Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness Through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification
Gene Kim and Steven J. Spear
IT Revolution (November 2023)

How to wire your organization to sustain peak performance in months and years to come

When writing this book,  Gene Kim and Steven Spear’s goal was to present “a simple and robust theory of performance that explains why and how exemplary teams, companies, and groups from a broad range of situations, in many sectors, across different disciplines, and from different points of view in the value-creation process can deliver amazing and ever-improving performance. And why and how the mediocre organizations are unable to do so. Where to begin? They suggest asking and then answering three two-part questions. Here’s the first:  “Are we solving our toughest problems in planning and practice where we can iterate and learn?  Or are we being forced to solve them in the unforgiving environment of performance?” Each of the two-part questions functions as an invaluable reality check that forces leaders to recognize what is of greatest importance to their organization, both now and in months and even years to come.

I pay close attention to foot notes and especially to annotated foot notes. For example: “We chose the term social circuity very carefully. Circuits exist to move a resource (e.g., electrical energy, pneumatic or hydraulic pressure, data from from where it is to where it is needed. Similarly, organizational circuits are the connections by which ideas, information, materials, services, resources, and support can flow from where they are to where they are needed so that effective collaboration, problem-solving, and value creation can occur.  When an organization is wired to win, the movement of whatever is is needed is accurate, fast, effective, and efficient. In contrast, when an organization is not wired to win, the organizational wiring is convoluted, which constricts, distracts, drains, diffuses, and saps energy from people, ensuring the systems they are part of behave badly.” (Page xviii)

What Kim and Spear share in this foot note can help leaders and their colleagues to answer the three two-part questions, then take appropriate action in a timely manner. They also make brilliant use of several reader-friendly devices that include two “Vignettes”; “Opening Case Studies” for Parts I, II, and II; two “Exemplar Case Studies” for Chapters 9 and 10; and dozens of “Figures” as well as “Tables.” These devices serve several purposes, notably to focus on key points and relationships (especially those that are causal), and, to enliven the narrative. Meanwhile, they help to ensure that the given organization is wired to win.

I congratulate Gene Kim and Steven Spear on a brilliant achievement. Bravo!

While you are reading Wiring the Winning Organization, highlight key passages, and, record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references, and lessons you have learned as well as your responses to the questions posed within the narrative. These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.