The Art of the Possible: Create an Organization With No Limitations

This book was released in 2013 and years later the lessons from it still hold. Daniel Jacobs is a leading authority on public contracting. He has a perspective that provides insights that are applicable to both public and private companies.

Simply placing placards and posters in strategic locations and occasional homage to the idea will not make it happen. You must establish clear goals and metrics that will facilitate attaining your vision.

“When it comes to strategy, ponder less, and do more.”

The book goes into examples of the five stages of developing high performance teams.

• Stage 1 - Forming – Getting the most qualified members on the team is difficult, but the leader must insist on the right people from the outset.

• Stage 2 - Storming – Human nature dictates that personalities and agendas will clash, particularly if the leader has not set forth clear direction and does not hold people responsible and accountable.

• Stage 3 - Norming – At some point, the personalities and agendas will become more compatible; when, is a function of leadership.

• Stage 4 - Performing – The team comes together and becomes a high-performance team. At this stage, the leader must sustain superior performance.

• Stage 5 - Re-forming – Quite often there are personnel turnover and the process begins again. Leadership must recognize this and take

• Stage 6, PERFORM, you deliver what you said you would deliver in the contract. In all work, there is the known and the unknown. The “known” is what is set forth in the agreement; the “unknown” are customer expectations. No one reads the contract.

I enjoyed the book and there were some good takeaways. It is written from the perspective of larger organizations and if that is your environment this is for you. If you are in small companies or startups many of the concepts in the book are not going to be applicable.

Here is the Link to the Amazon book.