The Inner Warrior: Developing Courage for Personal and Organisational Change

Citation

Murphy, A. (2009), "The Inner Warrior: Developing Courage for Personal and Organisational Change", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 30 No. 5, pp. 492-493. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730910968750

The hardback version of this book is visually attractive in terms of size and graphic design. It has a useful bibliography and an index as well as 12 chapters with multiple chapter sub‐sections. The dustcover provides a useful snapshot of the author's impressive credentials as well as a statement of the purpose and approach of the book and recommendations from five authoritative readers. The illustration on the cover playfully suggest the message of the book through the motif of a depressed and seemingly aging Gulliver the giant in shirt and tie captive on an office chair in a land of little people in business suits. The book promises that when we are finished reading it, we will be free, powerful, a warrior, successful and fulfilled among many other desirable attributes. Who could resist?

The structure of the book's argument rests on classification of four group/meeting behaviour types in organisations: warriors, lambs, hijackers and shadows. The persistent behaviours of each type, the author argues, determine the modus operandi and the dynamics of interactions and relationship and we need to be aware of both our own meeting behaviour and that of others. While these arguments are not particularly new in theories of organisational behaviour, and “types” are often illustrated under their key stereotypical traits, it is refreshing, and perhaps a little alarming, to come across meetings “types” illustrated as bluntly and perhaps unkindly as in this book.

Chapter 2 develops the Gulliver motif of the oppressed warrior in the organisation struggling to find freedom, identity and self‐fulfilment, sometimes through unattractive and hijacker behaviours. The subsequent chapters deal with strategies, attitudes and behaviours to help the potential warrior break the threads that restrain them through the application of expert leadership of competent management. Well‐worn personality types from popular psychology models such as Myers‐Briggs and Karl Rogers are drawn upon to give the argument some scholarly gravitas, as well as drawing on television types such as Joe Friday and Dr Spock. No doubt the message is that we should not take this “stuff” too‐seriously in any case!

Some of the key questions posed in the book relate to why people in organisations do not address process issues at meetings and what makes us anxious at work. Among the many strategies, solutions and answers offered in the later chapters is the very useful survival tactic of “the little tent” where the beleagured individual can retreat when under pressure from negative dynamics or over‐whelming stress from work demands so that he/she can try to sort out what might be going on in the particular situation. Another strategy is the stance of “the little professor” where we can use the naivety of the child's instinct to understand situations as we see them while ignoring our adult ego's realistic insight. These two strategies sound like very attractive refuges and survival strategies indeed, thought I am not quite so sure about the advice to cross Rubicons in an upward spiral of continuous improvement where there may be risk of not having a way back to the little tent or the creativity of the child!

Overall this is a very entertaining and attractive book on a subject, which can be quite dry and often contentious. It is sufficiently light that it would be a very useful “text” for group training sessions in organisations where the need for a village of little tents is not an immediate necessity, but perhaps a little blunt for teams with unsustainable numbers of “little people” holding the giants and warriors captive!