Highly collaborative, ad hoc teams are transforming the way we work. So it's not too surprising that command-and-control managers are being replaced by leaders who function more like coaches, running practices, tuning up performance.

Rather than looking to industrial-era management cookbooks, we are better served looking to the growing literature on executive coaching.

One of my favorite coaches' coach is James Flaherty, whose approach is rooted in pragmatist philosophy: what is true is what works.  When you  name it, you know it.  When you see it, you can change it. 

His approach to working with individuals is not unlike my work as a marketing coach to organizations that mobilize individuals with a shared purpose, enable personal and professional growth, and advance economic ends through responsible means.

Rather than merely fix behaviors, Flaherty makes the case for working toward true satisfaction and effectiveness. In Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others, Flaherty sees commitment to a larger purpose as the engine of a life well lived.

And, if purpose is the engine, the transmission that shifts commitment into performance are five competencies: intellect; emotion; will; context; and, soul.  (His definition of context is also mine--the array of meanings, relationships, actions, and possibilities that arise once a purpose is declared.)

For associations, the ultimate member experience builds those five competencies, simultaneously, merging membership with identity, and making your association truly indispensable. So, maybe Flaherty's book is also the ultimate membership manual, too.  First published in 1988, a new third edition of Flaherty's classic is due out next week.

Originally posted @ Ann Oliveri