Fifteen and twenty years ago, every individual engaged in a battle of any kind, including Tony Soprano, was quoting Sun Tzu's
The Art of War.
That long-deceased author never enjoyed any royalties from the
popularity of his work. If Robby Mook's strategy for organizing the
Hillary for America campaign succeeds, Peter Senge of MIT might be thanking Hillary's campaign manager for his book,
The Fifth Discipline, published in 1990, experiencing a rebirth on Nooks and Kindles and in popular media dialogue.
Mook
attributes his self-discipline, to Senge's concept of "personal
mastery" and it figures large n Mook's arsenal of organizing strategy.
Many
readers here are getting involved in Hillary's campaign at the
grassroots level, and Ruby Cramer's brilliant, detailed analysis of
Robby Mook's methodology in
Buzzfeed is a gleaming nugget shining in the murky mine of how to get stuff done.
If
you are the one in your locale who is responsible for getting names and
assigning tasks, this is a must-read, but even if, like many of us, you
count yourself among the ground troops and foot soldiers, these insights into the nuts
and bolts of how the campaign is organized and who is doing it will
assist your personal mastery of your personal tasks. It is a gold mine!
Here
are a few snippets, but I recommend that you pour yourself a glass of
whatever you like and settle down for a bit. It is not a short read
(not an unnecessarily long one either), and you will want to reflect
upon and digest passages here.
Thank you, as always, Ruby Cramer!
In
2008, a young operative took the campaign philosophy of “organizing” —
and won Nevada for Hillary Clinton. Now, Robby Mook is her campaign
manager, bringing his big win, big risk system and all it entails,
including his band of loyal followers, to the biggest stage possible.
Ruby Cramer
BuzzFeed News Reporter
... If there is a prototype of the Mook campaign, it is Nevada in 2008.
For
the evangelical belief in data — look to the sign that hung on his
office wall, a reminder to himself and the staff of the three steps in
their ongoing, data-driven process. “Set Goals, Experiment and Learn,
Celebrate and Appreciate,” it read.
For the sense of
“accountability,” fostered by the subculture of field and all its
peculiarities — look to his idiosyncratic shorthand. One favorite: “No
silos!” (Always said as if with an exclamation point.) The meaning: Keep
communication open between departments. Another Mook term was the “plus
delta.” (A twist on the “action item.”) This one, derived from the
Greek letter denoting change, was a word for something specific that a
staffer could improve or incorporate into his or her goals.
For
the self-discipline — look to his fascination with “personal mastery,”
which he preached to some of his staffers. It’s a concept from The Fifth Discipline,
a 1990 book by MIT’s Peter Senge. Personal mastery is defined as a
lifelong practice, divided into three parts: redefining and deepening
your personal vision, focusing your energy, and “seeing reality
objectively” as it pertains to others and, most important, to yourself.
(The book touches on other Mook tropes: Senge writes that organizations
are best built around a “shared vision,” not a leader’s goals or
personality. And teams, he says, develop “extraordinary capacities”
beyond the sum total abilities of individual members.)
SNIP
There
is a second necessary piece to Mook’s campaign: It is cultural, and it
begins with him. There’s no easy explanation of the tone he sets, how he
sets it, and keeps it, even as the demands of the work grow....
...
Marshall Ganz, a Harvard professor who worked as an organizer with
Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in the ’60s and ’70s, spent
those few un-air-conditioned days going over the basics: the
relationship-building, storytelling, the one-on-ones, house meetings,
and the nuts and bolts of the quantitative side.
That was the part Mook liked — he was, as Ganz observed, “the data guy.”
SNIP
Peter Senge spends a good deal of his management book, The Fifth Discipline,
describing the qualities that make an effective leader. (“Personal
mastery,” the concept Mook mentioned to other staffers in Nevada, plays a
major role.)
There are leaders who are “heroes in their own
minds,” writes Senge, and they will never successfully lead an
organization. True leaders don’t think of their own interests: “Their
focus is invariably on what needs to be done, the larger system in which
they are operating, and the people with whom they are creating — not on
themselves as ‘leaders.’” True leaders have shared vision, and that
results in a loyal following.
###
But you really have to READ IT ALL! There is so much more>>>>
