52 pages • 1 hour read
Roger Connors, Tom Smith, Craig HickmanThe Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1994A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
Roger Connors, Craig Hickman, and Tim Smith (Authors)
Roger Connors and Tom Smith cofounded Partners in Leadership (now Culture Partners), a management consulting firm. The authors’ experience at this firm provides many of the examples that support their claims, allowing them to present themselves as experts in their field with measurable results. They have coauthored several books on workplace culture. In their writing and consulting, they specialize in promoting workplace accountability as a strategy for achieving results and maintaining success. Their work has been on The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists several times. Their most recent book is Get a Coach, Be a Coach, published in 2021.
According to his LinkedIn page, Connors is currently Chairman of Human Performance Technologies, a company that specializes in new employee development. He also cofounded Zero to Ten, a consulting company focusing on developing coaching strategies to improve individual and organizational performance. His interests in coaching are evident in Part 3, when the text analyzes Glinda the Good Witch’s coaching strategies. According to Smith’s LinkedIn page, he continues to support Partners in Leadership as an advisor to the CEO.
Craig Hickman is a best-selling author and coauthor of 18 books and is considered an industry thought-leader on leadership and workplace culture. The Oz Principle delves into granular elements of workplace culture through anecdotes about meetings and feedback sessions. Hickman has worked as a CEO of Headwaters Technology Innovation and as a senior vice president of Partners in Leadership. According to his LinkedIn page, he received an MBA with honors from Harvard University.
Dorothy and Her Companions (the Lion, the Tin Woodsman, and the Scarecrow)
The authors of The Oz Principle lean into their interpretation of these characters to present their ideas. They see the story as one in which these four characters learn to get out of the victim cycle symbolized by the yellow brick road and, by embracing ownership and accountability, learn that they already possess the skills they need to solve their problems.
Throughout, what the authors interpret as these characters’ journey to self-actualization is used to frame The Oz Principle. Each of these characters symbolize one of the important steps in the process to get Above The Line. The Lion is associated with the courage to “See It”; the Tin Woodsman is the heart to “Own It”; the Scarecrow is the wisdom to “Solve It”; and Dorothy is the power to “Do It.”
General Electric and Jack Welch
GE is a profitable company that has been around since the 19th century. As such, it provides a lot of examples that demonstrate concepts from the Oz Principle. While the authors speak positively of the company overall, they provide a variety of examples from them. In some cases, GE exemplifies the authors’ principles by either staying Above The Line or getting back Above The Line after a brief dip Below The Line.
As a leader of GE for over 40 years and as someone who is seen as a transformative figure for the company, the authors often point to Jack Welch as a model of effective leadership. According to them, he readily took responsibility for his errors and tried to create a culture that embraced joint accountability as a way of life.
Glinda the Good Witch and the Wizard of Oz
These two leaders symbolize the extremes of Effective Leadership Through the Application of the Oz Principle. Glinda is a leader, as she works to coach Dorothy and her companions Above The Line. Instead of imposing the message of accountability onto them, she guides them toward recognizing its value.
The Wizard of Oz exists at the other extreme. He represents the false promise of quick fixes through management fads and leadership gurus. He also behaves like a tyrant. As they move Above The Line and embrace accountability, Dorothy and her companions (representing good businesspeople) expose him as a fraud.
Guidant Cardiac Rhythm Management
The management at Guidant provides a model example of an entire organization using the steps advocated by the authors to get Above The Line. Initially, the company is struggling with a culture stuck in the victim cycle. It hadn’t introduced new products in years and was constantly playing catchup with its competitors. It also had a negative reputation in the industry. Management redoubled its efforts and promoted a culture of accountability, identifying various problems along the line, from engineering of new products to marketing and distribution.
At the end of Part 2, Guidant provides an example of a company in their industry that managed to stay Above The Line when a supply chain problem disrupted the rollout of a new medical device. Instead of falling into the victim cycle, they took ownership for the problem and worked collectively to overcome it. This example anticipates the focus in Part 3 on staying Above The Line.
Mike Eagle
An important example of a leader who learned to embrace the Oz Principle to overcome obstacles, Mike Eagle is discussed several times throughout the book. Initially a very successful corporate leader, he runs into trouble when he is assigned to a new division and attempts to apply old approaches to his current situation. It is only by soliciting honest feedback from his friend and his team that he begins to recognize the problems with his approach.
Eventually, he comes to take ownership for the part he had played in creating the situation. By taking accountability and following the steps to get Above The Line, he was able to turn things around and get his division out of the victim cycle. The authors hold him up as a model leader.
