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OWL BOOK REVIEW
AVIARY
Laurence D. Ackerman, Identity is Destiny, Leadership
and the Roots of Value Creation
San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2000.
ISBN: 1-57675-068-X
This is a profound book and cuts to the core of the leadership
issue. As Ackerman says, employees and managers need an answer to the questions:
Who are we? What do we stand for? How are we different? Where do I fit
in? Actually these are questions every human being asks about his or her
own life, so it makes a great deal of sense that people would ask these
same questions about their organizational lives as well. Without clear
answers, there can be confusion and dissatisfaction.
To put it in its most condensed terms, Ackerman makes
the point that leadership provides answers to these questions. Ackerman
calls this identity-based management, and he cites "natural laws" that
shape how organizations and their members are influenced.
Leaders, Ackerman writes, provide insight for others,
first and foremost. This is quite a different definition of leadership
from traditional views of leadership as courage under fire, inspiration,
loyalty, honesty, and a multitude of other adjectives. Though Ackerman
doesn't say this, the answers to his fundamental questions can take organizations
a long way in determining positioning for their brands.
Ackerman's eight laws of identity are as follows:
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1. The law of being. (Organizations are alive.)
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2. The law of individuality. (Organizations are unique.)
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3. The law of constancy. (While organizations grow
and evolve, there is a core that is immutable.)
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4. The law of will. (Organizations must create value
to exist.)
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5. The law of possibility. (Every organizations
has potential.)
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6. The law of relationship. (The strength of
an organization depends upon its relationships.)
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7. The law of comprehension. (The perceived value
of the entire organization affects the value of individuals in that organization.)
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8. The law of the cycle. (Organizations are part
of a cycle where identity affects value, which produces wealth, which affects
identity.)
A lot of human metaphors have been used in the past
to describe organizations, and Ackerman continues in this vein. The end
result is a book that is provocative, insightful, and a delight to read.
We highly recommend it.
Janelle Barlow, President
TMI USA
 Previous
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