Surrounded by Fire — book cover
Leadership · Nonfiction

Surrounded
by Fire

Leading clearly, calmly, and sustainably inside the work.
By Bill McCord
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Overview

What this book is

The pressure in IT services and consulting doesn't let up. The escalations are real. The customers are visible. The margin for error is thin. And most of the people leading through it were never taught how.

Surrounded by Fire is a practical leadership guide for managers and executives in IT services and consulting environments... the people responsible for delivery, quality, and the humans doing the work.

The book's central premise is simple. In a high-pressure environment, the leader is either a thermostat or a thermometer. A thermometer reflects the temperature of the room. A thermostat sets it.

Across thirty chapters and six parts, this book delivers the frameworks, tools, and hard-won lessons for leading clearly and calmly inside the work. How to build teams that hold their standard under pressure. How to develop leaders who outgrow you. How to stay the thermostat when the room is on fire.

Written from inside thirty years of the work. Not from a distance.

Inside the Book

Six parts, thirty chapters

Part I
Foundations
Part II
Culture & People
Part III
Systems & Execution
Part IV
Leading Through Change & Conflict
Part V
Legacy
Part VI
Leadership Sustainability
About the Author

Bill McCord

Bill McCord

Bill McCord is an Executive Vice President with more than three decades of experience leading IT services and consulting organizations. He is known for one thing above all others: building systems and teams that scale... not teams that perform well when conditions are favorable, but teams that hold their quality standard under pressure. Teams that retain the people who matter. Teams that keep improving after he leaves the room.

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