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Book Review

 

 

Lessons From Leadership Failures

The Greenfields Approach

1st Books Library (www.1stbooks.com), 2001 (295 pages in hardback)

Author Denis Orme

ISBN 0-75965-177-9

 

Lessons From Leadership Failures-The Greenfields Approach is a strategy based on a productive agricultural setting. Imagine for a brief moment that you are a farmer, and when you look outside all you see for many miles are Green Fields.  Imagine further that the land is fertile, and that there is an abundance of water. There are no rocks to clear, no trees to fell, just rich fertile land ready for planting of any crop you choose! By applying the Greenfields Approach to business, Denis Orme believes you can envision your potential business and personal opportunities in the same way, without constraint. By doing this, many new opportunities will arise and existing ones will appear different.

 

The Greenfields Approach is unique and based on a straightforward principle. Too much of the planning and thinking we do is incremental and becomes self-limiting. Too much energy is spent in piece meal planning, benchmarking and strategies. This leads to false assumptions and self-imposed constraints. Denis Orme defines the Greensfields Approach by asking two questions. “If you were starting the business or business unit tomorrow, would you do business the same way?” Secondly, “If you were embarking on a career as a recent graduate, would you launch or grow your career the same way?” He then replies, “If you would not do things the same way, then why are you doing it that way now?”

 

Lessons From Leadership Failures-The Greenfields Approach has seven chapters and 63 modules. It is a virtual handbook outlining actual leadership failures, the lessons to be learned from these failures and how the reader can do it differently. As Denis Orme candidly writes in the introduction, “This book is about leadership mistakes in each key area of business and the lessons learned from mistakes made by other senior executives and myself.” For example, Chapter 5 is entitled Flavor of the Month. In this chapter, Orme cautions against consultants or technologies that attract the latest fad or buzzword to solve problems rather than cost-effective solutions. 

 

Lessons From Leadership Failures-The Greenfields Approach is truly different in approach and purpose. It is not simply another text on leadership, but a serious analysis of past business failures, lessons to be learned and how to do it differently.

 

You can read an exclusive weLEAD interview with Denis Orme and learn more about this book here!

 

 

weLEAD rating highly recommended

 

 

Buy This Book at a Discounted Price Here!

 

 

 

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