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The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life

The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life

by Dave Logan, Steve Zaffron
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Release Date: February 2009
ISBN: 9780470195598
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Book Description

When a hurricane warning is announced, everyone's concerns and actions become focused on that expectation; the hurricane essentially becomes the future which people are "living into." Similarly, when an organization needs to transform or make the leap to a higher level, everyone involved should be "living into" the vision of the organization's new, improved future. But in the majority of organizations, the future people are living into is based on past performance and experience, and so major transformation is almost impossible.

Steve Zaffron is, CEO of Vanto Group which has helped hundreds of companies envision and effectively implement major change and performance improvement. Zaffron and Dave Logan outline this proven system for rallying all of an organization's employees around a new vision, and more importantly, making it stick. Their focus is on making such transformations permanent and repeatable, providing practical examples from Vanto Group's clients such as Apple, Lockheed Martin, Reebok, BHP-Billiton, Johnson & Johnson, Morgan Stanley, and many others.

Table of Contents

  1. Copyright
  2. Editor's Note
  3. Foreword
  4. Authors' Note
  5. Introduction: The Power of Rewriting the Future
  6. I. The Three Laws in Action
    1. 1. Transforming an Impossible Situation
      1. 1.1. The First Law and the Future
      2. 1.2. A Surprising Turn of Events
      3. 1.3. The Need for Something New
      4. 1.4. Other Impossible Situations
      5. 1.5. Taking It to the Community
      6. 1.6. The Night in the Hostel
      7. 1.7. Using Conversation to Shift Action
      8. 1.8. Transformation: Beyond Change Management
      9. 1.9. The Future Rewritten
    2. 2. Where Is the Key to Performance?
      1. 2.1. Searching for the Key to Performance at the Polus Group
        1. 2.1.1. From One Man's Vision to a Crisis of Continuity
      2. 2.2. The Knots of Language
      3. 2.3. The Key to Performance
        1. 2.3.1. Clearing Out the Closet
        2. 2.3.2. Our "Internal Voice"
        3. 2.3.3. Rackets
      4. 2.4. Learning the Language
      5. 2.5. Using the Second Law
      6. 2.6. The Harvard Business School: The Negotiation, Organizations, and Markets Unit
      7. 2.7. Polus Group's Stage 0
      8. 2.8. Where Performance Lives
    3. 3. Rewriting a Future That's Already Written
      1. 3.1. The Power of the Future
      2. 3.2. The Power of Future-Based Language
      3. 3.3. The Condition Required for Future-Based Language
      4. 3.4. Completion: Generative Language That Creates Space
      5. 3.5. Declaration: The Kind of Language That Creates a Future
      6. 3.6. Life After Stage 0: Creating a New Future
      7. 3.7. Principles for Generating New Futures
        1. 3.7.1. Principle 1: Futures Inspire Action
        2. 3.7.2. Principle 2: Futures Speak to Everyone in the Process
        3. 3.7.3. Principle 3: Futures Exist in the Moment of Speaking
      8. 3.8. Building Companies and Lives Around Futures
  7. II. Rewriting the Future of Leadership
    1. 4. With So Many Books on Leadership, Why Are There So Few Leaders?
      1. 4.1. The Rapid Rise of Reebok
      2. 4.2. The Three Leadership Corollaries
      3. 4.3. Conclusion: Leadership—Rewriting the Script
    2. 5. The Self-Led Organization
      1. 5.1. The Way Businesses Can Have It All
      2. 5.2. The Rise of Corporations as Individuals
      3. 5.3. Why the Heat Is Rising on Organizations
      4. 5.4. Rise of the Self-Led Organization
      5. 5.5. Being Self-Led
      6. 5.6. The New Organization: Built from the Self Up
        1. 5.6.1. Leaders Step Forward
        2. 5.6.2. Manage the Environment of the Network of Conversations
        3. 5.6.3. Create Ongoing Conversations with Stakeholders
        4. 5.6.4. Listen for a Future That Encompasses the Self
        5. 5.6.5. Don't Lose Your Self
        6. 5.6.6. Self-Led Management
      7. 5.7. Call for Leaders
  8. III. Mastering the Game of Performance
    1. 6. Who or What Is Leading Your Life?
      1. 6.1. How Did You Become Who You Are?
      2. 6.2. Seeing into the Constraints of Your Life Sentence
      3. 6.3. Overturning the Life Sentence
      4. 6.4. Creating a Crisis of Authenticity
      5. 6.5. What Do You Have to Give Up?
      6. 6.6. Bringing It Home
      7. 6.7. Who Gives You the Right?
    2. 7. The Path to Mastery
      1. 7.1. The X-Factor in Mastery
      2. 7.2. Why There Are No Steps to Mastery
      3. 7.3. Milestone 1: Seeing Your "Terministic Screen" in Action
      4. 7.4. Milestone 2: Building a New Terministic Screen
      5. 7.5. Milestone 3: You'll See New Opportunities for Elevated Performance Everywhere
      6. 7.6. Milestone 4: Teaching Others
      7. 7.7. Materials for the Pathway to Mastery
        1. 7.7.1. First Law Practice: Exploring How the Situation Occurs to You and Others
        2. 7.7.2. Experiencing Correlation: The Hand Dance
        3. 7.7.3. Second Law Practice: Exploring How Language Shapes How Things Occur to You
      8. 7.8. Experiencing Language at Work
        1. 7.8.1. Third Law Practice: Having a Say About How Situations Occur
        2. 7.8.2. Creating a New Future
      9. 7.9. Seeing a Situation Through All Three Laws
    3. 8. Breaking the Performance Barrier
      1. 8.1. Commitment 1: Get Out of the Stands
      2. 8.2. Commitment 2: Create a New Game
      3. 8.3. Commitment 3: Make the Obstacles Conditions of the Game
      4. 8.4. Commitment 4: Share Your Insights
      5. 8.5. Commitment 5: Find the Right Coaching
      6. 8.6. Commitment 6: Start Filing Your Past in Your Past
      7. 8.7. Commitment 7: Play the Game as If Your Life Depended on It
  9. A. The Three Laws of Performance and the Leadership Corollaries
  10. Notes
  11. Acknowledgments
  12. The Authors