MORE THAN HALF of the 14 organizations where I have worked had a positive organizational culture. I remember how it felt working in those highly productive jobs because I can recall the activities, assets, policies, procedures and production in each of those jobs. I vividly recall wing commanders who insisted upon defining the purpose of meetings, forms, and messages before people were tasked for each of them. I remember Pentagon action officers calculating the actual costs of each minute of meeting time, determined by the sum of the hourly rate of each attendee. I remember an Irish semi-state company tied together by their diaries more than their phone extensions. All these things were good things because they reduced negativity and passive resistance to group goals.
As David Allen says, "The microcosm of how people deal with their in-baskets, e-mail, and conversations with others will be reflected in the macro-reality of their culture and organization. If balls are dropped, if decisions about what to do are resisted on the front end, if not all the open loops are managed responsibly, that will be magnified in the group, and the culture will sustain a stressful fire-and-crisis siege mentality.
I have read Allen's Getting Things Done twice this year. The book needs a second reading within six months of the first because the second reading offers a requisite check-up on progress. I expect the lessons learned will help me achieve far more next year than any other year in my working life. If that happens, the 259 pages I have read will have provided me the focus and the framework for addressing my priorities in the most productive way.
David Allen -- Getting Things Done ISBN 0142000280
