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Jurriaan Kamer- Unblock
Clear the Way for Results and Develop a Thriving Organization
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Most of the traditional management methods don’t help you get rid of inertia. This book offers new methods that allow you to stop working harder, take a step back, and change the system. There are a lot of great books out there on developing an effective organization. But what is different about this book is that it is pragmatic and practical.
Learn to apply modern organizational methods in areas of:
- Strategy: Craft a strategy that actually creates alignment and focus at scale.
- Steering: Set effective goals and find the right things to measure.
- Decisions: Improve the speed of decision-making at every level.
- Ownership: Develop a workplace where people happily take ownership and can do what is right for the organization.
- Teamwork: Develop psychologically safe teams that master reflection, improvement, and feedback.
- Meetings: Get rid of useless meetings and replace them with engaging ones that drive work forward.
- Change Management: Lead long-lasting cultural change efforts that won't fail like most others.
The book is full of leadership advice, such as:
- How to prioritize so you don’t spread your initiatives too thin.
- Why you shouldn’t cascade your strategy and what to do instead.
- How to measure the right things so you know you’re making progress.
- How to move from analysis paralysis to rapid action and learning.
- How to coach others to take more ownership.
- How to reduce meetings across the organization.
- How to develop an organization that creates results through autonomy and alignment.
What you can expect:
- The chapters can be read standalone (in 15 minutes or less), so jump directly to what’s most relevant to your situation and skip everything else.
- Each chapter starts with an entertaining fictional story.
- Every chapter ends with a checklist that you can use to assess your situation.
- The book covers essential theory but is full of step-by-step exercises.
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Published in September 2024 | Paperback | 274 pages | ca. 54,000 words
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Jurriaan Kamer is a speaker and Co-founder of Unblock, a change consultancy. In his 20 years of experience, he has advised hundreds of leaders across the world on overcoming organizational barriers to achieve better outcomes. Over the years, he has experimented with methods such as Lean, Agile, self-management, Holacracy, and OKRs and found inspiration in all of them. In this book, he has curated the practices across those methods that have consistently helped his clients accelerate their results.
Jurriaan is a Dutch organizational change expert focused on applying modern methods to unblock organizations and improve their outcomes. He helps leaders make more impact by eliminating ineffective strategy, pointless meetings, bureaucratic structures, and slow decision-making. He has been in and around the most radical and adaptive organizations globally, including ones without managers and high levels of autonomy.
Over the last decade, Jurriaan has worked as a speaker, author, and consultant. He co-founded Unblock, a modern management consultancy that works with leaders worldwide. Jurriaan's first book, the business fable Formula X, How to Reach Extreme Acceleration in Your Organization, is inspired by the fast-moving, fast-innovating world of Formula 1 motor racing. Forbes named it one of the "five must-read books for today's uncertain market." His newest book Unblock: Clear the Way for Results and Develop a Thriving Organization, is a practical guide for leaders who want an organization with more ownership, faster decisions, fewer meetings, and less bureaucracy, leading to significantly better outcomes.
“Brilliant… provides leaders with a practical tool kit to help Unblock the challenges that hold most teams back.” — Nick Andrews, Senior Director of Organizational Development, Expedia
“I enjoyed the book a lot – it is easy to read and comprehend. The stories are lively and provide great examples to understand practices described.” — Julia Hautz, co-author of Open Strategy and Professor of Strategic Management, University of Innsbruck
“This book takes deep organizational experience to impactful practices; it unblocks energy through aligned autonomy. The bad news is: there is no more excuse for not experimenting with these drills.” — Carsten Stolz, CFO, Baloise
“This book invites you to reflect on the performance of yourself, your team, and your organization. I appreciate that it avoids a one-size-fits-all approach, instead providing modules that you can apply based on your specific context.” — Wilma van Dijk, CEO, Rotterdam The Hague Airport
“This book provides many tools and examples from various industries. Instead of lofty new theories, this is a practical guide for effective execution, offering advice that is surprisingly simple yet often overlooked by many organizations.” — Kees Smaling, CTO International at Aegon
“Reading the book was a celebration of recognition. I enjoyed the mix of anecdotes and practically applicable techniques. I will keep picking up this book and using it to continue improving.“ — Henk van Steeg, Head of Software Engineering, Thales
“This is a great piece of work that will significantly help leaders unblock organizations. The book is both valuable and insightful. I enjoyed its modular structure, the richness of examples, and the useful checklists.” — Nina Maldonado, Head of IT Transformation, AkzoNobel
“A well-written, easy-to-read book that provides a lot of actionable insights to review work practices, experiment, and learn from this. I love that the practices speak to leaders and will enable them to encourage people to bring their best to the organization and thus leveraging their full potential to drive better results.” — Andrea Poehnl, HR Director, JDE Peet's
"Unblock is the ultimate manual for leaders needing to achieve drastically better outcomes quickly. It explains the theory, provides practical examples, and guides you step by step. This is no ordinary business book! Unblock is a reference guide, operating manual, and checklist all rolled into one. It’s the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Business Galaxy.” — Barry Doran, CFO, Sub-Saharan & South Africa, B/S/H/
“I love the many anecdotes and stories, which bring past experiences to life. This book provides many great lessons. It is well-written, and I never got bored.” — Mike O'Riordan, SVP EMEA and APAC, Ingredion
“This book provides valuable insights and practical guidance for executives seeking to realize their vision, unblock their organization, and produce breakthroughs. Having worked closely with the author, I can attest to the effectiveness of the strategies and advice presented.” — Eva McLellan, General Manager and Country President, Roche
"This book is highly relevant. I enjoyed its no-nonsense style, recognizable real-life cases (that often made me ‘cringe'), and practical tips that elegantly bring the solutions home.” — Barbara Arnst, VP Agility & Transformation, Telenet
“Most books you read contain the theory, but few link it with practical, actionable examples. This one does, and is impactful and authentic, easy to digest. It will be the book for the team.” — Anders Ohrling, CIO Europe, Electrolux
“It's a lovely blend of innovative theory and practical techniques. The stories in each chapter bring to life the concepts in a relatable way, while the tools provide enough detail that the reader can put into practice. I appreciate that this book pulls together many different techniques as a resource for regular use.” — Megan Bowles, Senior Consultant, Apostrophe Consulting
“It's an actionable book with enough detail to put it into practice, yet it reads like a novel. I'm very grateful to benefit from the fruits of Jurriaan's work with numerous organizations that he captured in the book.” — Charlie Rataj, Consultant, CRATAJ Consulting LLC
“This book contains quite a few easy-to-try and effective tips and techniques that leaders can try easily.” — Milind Vaidya, Co-Founder and Partner, Semcostyle Institute India LLP
What this book is about
STRATEGY
Unblocking strategy
1. Create alignment with strategic intent
2. Prioritize with explicit trade-offs
Don’t cascade your strategy; integrate it instead
STEERING
Unblocking steering
3. Create a rhythm of progress with 90-day outcomes
4. Measure progress with steering metrics
DECISIONS
Unblocking decisions
5. Reduce analysis paralysis with reversable decisions
6. Make high-quality, complex decisions with consent
OWNERSHIP
Unblocking ownership
7. Foster autonomy with clear decision rights
8. Let people choose what to contribute
How to change the structure and improve ownership
TEAMWORK
Unblocking teamwork
9. Increase psychological safety through empathy
10. Develop habits for reflection and feedback
MEETINGS
Unblocking meetings
11. Drive progress with collaborative team meetings
Don’t chair your meeting, but let someone facilitate
12. Minimize meetings with meeting routines
How to reduce meetings across the organization
NOW WHAT?
How (not) to change
APPENDIX