An Everyone Culture

Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization

By: Robert Kegan, Lisa Laskow Lahey, Matthew L. Miller, Andy Fleming, Deborah Helsing

Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne

Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's Summary

What if a company did everything in its power to create a culture in which everyone could overcome their own internal barriers to change and use errors and vulnerabilities as prime opportunities for personal and company growth?

Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey have found and studied such companies - deliberately developmental organizations. A DDO is organized around the conviction that organizations will best prosper when they are more deeply aligned with people's strongest motive, which is to grow. This means going beyond consigning "people development" to high-potential programs, executive coaching, or once-a-year off-sites. It means fashioning an organizational culture in which support of people's development is woven into the daily fabric of working life and the company's regular operations, daily routines, and conversations. An Everyone Culture dives deep into the worlds of three leading companies that embody this breakthrough approach. It reveals the design principles, concrete practices, and underlying science at the heart of DDOs - from their disciplined approach to giving feedback to how they use meetings to the distinctive way that managers and leaders define their roles.

©2016 Harvard Business School Publishing (P)2017 Tantor

Critic Reviews

" An Everyone Culture is founded upon a simple yet powerful insight: that the best way to unleash an organization's power is to realize the full potential of its individual employees." (Dominic Barton, global managing director, McKinsey & Company)

Couldn’t get into it

I got this book as a high recommendation and I tried really yes but just could never get into it enough to make it interesting. Listened through almost a third before I gave up...

Great message, but a dreadful listen

As an organizational development specialist, the content of this book was invaluable. The concept of a DDO is something meaningful for all companies to strive for, and this book gives plenty of first-hand examples of the methods, benefits, and struggles.

However, I had to force myself to get through this book. It was extremely repetitive, used a lot of unnecessarily complicated verbiage, and was just not very engaging.

Incredible Framework for Organizational Excellence

Well structured and easy to listen to description of what work should be like for everyone and every organization. I'm a huge fan of Robert Kegan's body of work in the field of Adult Development and Learning but found it hard to apply until I listened to this book. Thank you to all who contributed to making this book as great as it is.

An Everyone Culture May Not be For Everyone

It seems likely that the vast majority of companies would be completely uninterested in this approach. I'm pretty Kumbaya and it was often a bit too much for me. For one thing these companies are medium to large businesses, meaning that they can distribute extra overhead over a lot more sales. For another thing, this is a deep dive into psychological development. It is rare to find people with tolerance for this, much less whole companies that can inspire it.

Nonetheless, most companies should be interested in development at some level, even if it is only skills training, and this book lays out a framework for the meta structures that make a learning community more possible.

While this is unlikely to be an approach that most companies, especially small companies, will want to embark on, I have ordered a hard copy and will seek to undertake much of this in my small 10 person company, with the idea that it is best to set such cultural standards as early as possible.

Very practical AND extremely useful

I just really enjoyed how the authors have been developing their theory, and then testing their theory in businesses, and of course supporting these businesses to grow in a really amazing way. The three case studies in the book is just such wonderful evidence of how well the methodologies of the authors work in practice in developing a DDO - a Deliberately Developmental Organisation. Definately worth a read.

Wish I'd read/listened sooner

Revolutionary research explained in an understandable and actionable way. Outlines a theory and case studies that Im sure will change the future of how we work, grow, and learn.

I wish I could give it 6 stars

This book has inspired me in so maybe ways. I observe that we are on a threshold of re making how we work. And it's not just about Artificial Intelligence's impact (not mentioned at all in this book). The tantalizing possibility in front of us is to leverage the innate human desire to grow and develop while simultaneously increasing business engagement and profitability. I'm joining in!

Thoughtful, well structured...now do it

Loved this book. it was laid out very well and you are told up front how to use that structure. I appreciated them addressing the common objections to why a DDO works.

Absolutely solid

Critical framework well lined out for human development! Worth reading, highly recommended, at the top of my list.

inspirational work of human potential

desperately desiring to change the way the world works and think. I loved every second of this book.

Nothing new, a lot of the same

While interesting I just found nothing new in this book. A lot of the topics have been covered before, constant improvement, lean, feedback in other books many years ago. Maybe I was expecting too much but personally I was left disappointed. One practical issue is that the author suggests you read chapters in different orders depending on what you're interested which isn't really practical with an audio book.