly interested in personal development and believe that by changing yourself, you can affect the people, company and world around you. If that sounds like you, Chapter 2 (adult development) and Chapter 6 (uncovering your blind spot) are immediately accessible, practical and potentially life-altering. Any person interested in their own personal development, and/or who supports others in their development needs to read, understand and apply those two chapters.No, the book and the approach isn't prescriptive and doesn't contain a checklist. Your organization has its own culture, own needs and is at its own developmental stage. The authors understand that. One size does not fit all. So they give you a solid framework. They tell you how others have done it. And then you make it your own, working from where you are. That is the only way it truly can work, anyway, based on my experience.In short, read this book.Perhaps, like me, after reading scores of business books, leadership books, coaching books, organizational change books, personal development books over the years... you may conclude this is one of the five most important books you've ever read. And, perhaps, even THE most important one.

In An Everyone Culture the authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey explore Deliberately Developmental Organizations (DDOs).In these organizations adult development is part of the core business model: they don't invest into the personal development of their employees because they must but because they believe that there is a fundamental different concept of the employee: they are part of the organization with all their warts. The idea is: in many organizations a lot of effort is invested into appearing to be perfect or flawless, to cover up ones insecurities and to cover for others insecurities ("I let you get through with this because you will do the same for me on another occasion"). The authors call this having a second, unpaid job. How organizations where able to eliminite this second, unpaid job by bringing your full self to work in order to work on your shortcomings on company time is explained with a lot of real-life examples.You get to look inside three organizations from completely different industries: movie-theaters / real estate, hedge fund managament, and IT. You get to experience working in such an environment basically from a first person view and are taken directly into real situations. All have one astounding similarity in common: these organizations have created a safe environment to be yourself and be open about your problems. They go even so far to make them publically available for everyone in the organization to look up. And this is the crucial part: creating a nurturing and helpful environment is not easy to build, and it changes the understanding of what being at work means so radically, that it does not fit everybody. Constantly working on yourself, personally and professionally, is nothing everybody is able to do. But the results are fascinating; they are only postive in this book, though.The second important concept in the book is the removal of professional seniority. The idea that one can keep working in your job basically forever is discarded. Which makes perfectly sense today because of two things: no job role will be there forever and not change, things you've learned two years ago are soon outdated. But more important the longer you do a job the less creative and open you are for new and better ideas and change. In DDOs, as soon as you master your current role you are rotated to a coaching role for this position and after that assigned to a new role where you start over as a newbie. And this is true for every job in those organizations not only for those employees that want to work like this anyway. This creates a constant influx of new ideas in all parts of the organization and enabled the three examples in the book to become respected industry leaders.I've taken away a lot of new ideas about how organizations can be run, and learned how attractive personal development in the context of your organization can be and that the benefits are bigger then I would have estimated.This book is also a great example for the saying "Culture eats strategy for breakfast": no strategy can deal with crisis like a team where everybody knows everyones shortcomings and how to work with them.Highly recommended!