informal coalitions

Fostering innovation and change by 'breeding' Red Monkeys® (and building informal coalitions, of course)!

I was recently introduced to a new series of short videos clips on YouTube about innovation and change in organizations. Posted by Jef Staes, these describe, in a simple and engaging way, his concept of the Red Monkey®.  He uses this as a metaphor for those creative ideas born at the edge of an organization, which he sees as the real source of innovation and change.

Jef, who is a leading authority in Belgium on learning processes and innovative organizations, argues in the first clip in the series (below):

"If you want to change an organization, you will have to like Red Monkeys."

Praise for informal coalitions – and positive organizational politics!

In her Squidoo ‘lens’ on organizational politics, Prof. Bonni Stachowiak of Southern California’s Vanguard University describes Informal Coalitions as "a fantastic book on organizational change with two relevant chapters on organizational politics."

Prof. Stachowiak, who lectures and consults on business leadership, adopts a refreshingly positive view of the role that politics can play in organizational leadership:

The positive potential of organizational politics

An article in the Sunday Times of 21 October echoes the growing recognition of the need for managers to add effective political skills to their repertoire. The following extract gives a flavour of the argument:

Research shows importance of politics in leading organizations

The UK's Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and Warwick Business School have jointly published a report which highlights the critical importance of political awareness to effective organizational leadership.  Entitled Leading with Political Awareness, the report aims to develop leaders' skills to manage the political dimension in organizations.

Acting politically - An essential component of successful organizational leadership

According to conventional wisdom, people who act politically in organizations are ‘playing dirty’ - undermining the legitimate structures and functions of their organizations for personal gain. Despite this widely held view, it is important for leaders to recognise that successful organizations achieve high performance not only in spite of political behaviour but also because of it.