Reading the Room: Group Dynamics for Coaches and Leaders
David Kantor
Jossey-Bass/A Wiley Imprint (2013)

Here’s a brilliant examination of one of the most important but seldom fully appreciated leadership skills

An interview of David Kantor by Rutger von Postin appeared an issue of strategy+business magazine during which Kantor explains how leaders can tap into “structural dynamics” to create better-performing teams. The interview prompted me to obtain a copy of Reading the Room. I have just read it and then re-read highlighted passages. In my opinion, over time, this book will become a business “classic” because it provides about as much information, insights, and counsel that any executive could possibly need to understand how and why system theory (i.e. the study of phenomena as systems of interrelated parts) has its own notion of structure. Kantor delves into this structure of face-to-face communication, defines its parts, and examines how these interdependent parts interact.

As Kantor explains, “The title of this book refers to a priceless leadership skill: the ability to read the room, to understand what’s going on as people communicate in small groups, including how the leader himself or herself is participating, when the conversation is moving forward, when it may be just about to leave the rails, and possibly even how to guide it back on course.”

With regard to structural, it “connotes the idea that there is an underlying, largely unconscious structure to all human verbal exchange: when people converse, they construct and follow implicit understandings and patterns in which their conversation takes place.”

As for dynamics, it “connotes the idea that ongoing patterns, functional and dysfunctional, are inherent in all continuing talk, and that dysfunctional ones result from clashes between people and the structures they bring into conversation.”

These are among the business subjects that Kantor discusses that are of greatest interest and value to me:

o The Four-Player Model on Level I (move, follow, oppose, and bystand)
o Domains of Communication on Level II (affect, power, and meaning)
o The Behavioral Profile: A Synthesis of Levels I-III

Note: I presume to add EDNA, the four levels of discourse (exposition, description, narration, and argumentation)

o The Open Operating System
o Stories on Level IV
o Aspects of Narrative Purpose
o From High-Stakes Behavior to Systems in Crisis
o Postures of Moral Justice: Prosecutor, Adjudicator, Advocate
o Heroic Modes of Leader in Crisis: Fixer, Survivor, Protector
o Moral Challenges and Means of Protection
o Discovering Your Personal Model: Ten Junctures for Maximum Learning
o Model Building and the Model of Models
o The Model for Living
o Raising the Bar: Twenty Leader Capacities
o Where Structural Dynamics Goes from Here

I commend Kantor on his exceptionally clever use of boxed mini-commentaries — “From Insight to Action” — throughout the narrative that anchor the reader’s focus on especially key points, in context, within a thematic frame-of-reference. The material is provided from the perspective of an executive but will also be of substantial value to those who receive the coaching. In fact, taking a wider view of the term “coach,” one of a leader’s most important responsibilities is to help others develop their leadership schools. This can be accomplished only with direct, frequent, and enlightened supervision. Therefore, I highly recommend this book to those who coach (supervise) as well as to those with whom they work.