Page 263 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

252 Acknowledgments

whether quoted or not, these leaders universally contributed to the devel-
opment of our thinking about the essential practices of this handbook. We
were pleased, as the research unfolded, how often our leader interviews
generally affirmed the overall thesis of this book, but we should also add
that nothing in its pages is intended to ascribe a specific view of leadership
to anyone except ourselves.
We would be remiss if we also did not thank the many clients and or-
ganizations that we had the opportunity to work with over the past thirty
years of our own consulting and leadership practices. In many ways, this
book was a capstone project that allowed us to reflect on and pull together
the learning that we accumulated from these collaborations. Some of their
stories also are captured in the preceding pages.
It may seem self-serving for coauthors to thank one another, but as a
sort of collegial epilogue, we would like to close our collective acknowl-
edgments with gratitude for the value of the collaboration that developed
during the course of writing a book together. We began the first draft with
a fair amount of conceptual consensus between us, but then had plenty of
disagreements and debates along the way. Though sometimes painful, in
the end they were, again and again, “learning opportunities.” We are each
better and wiser for the exchanges that culminated in the final product,
and more important, we think this handbook is too.
As coauthors, each of us also would like to note a few personal ac-
knowledgments:

RON: Over the past four decades, colleagues at Schaffer Consulting have
deeply influenced my perspective on organizational change and leadership,
and supported my professional development. So in many ways, this book
is a reflection of what I learned during my time as an active member of the
firm. Thanks in particular to Robert Schaffer, who took a chance on me as
a naïve would-be consultant and continually encouraged me to keep learn-
ing and writing about what it takes for organizations and leaders to be suc-
cessful. Thanks as well to longtime colleagues Suzanne Francis, Matthew
McCreight, Nadim Matta, and others from the firm who were great learn-
ing partners over the years. I also wish to acknowledge the many profes-