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Enlightened Leadership : Getting to the Heart of Change
By Ed Oakley and Doug Krug
Fireside Books
Paper
Reviewed by Jennifer Sertl

"The manager is dead!" Just like Nietzsche's madman, Oakley and Krug assert that management, as we have known it cannot exist in the current environment of vast information and rapid change. We do not need the military model that has been thriving in Corporate America. The world of the 21st century requires more than a mindful puppeteer bringing his/her men in the line of battle. The emerging model is not individual with the answers, but the individual with the questions. If this sounds too much off the mark, think about the last project you were involved in. How many questions were you asked? How much time did it take to get your team on board? Did they ever come on board? If you are like many, the answers are perplexed. But you know intuitively that the best ideas are your own. Why would that not be any different for your employees? The Enlightened leader is one who can ask the most effective questions that empower and energize the team in order to get the commitment and creativity necessary to meet insurmountable tasks.

A question is a question is a question . . .this may be true for Shakespeare but not for Oakley and Krug. Enlightened leaders are asking very intentional and structured questions called Effective Questions (EQ). The type of questioning they suggest is counter-cultural, not counter-intuitive. The assert that the most effective questions follow this very basic and positive template:

Structured Effective Questions:

1. What is already working?
2. What makes it work?
3. What is our objective?
4. What are the benefits of achieving that objective?
5. What can we do to move closer to the objective?

Oakley and Krug understand that "it is vitally important to balance the energy focused on the these two factors: supporting our people and creating results.

A closer look at these questions provides that balance. Questions 1 and 2 provide encouragement and growth for people. Questions 3,4, and 5 focus on creating results. "Both factors are essential for long term results."

The difficulty that we have is most of the time we are asking core and critical questions in crisis. It is sometimes difficult to see what is working when the company is in the red or being taken over by another or losing core quality employees. The power, however, comes from asking these questions in good times and in bad. By starting with the positive-people come together to problem solve not point fingers.

Due to the complexity of today's business the "cookie-cutter hierarchy" does not work. Each organization needs to come up with individual and personal models that allow for business needs to be accomplished in a manner that engages employees. While many are practicing Total Quality Management the power comes from Total Quality Consciousness. This comes when leaders are asking positive and effective questions that raise the employee's awareness of what is being accomplished and how they contribute to make the vision a reality.

A large part of the book is laying the foundation for the importance of questions in getting buy in. But all the questions in the world cannot make an Enlightened Leader. Enlightened Leaders come with a framework that has the following core beliefs about people in the workforce:

• The most important factor in an organization's success is its people.
• The behavior of leadership has a major impact on the people.
• People resist being told what to do, and they reading commit to making their own ideas work.
• To the extent that people feel cared about and supported, they will go to extremes to help those who help them.
• There is tremendous support in numbers.

For those of you who are feeling uncomfortable with this emphasis on the "soft side" of business, Oakley and Krug say, "Get used to it!" When you get to the heart of most business problems there are usually fundamental human issues at the core. Oakley and Krug bring with them several examples of how this framework has truly empowered and facilitated results from vast cross sections of business from Hewlett-Packard, U.S Customer Service, Colorado State Patrol, and General Electric. While the book certainly inspires leaders to think about how they engage their workforce and provides examples of the results of this type of leadership. There is little information on "how to get there." Certainly it is a process more complicated than asking the right questions. Traditional leaders and managers may need some more practical scenarios to facilitate the internal and external changes needed to provide the level of awareness that is required of enlightened leaders.

The book is full of wisdom from the masters including Peter Drucker, John Naisbitt, Tom Peters, Warren Bennis, Peter Block, and W. Edwards Deming. It was disappointing that none of the voices highlighted were female. After all, Patricia Aburdene helped John Naisbitt write Megatrends 2000. As Peter Drucker says," The best way to predict the future is to create it," there is no better way to create your desired future then asking effective questions!