Leading outside the lines: How to Mobilize the (in)Formal Organization, Energize Your Team, and Get Better Results

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The Logic of the Formal; the Magic of the Informal

 

 

 

 

Logic only gives man what he needs. . . . Magic gives him what he wants,” author Tom Robbins once wrote.¹ The tension between the mind and the heart and the desire to integrate the two have been grist for the writer’s mill for centuries. Management theorists, by contrast, have focused their efforts on one aspect of this tension or the other and have spent the past hundred years debating each other about which is more important. Our intention in this chapter is to show that it is not a question of either/or but rather of understanding what benefits the formal and informal offer, and why they need to work together.