Building the Bridge As You Walk On It

A Guide for Leading Change

by Robert E.Quinn

Number of pages: 256

Publisher: Jossey-Bass

BBB Library: Leadership

ISBN: 978-0787971120



About the Author

Robert E.Quinn is the Margaret Elliot Tracy Collegiate professor of business administration at the University of Michigan. His research and teaching focus on organizational change, behavior and effectiveness. He is better known by his Competing Values Model, which has been recognized as one of the 40 most important business models in the history of business.

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Editorial Review

Every human being needs to undergo an intellectual journey that will span the remaining course of their life and help them develop their emotional and character integrity. The idea here is to combine personal change with organizational change. A leader can attain a positive, organizational change only after they engage in a positive personal change called “The Fundamental State of Leadership”.Most people of all positions often behave in a normal style termed as “The Normal State”.When we enter the Fundamental State, and depart the Normal State, we climb to higher conditions and dive into deeper meanings. Then we begin to attract new flows of energy. We overcome negativity and slow death, and we start to attract others to “The Fundamental State of Leadership”. So we simultaneously reach the state of leadership together in order to carry out more productive community with increased commitment and capability.

Book Reviews

"Quinn’s work captures a crucial truth about great leadership—that it is about who we are and not what we do. In facing our fears and harnessing our uniqueness, we bring forth the capacity for inspired leadership and for enduring change. Robert Quinn is a gifted storyteller. This is his best book to date.” —Peter J. Frost, Edgar F. Kaiser Professor of Organizational Behavior, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, and author of Toxic Emotions at Work" - Wiley

"In Building the Bridge as You Walk on It, Quinn identifies eight practices for achieving the personal transformation that takes an individual from a "normal" to a "fundamental" state of leadership. These are: reflective action, authentic." - Barnes and Nobles

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Wisdom to Share

When people shift to a deeper state of being, they shift from normality and followership, and ascend to a higher state of mind which we call “The Fundamental State.

To remain in the normal state and refuse to change while the universe changes around us; is ultimately to choose slow death for the organization. That can only be reversed by entering the fundamental state of leadership.

The fundamental state is a psychological condition and when you are engaged in it, you stop asking about what you want. Instead, you start wondering about the result you want to create.

people who are authentically engaged love what they do, and their work becomes a calling or a labor of love. This is actualized when we do what’s right no matter how unpleasant it is.

To enter “The Fundamental State of Leadership” is to reverse the cycle of slow death. Exercising the courage to become more purpose-centered, other-focused, internally-directed, and externally-open, unleashes a variety of other positive emotions.