Brook Manville

262 points

Washington DC

Brook Manville is a Washington D.C.-based independent consultant who works with mission-focused organizations and provides executive counseling to leaders around the world.

Open Minded Author Contributor Club

Authored Content

4 questions about the essence of openness

A more open world isn't inevitable. Building one will take work—and it raises complex questions like these.

Making the case for openness as the engine of human progress

Is "open" the future of human progress, as this recent book argues? Maybe. To know for sure, we'll need to clearly define it—and the purposes it serves.

A new perspective on meritocracy

Understanding the role merit plays in open organizations requires more research. This model is a place to start.

A fortune cookie that says "to succeed, you must share"

The evolution of the open organization

Reading Jim Whitehurst's The Open Organization, you can hear the voice of a leader on a mission. Achieving a well-described personal transformation to become the Red Hat CEO…

Should open source leaders go native?

Anthropologists who traveled to the jungle to study various tribes would debate (half jokingly) whether to "go native"—that is, whether to adopt the lifestyle of the people…

6 questions to accelerate open source in non-tech companies

There’s now an accelerating trend of businesses adopting strategies reflective of the open source way—creating new value through development of some kind of purpose-driven…

Contributed Content

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Aging in the open: How this community changed us

Our community dedicated to exploring open organizational culture and design turns four years old this week.

Authored Comments

Brook Manville

23 Feb 2017

A new perspective on meritocracy

Hi Seth, thanks for your comment! You're spot on about micromanagement. I think a culture of true meritocracy is one of the best defenses against micromanagement--if there's real competition for excellence, leaders need to sit back and let innovation flourish and rise.

Appreciate your enthusiasm. Not sure "lots of big words" is a metric of success, but I'll take the tip of the hat with your positive intentions. Kind regards

Brook Manville

6 Jan 2016

The evolution of the open organization

Thanks to both of you for your comments...I think the "accelerated creative destruction" and ongoing learning/evolution does indeed strike at the heart of why "open" approaches are so powerful and may become more and more successful as a "way of the future". Open is perhaps the ultimate approach to being "agile"...