Hot Groups : Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization

Rating:
Summary: Hot Stuff!
Review: Great book - Full of ahHAs and insights, as well as implied tips and watch-outs. I was able to pull a great deal of information out of the book and integrate it into what I do when helping kick-start project teams. Have dropped major thoughts and concpets from the book into the both curriculum of our School for Innovators and the process of Thinking Expeditions. This is a MUST READ for any manager or leader who wants to make some improtant things happen fast - with his or her eyes wide open to the ramifications of a Hot Group's impact on the rest of the organzition.

Rating:
Summary: Hot Stuff!
Review: Great book - Full of ahHAs and insights, as well as implied tips and watch-outs. I was able to pull a great deal of information out of the book and integrate it into what I do when helping kick-start project teams. Have dropped major thoughts and concpets from the book into the both curriculum of our School for Innovators and the process of Thinking Expeditions. This is a MUST READ for any manager or leader who wants to make some improtant things happen fast - with his or her eyes wide open to the ramifications of a Hot Group's impact on the rest of the organzition.

Rating:
Summary: Good overview for newbies, not much new for the experienced
Review: I've just finished Hot Groups and am somewhat disppointed. Since this book is well written and does give a good overview on the need for hot groups and how to use them effectively in organizations, I'm assuming I wasn't very impressed because I didn't realize it's absolutely an introductory book. I imagine it might be helpful for people who have never had experience creating or working on ad-hoc groups or on short-term critical projects. Additionally, it might help people working in very large and bureacratic organizations. However, for anyone who has experience in working on short-term projects or crisis management, this book doesn't offer much that's new. I work in an Internet startup on short-term projects and the authors suggestions to "build a sense of community in your hot group; be aware your team will need downtime so as not to burn out; be aware communication is important, be aware of the political sensitivities within your organization..." are simply too obvious for anyone with experience working on important short-term projects. If you have such experience, this book isn't for you.

Rating:
Summary: Good overview for newbies, not much new for the experienced
Review: In the Preface, the reader is told: "The time is ripe for large, hierarchical, well-ordered organizations to make room for small, egalitarian, disordered hot groups. That is the first thesis of this book....The book's second and ultimately more important thesis is that hot groups are not good just for organizations. They are also good for people. They offer individuals opportunities to find meaning and ennoblement through their work. In our fast and impermanent new organizational world, those who work in organizations -- and that includes most of us -- both expect and deserve such opportunities." Here is how the book is organized:

Part I Hot Groups: What They Are and Why They're Hot

Part II Who Needs Hot Groups? And Who Seeds New Ones?

Part III How Do Hot Groups Operate?

Part IV An Optimistic View of What's Ahead

At this point early in my review, I want to stress that a "hot group" should be the logical, indeed inevitable result of a way at looking at organizational renewal. Think of the "hot group" concept as precisely that: a concept which affirms the value of a process by which individual members of any organization (regardless of its size or nature) can effectively collaborate. These members are "task-obsessed and full of passion." They share a style which is "intense, sharply focused, and full bore." Moreover, members of a "hot group" feel engaged in "an important, even vital and personally ennobling mission"; their task is "dominates all other considerations"; and although a "hot group" tends to remain intact only for a relatively short period of time, it is "remembered nostalgically and in considerable detail by its members."

Such groups require effective leadership. In Chapter 6, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt address this issue, suggesting a number of specific "options" when "hot group" is assembled and then charged with its mission. For example: "To develop a hot, task-obsessed group, think about people before you begin laying out a flow chart. Bring on the people. Getting the task done is not your solo job. It's the whole group's job." The leader is urged to "recruit wild ducks", then help the group to bring the right people in, to get the wrong people out, and with unexpected departures. According to the authors, there are two kinds of c"wars" and "races." In wars, the goal is to destroy the enemy; in races, the goal is not to destroy but to out-perform others. Also, "at least as much", to have members outperform themselves, to exceed their personal best.

In my opinion, this brilliant book makes two immensely important contributions to our understanding of what it takes to achieve superior organizational performance. First, it explains what the members of a "hot group" can themselves accomplish if given the leadership, freedom, and resources needed. Second, it explains what the positive impact of such a group can have on all others within the same organization. Paradoxically, a "hot group" is most effective within an organization that has stability, solid and enlightened management, and sufficient resources to support the group's efforts. That is certainly true of those associated with Xerox PARC, the Manhattan Project, Lockheed's "Skunk Works", and the Disney studios which produced the first full-length animated films.

If an organization is unwilling and/or unable to tolerate a "small, egalitarian, disordered" but NOT disorganized "hot group", it probably has problems which even the hottest of "hot groups" cannot solve.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: This book is about using and encouraging intense teams at work. Jean Lipman-Blumen and Harold J. Leavitt make it clear that hot groups are not a new management phenomenon. They have existed since the beginning of time. The ability of hot groups to respond to problems quickly with innovative solutions will make them an essential component of organizations in the future. Many of the techniques mentioned in this book can be used without instituting major changes in your organization. While the book offers many organizational case studies as evidence of the effectiveness of hot groups, it lacks hard numerical data showing the bottom-line results organizations get when they support hot groups. Despite that, we at getAbstract recommend this book to managers and leaders who want to introduce or use hot groups or are already using groups in their organization.