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Tropman goes beyond the notion of the learning organization to propose the creating organization, an organization which sees that ideas-their initiation, development, and implementation-are the key resources for success in the 21st century. While three key resources are important to any organizations-money, people and ideas-the last has been developed the least. Everyone in the organization knows who handles the money; most people know who handles the people, but few know who handles the organizations' store of ideas. Indeed, as one executive said, Why should we have such a person; we have no ideas! As the environment moves ever faster, the long chains of command for getting art to part, from concept to customer are no longer tolerable. People closest to the problem have to solve the problem-and problem solving means having ideas about what is wrong, what can be done, and who should do it.
This book introduces the concepts of IdeaManangement and IdeaLeadership as central positions and functions for the 21st century organization. IdeaManagement will be one of the central pieces of the job description of the new manager. This involves not only the creation of the IdeaManager, but tasks that person to turn all of their employees into IdeaLeaders. IdeaLeadership must be a role broadly distributed so that everyone takes a turn at being an IdeaLeader. IdeaLeaders suggest, offer, propose, and point out new ways to do old things, new things than can be done with old ways, and new things that need to be done and need new ways. But no longer are IdeaLeaders going to be pushed to the edge of the organization and then eventually out of the organization. Rather they will become the central forces of the organization, and everyone else will be tasked with helping them implement the new ideas. The organization, then, will be idea-driven more than anything else. The ability to generate ideas and put them quickly into action will be the next competitive edge.
List of contents
Foreword by Gersh Morningstar
Preface
Ideas and Organizations/Organizations and IdeasThe Energy of Thought
The Forces for Change: Diversity, Speed, and Magnitude
The Five Cs Theory of IdeaLeadership and IdeaMangement
The Fatal Glass of BeerPernicious Procedures: Problems of Processing New Ideas
Corrosive Concepts: Drilling Holes in the Boat
Dangerous Decisions: A Race to the Bottom
Helping New Ideas Along Through Leading and ManagingIdeaLeadership and IdeaManagement
Leading and Managing Idea Generation and Storage: The Half-Baked Ideas Conference
The Seven I Idea
Helping Ideas Along Through Team and Decision Leadership and ManagementLeading and Managing the Team Meeting Process
Leading and Managing the Team Meeting Process: Players on the Team/Actors in the Drama
Leading and Managing the Team Decision Process: Decision Rules
The Power of 11: From Art to Part--from Concept to CustomerCreating the Idea-Driven Self
Creating Idea-Driven Skills
Creating Idea-Driven Styles
Creating Organizational Subculture
Creating Idea-Driven Strategy
Creating Idea-Driven Structures
Creating Idea--Driven Systems
Creating Idea-Driven Staff
Staying Ahead of the Curve
Creating Change and Supporting Shift
References
Index
About the author
JOHN E. TROPMAN is Professor of Social Policy, School of Social Work, The University of Michigan. Among Professor Tropman's earlier publications are Public Policy Opinion and the Elderly, 1952-1978 (Greenwood Press, 1987), Entrepreneurial Systems for the 1990s with Gersh Moringstar (Quorum Books, 1989), and The Management of Ideas in the Creating Organization (Quorum Books, 1998).
