Book review “The Loop Approach: How to Transform Your Organization from the Inside Out”

Name: “The Loop Approach: How to Transform Your Organization from the Inside Out”
Authors: Sebastian Klein, Ben Hughes
Language: English
Number of pages: 232
Published in 2020

We noticed this book because of its name as we at E5 actively use Lean approaches. Particularly we often practice PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Adjust (Act) cycle. The book is structured as a quick overview of best-practices which the authors apply in their consultancy practice.

Allow me to say a few words about the authors.

Sebastian Klein is a psychologist and an organizational coach, and a partner at TheDive, a transformation consulting company in Berlin, and a Chief Editor of Neue Narrative, a magazine on the new methods of work organization.

Ben Hughes has degrees in Economy, Psychology, and Applied Mathematics. He worked in several international management consulting companies, and has been working for 5 years as the Head of Content Development at a new company called Blinkist.

The book is structured as a review of the most crucial methodologies which are used by the consultants themselves.

The number of approaches:

• Holacracy.
  Holacracy is a sort of constitution which describes the main aspects of an organization. It describes the scope of responsibilities of every role and identifies in which way decisions are made. With such approaches, organizational work is facilitated with great opportunities for those employees who are ready to embrace additional responsibilities.
• GTD (Getting Things Done) by David Allen
  It is a vast system allowing to regularly conduct self-check at different levels. In addition it has a simple algorithm for the incoming data meaning that if the information takes less than 2 minutes, it must be addressed. If it takes more, the time for working with the tasks of such a type must be planned, etc.
• 7 habits of highly effective people according to Stephen R. Covey.
  This approach is based on the book in which the author is trying to find out in which way highly effective people are different from the rest. The main idea is that one should focus on something they can personally have an impact on. And the habits themselves are:
  – To be proactive
  – Be able to visualize the goals
  – Be able to prioritize
  – To apply a win-win strategy
  – To be capable of hearing first and only later to be heard
  – To aspire synergy
  – To be able to develop all the dimensions of one’s personality

• Nonviolent communication
  This method is also called Rosenberg’s method which is a people-oriented communication model. How does one tell apart their own observations from interpretation? What feelings are provoked in me by other people’s actions? How to express my thought to be understood correctly by the other person? How to ask for favours so that they do not sound like demands, and how to leave the other person the freedom of choice? This specific method covers all these questions.
• Thinking design
  This method is developed to address complex people-oriented questions and that use which is brought to them by a new product or a service. We answer the following questions within its framework: what issue are we trying to solve? What are the ways to get ideas assessed in the shortest possible time if they emerged in the conditions maximum close to reality?
• Scrum/Agile
  IT world is aware of these terms. However, for those wishing to deepen their knowledge, we have prepared a free of charge course – Agile and Scrum fundamentals.
  System organizational consulting
  The ability to manage their feelings is an essential quality for a manager. Leaders should be mindful in order to get on well with those around them.
• Mindfulness practice
  It is highly important for a manager to manage their feelings as leaders should be mindful to get on with their outside world.
• Positive psychology
  It highlights not what people cannot do, but what they rather can do and their strengths and potential. People get motivated and enthusiastic once given the opportunity and wisely utilise their potential along with giving them the support they might need.
• Spiral dynamics and integral theory
  At the base of it is the idea that human consciousness (collective one including) is developing moving gradually to higher and more advanced levels. These levels are correlated as a spiral. The same logics is applied to organizations. It is essential to move to a more advanced level which will allow to adjust to nowadays circumstances and demands. It doesn’t matter if you work as a consultant or are involved in Agile transformations, or perhaps you would like to learn more about organisational best-practices, this book will make you aware of modern most useful ideas on management.

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