Robert C. Benfari - Understanding and Changing Your Management Style: Assessments and Tools for Self-Development

Preface

The concepts presented in this book are based on twenty-five years of clinical and organizational analysis of the lives of men and women in management. The model I have developed is based on an integration of the work of many great thinkers and practitioners in the field of behavioral science. I have tried to apply the ideas of these individuals to the thousands of cases that I have worked with in various organizational settings. The cases presented in this book are real but disguised in order to maintain the confidentiality and anonymity of the individuals.

Most of the data collection, analysis, and interpretations came from workshops that had, as one facet, understanding the individual's management style. These workshops entailed hours of assessment, self-analysis, and interpretation.

My background is in clinical, organizational, and systems psychology. I have tried to apply these skills toward self-understanding as one of my major goals in becoming an effective manager. The same methodology can be applied to areas outside the organization, as the model touches on the core of the self.

My first experience in the study of lives was with Douglas Bray in the ATT Management Progress Study. This was a longitudinal assessment of managers over a six-year period. I owe Dr. Bray for the opportunity to begin my quest toward understanding the individual within the organizational environment.

My second experience was with Dr. Alexander Leighton at Harvard University and his innovative study of people's lives in various cultures around the world. During this period of time, I sharpened my research and clinical tools.

My next long-term commitment was in the area of behavioral change as applied to men who were at risk of developing heart disease. I was one of the early planners of the large-scale national program called the Multiple Risk Factor Invention Trial. In addition to planning the behavioral interventions, I was principal investigator of the Harvard clinic, one of the twenty units around the United States. The intervention program ran for ten years, and from this experience I gained immeasurable knowledge about behavioral change.

At the same time, I carried out a clinical and organizational practice with various organizations ranging from Fortune 100 corporations to government agencies and academic institutions.

In my courses at Harvard, in the Harvard School of Public Health and Division of Continuing Education, I developed a curriculum based on personal experience with thousands of participants who attended my workshops. In addition, I have conducted interviews and observed good and bad practices of both effective and dysfunctional managers. From these experiences and the current literature on management style, I developed an integrated model for understanding and changing your management style. The core of this approach rests on the key building blocks of management. By isolating and defining these elements, the model lays the groundwork for understanding yourself and thereby working more effectively with other people as a manager and leader.