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New Book Advocates Magic as Key to Your Organization’s Success

In Building a Winning Organization, Dylan Stafford shares his hard-earned secrets on how to build an organization that keeps employees happy and customers coming back. In addition to drawing on his academic experiences as Dean of Admissions at UCLA for its Business Management Program and his work in corporate America, he also shares the perspectives of students and others both in academia and around the world. business. And then he mixes it all up by adding a dash of magic, Harry Potter style.

“Harry Potter?” you could say Yes Harry Potter. Dylan understands that today’s younger generations entering the workforce grew up reading JK Rowling’s novels and watching the movies based on them, so he suggests we want our organizations to have that extra magic to keep everyone engaged. with their work and with their company products. He advocates using Hogwarts as a model for how to add this magic. Then in each chapter he relates one aspect of the job to Hogwarts. This strategy makes the book fun for the reader, and the examples are clear and the lessons applicable, no matter if you’re a Harry Potter fan.

Building a Winning Organization is divided into fourteen chapters that look at various aspects of leadership and how you can turn your organization into a win-win experience. Chapter titles include: Time to Be a Wizard, Fall in Love with Leadership, Tell Your Tribe’s Story, Show Me the Money, Trust Your Army, and Global Brain, Global Heart. Each chapter tells a variety of stories from the experiences of Dylan and others, and then asks the reader difficult questions, questions that require the reader to be introspective as well as engage in the process of seeking change for the organization. Examples of such questions include: “How would you describe your organization’s culture now? What’s working? What’s not working? What’s missing?” and “Who brings you a ‘problem’ that could be an opportunity? What initiative would make a difference that you haven’t given permission yet? Write it down and then watch the magic unfold.”

One thing I loved about this book is how much Dylan is into listening to people. In these pages, he shares his experiences with the students he has worked with, who asked him questions and gave him ideas, and then how he and his colleagues have run the ball to turn those ideas into successes. One example is how the student body president suggested to him what became “Super Saturdays,” an event at UCLA where incoming students can interview and be interviewed by current students and administrators about the MBA program. While this event is hard work and means giving up some Saturdays, it also means that these potential future students (clients) leave with a positive experience, feeling that they not only want to go to UCLA but that UCLA is interested in them. This event only happened because Dylan chose to listen to the ideas of others and implement them, and it has been an ongoing success for many years.

Dylan also shares the importance of networking throughout the book. She describes how, while working for Siemens in Germany, he helped create a monthly international networking event called InterGREAT! Part of the goal of this event was to change the way people perceived the company, which had been founded in 1847. By holding the event in a beer garden, Dylan and his colleagues were able to make it fun and introduce Siemens as ” not the company that you parents knew, but rather a young and vibrant place”. As a result, they changed the perceptions of younger Germans from Siemens being “stiff, outdated, and glued” to Siemens being “modern, slick, and cool.” This event soon gave rise to spin-off activities, including ski trips. Dylan was applauded for doing what the Germans felt they couldn’t do: get up on stage and tell people to mingle, which basically meant, to Dylan, making friends with each other. The result? A company that can continue to prosper in the future.

This story ties in well with Dylan’s message about the need to attract the younger generation to his organization, which, in turn, ties in with why he borrows the Hogwarts metaphor to make his points. throughout the book. At one point, he tells us: “For you, running your university or your organization, you have the opportunity to learn from Hogwarts. Your organization can be the stage for your students or employees to go on their own hero journeys. If you prepare With that kind of culture, you’ll have a winning organization on your hands. Today’s talented people have options, almost endless options, to take their laptops and work anywhere in the world. You want great people to choose to be with your organization.”

Building a Winning Organization is full of inspiration and many stories you can relate to with lessons you can apply to your own organization. You may not be running an MBA program, working in Germany, or facing the exact same challenges that Dylan illustrates in these pages, but I guarantee you have similar challenges related to motivating your employees, recruiting and retaining the best employees, achieving keep customers coming back. , and feel like you’re making a difference in the world and not just a dollar. If you want your organization to succeed beyond what you’re currently doing, pick up this book and start some magic!

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