A useful read for anyone looking for clear guidance on leadership skills to cultivate in order to bring action and clarity to an organization.

Samuel Bacharach does an outstanding job in clarifying the challenges faced by organizations. Although geared toward more established businesses, startups can also benefit from his advice. Bacharach deftly delineates between the clunky organization and the myopic organization.

Bacharach defines a clunky organization as:

“… being caught in perpetual organized anarchy, with relatively uncoordinated structures, overlapping expectations, intersecting businesses, and a general lack of focus”

Whereas, a myopic organization is defined as:

“…relying on old business models, being unable to be agile and adapt, being trapped by a blinder mindset that prevents risk-taking, and being slow to overcome challenges.”

My personal experience is with established traditional organizations in the military and nonprofit religious arenas. This book aptly describes the clunky and myopic tendencies that I have seen first-hand as an organizational leader in both industries.

In addition, the book offers questions (five actions for breaking inertia) for reflection and action geared toward making your organization less clunky or myopic. The book doesn’t over promise since even with vast improvement it is likely that some clunky and myopic organizational residue will remain.

Link to Amazon Review:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R38O9HAK9BBWFL/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

It's true that "organizations get sluggish" and that's one of the reasons why I really wanted to read this book. I've worked in an organization where any new idea proposed is met with either "it's not in our policy" or "that's how we do things here," and that is frustrating. The author uses a lot of examples in making a point and I loved his take on the five challenges of breaking inertia in an organization. He offers pragmatic leadership skills that would help transform any organization that's either stuck or just not as innovative as it should be.
I'm glad I got to read an eARC of this book off NetGalley and it's a great book for leaders and their teams.