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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: August 2011
ISBN: 9780470488942
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Book Description

A proven system for rallying all of an organizations' employees around a new vision and ideas for making the vision stick

When something at work isn't going smoothly, managers struggle with what part of the problem to tackle first. Do they start with cost reduction? Or should they go for process improvements first? The authors—who have helped hundreds of companies and individuals change and improve—say spend time and money adjusting the systems in which people operate, rather than targeting people and their performance directly. The authors show that it's in fact possible to change everything at once—with a focus on making such transformations permanent and repeatable.

Brand-new Introduction written for the paperback edition

Filled with illustrative examples from Northrup Grumman, BHP-Billiton, Reebok, Harvard Business School, and many others

Two experts in the field show how to make major transformations happen

The book outlines a process for engaging all employees to buy-in to an improved vision of an organization's new and improved future.

Table of Contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Editor’s Note
  6. Foreword
  7. Authors’ Note
  8. Introduction: The Power of Rewriting the Future
  9. PART I - The Three Laws in Action
    1. Chapter 1 - Transforming an Impossible Situation
      1. The First Law and the Future
      2. A Surprising Turn of Events
      3. The Need for Something New
      4. Other Impossible Situations
      5. Taking It to the Community
      6. The Night in the Hostel
      7. Using Conversation to Shift Action
      8. Transformation: Beyond Change Management
      9. The Future Rewritten
    2. Chapter 2 - Where Is the Key to Performance?
      1. Searching for the Key to Performance at the Polus Group
      2. The Knots of Language
      3. The Key to Performance
      4. Learning the Language
      5. Using the Second Law
      6. The Harvard Business School: The Negotiation, Organizations, and Markets Unit
      7. Polus Group’s Stage 0
      8. Where Performance Lives
    3. Chapter 3 - Rewriting a Future That’s Already Written
      1. The Power of the Future
      2. The Power of Future-Based Language
      3. The Condition Required for Future-Based Language
      4. Completion: Generative Language That Creates Space
      5. Declaration: The Kind of Language That Creates a Future
      6. Life After Stage 0: Creating a New Future
      7. Principles for Generating New Futures
      8. Building Companies and Lives Around Futures
  10. PART II - Rewriting the Future of Leadership
    1. Chapter 4 - With So Many Books on Leadership, Why Are There So Few Leaders?
      1. The Rapid Rise of Reebok
      2. The Three Leadership Corollaries
      3. Conclusion: Leadership——Rewriting the Script
    2. Chapter 5 - The Self-Led Organization
      1. The Way Businesses Can Have It All
      2. The Rise of Corporations as Individuals
      3. Why the Heat Is Rising on Organizations
      4. Rise of the Self-Led Organization
      5. Being Self-Led
      6. The New Organization: Built from the Self Up
      7. Call for Leaders
  11. PART III - Mastering the Game of Performance
    1. Chapter 6 - Who or What Is Leading Your Life?
      1. How Did You Become Who You Are?
      2. Seeing into the Constraints of Your Life Sentence
      3. Overturning the Life Sentence
      4. Creating a Crisis of Authenticity
      5. What Do You Have to Give Up?
      6. Bringing It Home
      7. Who Gives You the Right?
    2. Chapter 7 - The Path to Mastery
      1. The X-Factor in Mastery
      2. Why There Are No Steps to Mastery
      3. Milestone 1: Seeing Your “Terministic Screen” in Action
      4. Milestone 2: Building a New Terministic Screen
      5. Milestone 3: You’ll See New Opportunities for Elevated Performance Everywhere
      6. Milestone 4: Teaching Others
      7. Materials for the Pathway to Mastery
      8. Experiencing Language at Work
      9. Seeing a Situation Through All Three Laws
    3. Chapter 8 - Breaking the Performance Barrier
      1. Commitment 1: Get Out of the Stands
      2. Commitment 2: Create a New Game
      3. Commitment 3: Make the Obstacles Conditions of the Game
      4. Commitment 4: Share Your Insights
      5. Commitment 5: Find the Right Coaching
      6. Commitment 6: Start Filing Your Past in Your Past
      7. Commitment 7: Play the Game as If Your Life Depended on It
  12. Appendix - The Three Laws of Performance and the Leadership Corollaries
  13. Notes
  14. Acknowledgments
  15. The Authors
  16. Index