Product Description

Around the turn of the millennium, there was a poll conducted in Britain that asked who people thought was the most influential person in all of Britain's history. The winner: Winston Churchill.

What set Churchill above the others was his leadership qualities: his ability to create and share a powerful vision, his ability to motivate the population in the face of tremendous fear, and his ability to get others to rally behind him and quickly turn his visions into reality. By any measure, Winston Churchill was a powerful leader. What many don't know, however, was how Churchill used his leadership skills to restructure the British military, government, and even the British manufacturing sector to support his efforts to rearm the country and get ready for an imminent enemy invasion in early 1940.

Churchill started making massive changes immediately after his appointment as Prime Minister, with little time for preparation. That summer, British and German aircraft skirmished in the skies above Britain in preparation for a full German assault on the island nation. Churchill's adaptive sense-and-respond approach to the invaders made the Royal Air Force much more agile and responsive to the changing situation, allowing them to repel a much larger and better-equipped enemy. In addition, his changes to the manufacturing sector allowed the nation to dramatically speed up the production of new aircraft to replace their staggering losses.

A lot can be learned about how Churchill managed this enormous change effort. Fortunately, documents and other evidence exists that explains how he did it. Join author Mark Kozak-Holland as he explores how Churchill acted as the head project manager of a massive change project that affected the daily lives of millions of people. Learn about Churchill's change management and agile management techniques and how they can be applied to today's projects.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2207966 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .64" h x 5.50" w x 8.50" l, .85 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
Clearly, after reading this book, we see that our projects are nothing compared with what Churchill faced -- the survival of the last bastion of freedom from fascism.
 
--PMAC reviewer for 2010 book award

I found this book to be informative and really enjoyed the parallels to modern-day agile leadership, change management and project management.
 
--PMAC reviewer 2 for 2010 book award

I always find this amusing: the parlor game of equating history with Project Management. It is rather ironic that great leaders did not need the PMBOK, PMI, etc.

--Joseph Ingemi

From the Author
This project started as a follow up to Churchill's Adaptive Enterprise. There was much material that was surplus to the final version of the book, and related specifically to Winston Churchill. The idea occurred to create a business book with a very specific focus on Churchill and his management style, and the team he created around him. This wasn't a biography nor was it a broad swath look at his career. Its focus was a very close examination of a short period, between May and October 1940, and his strategies that were employed to overcome incredible odds and meet an immediate crisis, the most significant threat to the UK in five hundred years.
 
Where Churchill's Adaptive Enterprise focused on the end solution and the components, from an information and architectural perspective, this book looks at how Churchill initiated, planned and executed this project. He had to overcome internal obstacles just to get the project off the ground with institutionalized resistance to any change. Effectively, he was a leader dealing with Agility and the Management of Change, where he had a vast organizational hierarchy that had to be transformed, with the introduction of organizational agility so that he could leverage the resources on the final outcome.
 
The modern day parallels are to organization's today faced with business transformation but on a much smaller scale. Churchill's transformation was at a macro level affecting the economy and industrial output. But it was also very tactical because it had to meet very important short term objectives, related to offsetting a likely invasion. Today, organization's struggle with in enacting change, from the old way of doing things to the new way. Management of Change (MoC) includes techniques to effect organizational changes and to facilitate and manage human resource impacts.
 
The publisher (Kevin Aguanno) at MMPUBS has a personal interest in Agile Projects. So he was quite keen on the project and focusing on the agile aspects of the project in particular the short time frames, the team approach, the organization of the project, and how the leaders played a role.
 
In May 1940 Churchill was offered the position of PM, as a last gasp effort when the situation got so desperate it was thought already lost. The power brokers in government had deliberately held him at bay in the fear he was a warmonger and that he would turn the situation for the worse.
 
As Churchill accepted the position he had to set up a governance framework quickly to realign very disparate organizations to a common purpose. He also had to quickly assemble a team that enact his short term strategy and winning the forthcoming air battle. This composed of three key players Hugh Dowding, Max Aitken (Beaverbrook), and Stewart Menzies that represented RAF Fighter Command, Ministry of Aircraft Production, and intelligence.

* For more information read lessons-from-history.com/node/96

From the Inside Flap
As the world's economy becomes more integrated and organizations more interconnected, agility has become a more important factor than organizational size or economy of scale. An agile organization can better respond, in a timely way, to change and to external factors or events driving change. However, the road to organizational agility is not easy and requires a carefully planned transformation project based on the principles of agile leadership and the management of change to drive it. The book describes the strategies Churchill took to overcome incredible odds and turn the tide on the impending invasion.

The book looks at the background--why the United Kingdom got itself into a desperate situation in May 1940 and was so grossly unprepared. It also looks at the scope of what Churchill had to do and delves into the intricacies of the situation facing him and the associated problems, and how under tremendous pressure, he had to turn this around. For example, not only did he have to stave off an imminent enemy invasion but also he had to move the peacetime economy to one that could support a war long term, and this required a massive change effort. The book looks at how Churchill did it--how a project was put together to deliver a solution that in turn transformed his organization into the modern-day equivalent of an Adaptive Enterprise so that it could adapt to this unexpected situation.
  
As we go through the story, the historical analysis is done through a modern lens, examining the project along with Churchill's actions and strategy. For example, communication management was critical, as Churchill had to boost morale and inspire his cabinet, government, and nation to continue a fight already considered lost. Churchill set up an intricate adoption plan using the sway of the media, which came under his influence.
  
Aimed at project managers and business professionals, the book extracts learnings from Churchill's experiences that can be applied to business and project management today. For example, through a governance framework, Churchill had to organize the institutions and resources around him deftly to maximum effect. He had to focus slender resources on the immediate threat, unify a disparate economy, and direct its output into immediate military use. All the time, he had to manage the situation and events happening around him.