Is your company run by a team with no name?

At the top of every organization chart lies a myth-that a Senior Management Team makes a company's critical decisions. The reality is that critical decisions are typically made by the boss and a small group of confidants-a "team with no name"-outside of formal processes. Meanwhile, other members of the management team wonder why they weren't in the room or even consulted ahead of time. The dysfunction that results from this gap between myth and reality has led to years of unproductive team building exercises. The problems, Frisch shows, are ones of process and structure, not psychology.

In Who's in the Room? Bob Frisch provides a unique perspective to this widely misunderstood issue. Flying in the face of decades of organizational psychology, he argues that the solution lies not in addressing behaviors, but in unseating the senior management team as the epicenter of decision making. Using a broad portfolio of teams-large and small, permanent and temporary, formal and informal-great leaders match each decision to the appropriate team in a fluid, flexible approach that you won't find described in management textbooks.

Who's in the Room? is based on interviews with CEOs at organizations ranging from MasterCard to Ticketmaster to The Red Cross.

• Understand and embrace the way decision-making actually happens in their organizations
• Use these "teams with no names" to best advantage
• Engage the Senior Management Team in the three critical tasks for which it is ideally suited

Organizations will get better decisions and superior results by unleashing the full potential of their Senior Management Teams. And bosses will see a dramatic drop-off in people coming into their offices asking, "Why wasn't I in the room?"

About the Author
Bob Frisch, managing partner of The Strategic Offsites Group, has worked with organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to German mittelstand family businesses to the U.S. Department of State. Bob's work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Fortune.

Reviews

"Great guide for any leader to use in mapping out his or her advisory teams"
-800 CEO Read

"Authoritative and pragmatic look at how to make the right calls"
-Julian Birkinshaw, Management Today

"Offers real-world strategies for making the best of how organizations seem to work"
-The Leader Lab

"How to structure organizational teams in a way that is both more realistic and more productive is at the heart of Frisch's book"
-CIO Magazine

"What you really want from a book on organizational decision making and leadership"
-New York Journal of Books

"You'll know his advice is working when you see a dramatic drop-off in people coming into your office and asking, "Why wasn't I in the room?"
-Matthew May, Amex OPEN Forum

"Who's in the Room? falls in the great category...due to the book's ability to jar your perspective of how teams do and should operate."
-Michael Wade, Execupundit

Book Information
ISBN 9781118067871
Author Bob Frisch
Format Hardback
Page Count 208
Imprint Jossey-Bass Inc.,U.S.
Publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc
Weight(grams) 386g
Dimensions(mm) 231mm * 158mm * 23mm