True North Groups: A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development
- 2h 22m
- Bill George
- Berrett-Koehler Publishers
- 2011
The challenges we face these days are so great that we cannot rely entirely on ourselves, our communities, or our organizations to support us and help us stay on track. We need a small group of people with whom we can have in-depth discussions and share intimately about the most important things in our lives—our happiness and sadness, our hopes and fears, our beliefs and convictions. For the past thirty-five years, Bill George and Doug Baker have found the answer in what they call True North Groups.
“At various times,” George and Baker write, “a True North Group will function as a nurturer, a grounding rod, a truth teller, and a mirror. At other times the group functions as a challenger or an inspirer. When people are wracked with self-doubts, it helps build their courage and ability to cope.”
Drawing on recent research in psychology and sociology, George and Baker explain why True North Groups are so critical to helping us develop the self-awareness, compassion, emotional intelligence, and authenticity required to be inspired human beings and inspiring leaders. They cover every detail from choosing members, establishing norms, and dealing with conflicts to evaluating progress and deciding when it’s time to restructure. True North Groups provides a wealth of practical resources, including suggested topics for the first twelve meetings, advice on facilitating groups, techniques to evaluate group satisfaction, and much more.
For the millions of people who are searching for greater meaning and intimacy in their lives, this book will help them to grow as leaders and as people—and to stay on course to their True North.
About the Authors
Bill George is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic Inc. He is the author of Authentic Leadership, True North, Finding Your True North, and 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis.
Doug Baker is president of the True North Groups Institute and former senior vice president for Human Resources of American Express Financial Advisors.
Foreword author Richard Leider is ranked by Forbes as one of the top 5 most respected executive coaches and by Linkage as one of the Top 50 executive coaches in America. He is the author of the bestsellers The Power of Purpose and Repacking Your Bags.
In this Book
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True North Groups—A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development
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Foreword
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Preface
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Finding Depth and Intimacy in Your Life
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True North Groups
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Your Personal and Leadership Development
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Forming Your Group
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Norming
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Storming
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Performing
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Reforming Your Group
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Why Your True North Group Is Important in Your Life
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Start-Up Curriculum (First Twelve Topics)
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Additional Program Ideas
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The Group’s Initial Meeting
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Member Contract
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Meeting Formats
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Ground Rules for Group Discussions
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Guide for Facilitating Groups
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Member Satisfaction Survey
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Group Retreats
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Adding New Members to Existing Groups
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Giving and Receiving Feedback
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Research Process
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Notes
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Bibliography
