The Five Questions


This book is organized around a series of five questions that help us deal with our hopes and fears. When answered, these questions help us build a solid foundation for involving others. These five questions are asked by effective involvers whenever they tackle a new challenge. Answering these questions will allow you to build a safe track bed, one that allows you to move swiftly to your destination. The questions are:

  • What kind of involvement is needed?

  • How do I know whom to include?

  • How do I invite people to become involved?

  • How do I keep people involved?

  • How do I finish the job?

We devote a chapter to showing you how to answer each question whenever you take on new work. We also offer a chapter called "Meetings: The Involvement Edge" that provides a blueprint for designing high-involvement meetings. A concluding chapter, "Where to Start," provides options for where to begin. There are also a reference set of checklists and some ideas for further learning.

What kind of challenges do effective involvers tackle? It could mean solving a problem at work that has been bugging you for months. It could mean saving your company millions of dollars. It could mean launching a community movement to improve your schools or the local health care system. It might even mean drawing on the ideas and energies of thousands of citizens to decide the future of the World Trade Center site in New York City.

Our approach has been tested for the past ten years in organizations such as Boeing, Marriott, and the Cabinet Office of the British Government. These are no-nonsense organizations where time is of the essence, resources like money and talent are precious, and the pressures to perform are enormous. They are also subject to intense scrutiny by many stakeholders, from corporate shareholders and employees to civic groups and ordinary citizens. The plans such organizations develop and the means they use to carry them out must be effective; if they are not, the repercussions may be enormous. These organizations have learned that effective involvement is the key to making smart decisions and making them work better. We predict that you will discover this, too.

How do we know these are the right questions? Effective involvers told us so. We asked some of the most productive, creative, and resourceful people we know to walk us through their own techniques for organizing and managing their work. The structure of the book grew out of what they told us. These same effective involvers also read the chapters as they were written and helped us shape the contents to be as useful and practical as possible.

Taken together, the steps in You Don't Have to Do It Alone provide you with the tools for creating organizational energy—the kind of energy that can only come when we involve others to get things done. We begin to involve others when we ask ourselves the first question, "What kind of involvement is needed?" Your journey toward successful involvement begins on the next page.




You Don't Have to Do It Alone(c) How to Involve Others to Get Things Done
You Dont Have to Do It Alone: How to Involve Others to Get Things Done
ISBN: 157675278X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 73

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