I am in that strange place where authors live from time to time – the twilight zone between the intense period of writing a book and coming close to the end of the writing/researching journey, and now wondering if it will make sense to the world when it is finished.

Over a long career of building large companies, consulting with, advising and coaching leaders and their teams globally, teaching MBA students and authoring 21 books about leadership, inspiration and corporate culture, I have often scratched my head. I wonder why many leaders continue to adopt and invest in ineffective business practices, even though there is scant evidence that they work, and plenty of evidence that they don’t.

So I decided to try and understand this phenomenon. My research shows that certain people, organizations, journals and academic institutions are what I call “bellwethers” who are the unofficial trendsetters that others look to when searching for trends in management thinking. The new book is titled (for now) The Bellwether Effect: The 8 Stupid Things Companies Do, and What They Should Do Instead.

The book explains how and why many leaders are attracted to, and seduced by these trendy ideas and the process, and promote them virally to others until they become mainstream, and how fear, hubris and laziness prolong the inappropriate use of obsolete business processes.

I then describe eight examples of the most obvious and counterproductive business fads or practices and what we should do instead, among them,

• fear-based management
• motivation
• separateness and silos
• employee engagement surveys
• performance appraisals
• salary grades and pay scales
• mission, vision, and values statements, and,
• the use of war as a metaphor for business

In each case I describe the problem and then propose a novel and inspiring alternative.

If you have ever wondered, “Why are we doing this?”, or “Is there a better way to do this?”, then this is the book for you, because it offers crisp, insightful ways to propel organizations from “engaged” to “inspired”.

If you have comments, would like to review a chapter (or the whole book!) or would like to get involved with this project, please let me know – I can use all the support and creativity I can find!