What's New?

Russ Linden & Associates is a management education and consulting firm, providing services that support organizational performance and change.

We offer open enrollment workshops as well as customized programs in such areas as collaboration, creating a customer-focused organization, the human side of change, and organizational learning.

 

New Book!

Most government agencies are filled with "technocrats"- employees with strong technical skills who are most comfortable working on the operational aspects of thier jobs. It sometimes takes years before they learn what Bob Stripling, a long-time city manager, discovered. As Bob puts it, "The longer I work in this business, the more I realize that it's fundamentally about managing relationships."

That's one of the key themes running through "The Trusted Leader". It shows how managers and leaders in government are finding ways to build trust, work across boundaries, and connect with a variety of stakeholders to add value and improve performance. Russ is pleased as both a contributer to this book, and a teacher in this field, to recommend this title as an insightful aid to those looking to broaden thier understanding in this area. For more on this new title, as well as ordering, click on the cover to the right.

New PowerPoints:

Organizational Culture

Collaboration Workshop.

Most Recent Virginia Review Articles.

Future Programs

Latest Book:
Working Across Boundaries

What People Are
Saying About
Working Across
Boundaries

 

The Trusted Leader

              Are you a "Collaborative Leader"?

  Collaborative leaders understand how to lead as a peer (not only
as a superior). They know that many of their most important 
projects require cooperation from people over whom they have
no formal authority. Thus, they use the art of influence to gain
cooperation. Read Russ's article on collaborative leadership, which 
appeared in the Summer, 2003 issue of the Leader to Leader
journal. Click here to see the article in its entirety.   



   "The Quest to Become 'One'"- A New Report 
                         by Russ Linden*

  Have you ever wondered,"How do I get all of the 
employees to start pulling in the same direction?" Why do 
some managers still make it their career strategy to hoard 
information instead of sharing it? Why is it difficult for the 
workforce to see the big picture?

  In recent years, several large federal organizations have 
tried to answer these questions through intitatives aimed
at getting all of their units to work as "one". This report 
describes three such efforts in detail, at the Department of 
Veterans Affairs, Department of Transportation, and NASA.
Each used different approaches, but they undertook their 
intitiatives  for the same reasons: their customers demanded
it, and they couldn't succeed as fragmented entitites.

  The paper examines what it means for large public agencies 
to work in an integrated way, across the hurdles faced in
doing so, the strategies that seem to work well, and some 
lessons learned.

read more > >

* This report was published by the IBM Center for Business of Government. You can learn more about ths Center at: www.businessofgovernment.org.



Located at:                        Contact Us:                    
609 East Market Street               Phone: (434) 979-6421
Suite 206 fax: (434) 977-1187 Charlottesville, Virginia 22902
e-mail: russlinden@earthlink.net

Website updated: March 20th, 2008.

PowerPoints updated: July 29, 2007.