Steve Denning
Encyclopedia
Steve Denning is a thought leader in leadership, management, innovation, and organizational storytelling
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and worked as a lawyer in Sydney for several years. He did a postgraduate degree in law at Oxford University.
Denning worked for several decades at the World Bank
in many capacities and held various management positions, including Director of the Southern Africa Department from 1990 to 1994, Director of the Africa Region from 1994 to 1996, and Program Director for Knowledge Management from 1996 to 2000. After leaving the World Bank in 2000 he published five books on leadership storytelling and established himself as a global leader in the field. In 2001 he initiated the annual Organizational Storytelling Weekend in Washington D.C. under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution.
In 2010 he broadened the focus of his work with his book, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2000). In this book he argues that present day management needs to be reinvented. He sets out the principles and practices needed to accomplish that through five major shifts: (1) a shift in the firm’s goal from producing outputs to delighting the customer; (2) a shift in the role of the manager from a controller to an enabler of self-organizing teams; (3) a shift in the way work is coordinated from bureaucracy to dynamic linking, (4) a shift from value to values; and (5) a shift from top-down commands to conversation
Organizational storytelling
Organizational storytelling is an emerging discipline in the study of management, strategy and organization studies. As an emerging discipline it is contested ground, with some academics describing it is a purposeful tool to be used by business people, and others describing it is a way of...
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Biography
Stephen Denning was born 11 January 1944 in Sydney, Australia. He studied law and psychology at the University of SydneyUniversity of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
and worked as a lawyer in Sydney for several years. He did a postgraduate degree in law at Oxford University.
Denning worked for several decades at the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
in many capacities and held various management positions, including Director of the Southern Africa Department from 1990 to 1994, Director of the Africa Region from 1994 to 1996, and Program Director for Knowledge Management from 1996 to 2000. After leaving the World Bank in 2000 he published five books on leadership storytelling and established himself as a global leader in the field. In 2001 he initiated the annual Organizational Storytelling Weekend in Washington D.C. under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution.
In 2010 he broadened the focus of his work with his book, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2000). In this book he argues that present day management needs to be reinvented. He sets out the principles and practices needed to accomplish that through five major shifts: (1) a shift in the firm’s goal from producing outputs to delighting the customer; (2) a shift in the role of the manager from a controller to an enabler of self-organizing teams; (3) a shift in the way work is coordinated from bureaucracy to dynamic linking, (4) a shift from value to values; and (5) a shift from top-down commands to conversation
Published works
- The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000)
- Sonnets 2000 (iUniverse, 2000)
- The Painter: A Novel of Pursuit (iUniverse, 2000)
- Storytelling in Organizations: Why Storytelling Is Transforming 21st Century Organizations and Management with John Seely Brown, Katalina Groh, Laurence Prusak (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004)
- Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership through Storytelling (Jossey-Bass, 2004)
- The Leader's Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative (Jossey-Bass 2005)
- The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative (Jossey-Bass, 2007)
- The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Re-inventing the Workplace for the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2010)
- Masterclass: Rethinking the organization: leadership for game-changing innovation (Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 38. No. 6, 2010)
- The Reinvention of Management (Strategy & Leadership, Vol 39. No. 2, 2011)
- The Reinvention of Management: Part 2: Practices (Strategy & Leadership, Vol 39, No. 3, 2011)
Awards and honors
- 2000: Fellow, Royal Society of Arts
- 2000: One of the World’s Ten Most Admired Knowledge Leaders (Teleos)
- 2006 - 2009 Senior Scholar at the Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland
- 2007: The Secret Language of Leadership was selected by 800-CEO-READ as the best book on leadership of 2007.
- 2009: Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, OxfordAll Souls College, OxfordThe Warden and the College of the Souls of all Faithful People deceased in the University of Oxford or All Souls College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England....
- 2010: The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management was selected by 800-CEO-READ as one of best five books on management of 2010.
- 2011: Outstanding Paper Award Winner at the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2011 for his article Masterclass: Rethinking the organization: leadership for game-changing innovation published in Strategy & Leadership