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Excerpt from the Foreword
“There is no gap between the status quo and the desired state—only a transformation process.” With this basic premise, Manres has been successfully guiding the transformation of company cultures for 20 years. We envision transformation as consisting of two parts: the content-based business side and the human-focused culture side. At its core, this book focuses on this second, socio-psychological aspect of transformation, in which a purposeful, sustainable culture of performance takes shape. With our 20 years of experience in consultancy work, we have discovered fundamental leadership principles that apply to the task of shaping culture. Leadership starts on the inside, because people follow their hearts first, before they follow the plan. The motto is: love, try, fail, learn, love.
That is why transformation starts with developing individuals who have an impact on the quality of relationships within the team, before ultimately multiplying across the leadership throughout the company. Our mission is to enable business leaders to transform successfully. This is how we bring about holistic transformation and empower leaders to meet the challenges they face.
Transforming Individuals
Our work is firmly based upon humanistic principles which serve as a foundation for transforming company cultures. Our understanding of human nature is the driving force behind what we call the “anthropology of leadership.” In our experience, this provides the substantive insight that allows leaders to leave a positive mark on their companies in the long term. We draw on a selection of intellectual traditions from the fields of human and natural sciences to shape our understanding of people and how they sustain transformation processes. This book also introduces the role of the transformational coach and what clients can (and must) expect during transformation processes.
Transforming Teams
If you want to see how well developed someone’s personality is, look at the quality of their relationships. This is why development and monitoring on the team level is vital to the success of any transformation. Successful self-management reveals itself in interpersonal standards and the substance of a team. We use the concept of “parenthood” to explore this logic in depth. In essence, this reveals how the individual “ministers” of a company’s leadership form a “government.” This book examines the necessary processes and tools involved in this formation. When properly configured, leadership teams have many potentials that impact the company as a whole. Strong teams become “powerhouses” that get the best out of their members and expand their impact throughout the organization. That is why this book also incorporates aspects of peer coaching. Not every coach is a leader, but every leader should be able to coach.
Transforming Companies
This topic deals with the content-logical side of transformation. It reveals how “hard” and “soft” factors are intertwined and shape each other. It also identifies the main reasons why transformations fail. It explores which tasks top managers must face during times of transformation, examining fundamental company development scenarios and organizational turning points. It also describes how transformation processes can be guided by a holistic approach. We report on the need for systematic coherence and look at how the commitment to “say yes, mean yes” can be developed in business leadership. This is another precondition for developing successful, sustainable transformation processes.
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