Amazon.com
Recall the old saying about all work and no play making Jack a dull boy? World-class companies today need play--serious play--if they want to make truly innovative products, argues Michael Schrage, an MIT Media Lab fellow and Fortune magazine columnist. In Serious Play he writes, "When talented innovators innovate, you don't listen to the specs they quote. You look at the models they've created." Whether it's a spreadsheet that tests a new financial model or a foam prototype of a calculator, what interests Schrage is not the model itself, but the behavior that play--be it modeling, prototyping, or simulation--inspires.
Schrage examines the approaches to successful prototyping at companies such as AT&T, Boeing, Microsoft, and DaimlerChrysler and describes the kind of culture that's needed for encouraging innovation. In the last chapter, he lays out the 10 rules of serious play, including: Be willing to fail early and often; know when the costs outweigh the benefits; know who wins and who loses from an innovation; build a prototype that engages customers, vendors, and colleagues; create markets around prototypes; and simulate the customer experience. Well-written and inspiring, Serious Play, is a first-rate user's guide for managers, project leaders, and other innovators. --Dan Ring
Book Description
Serious Play is about serious work: how the world's leading companies model, prototype, and simulate to innovate. Increasingly, prototypes are the key platforms and models are the core media for managing risk and creating value. They allow for cost-effective creativity, encourage profitable improvisation, and inspire organizations to collaborate in unexpected ways.
Serious Play is a crisply written handbook for product, process and project leaders who are determined to manage their innovation initiatives successfully.
As digital technologies for modeling and simulation offer more value for less money, they provoke fundamental challenges to organizational culture and design. MIT research associate Michael Schrage asserts that conventional wisdom surrounding innovation gets turned inside out: What innovative companies choose not to model often proves more important than what they do. Contrary to the popular assumption that innovative teams generate innovative prototypes, in fact innovative prototypes generate innovative teams. How innovators play with their models and simulations invariably matters far more than what they actually plan. In fact, Schrage shows why innovative firms cannot seriously plan unless they seriously play.
Drawing upon a range of companies as diverse as Walt Disney, Boeing, Merrill Lynch, General Electric, IBM, IDEO, Microsoft, Royal Dutch Shell, DaimlerChrysler and American Airlines, Schrage identifies the common patterns and practices that distinguish productive prototyping cultures from pathological ones. He explores the intimate connection between how leading innovators model reality and how they actually manage it. He examines prototyping failures as rigorously as he explains prototyping successes.
The essential message of
Serious Play is that tomorrow's innovations will increasingly be the byproduct of how companies and their customers behave-and misbehave-around this new generation of models, prototypes, and simulations. The distinction between serious play and serious work dissolves as technology gives innovators ever-increasing opportunities to simulate and prototype their ideas. As the media for modeling radically change, so will the organizations that use them.
With real-world examples and engaging anecdotes, Schrage argues that the future of prototyping is the future of innovation. A User's Guide included in the book helps readers quickly take away the innovation practices profiled throughout. A landmark book by one of the most perceptive voices in the field of innovation,
Serious Play will lay serious claim to the hearts and minds of forward-looking business managers.
Download Description
Successful innovation demands more than a good strategic plan; it requires creative improvisation. Much of the "serious play" that leads to breakthrough innovations is increasingly linked to experiments with models, prototypes, and simulations. As digital technology makes prototyping more cost-effective, serious play will soon lie at the heart of all innovation strategies, influencing how businesses define themselves and their markets. Author Michael Schrage is one of today's most widely recognized experts on the relationship between technology and work. In Serious Play, Schrage argues that the real value in building models comes less from the help they offer with troubleshooting and problem solving than from the insights they reveal about the organization itself. Technological models can actually change us--improving the way we communicate, collaborate, learn, and innovate. With real-world examples and engaging anecdotes, Schrage shows how companies such as Disney, Microsoft, Boeing, IDEO, and DaimlerChrysler use serious play with modeling technologies to facilitate the collaborative interactions that lead to innovation. A user's guide included with the book helps readers apply many of the innovation practices profiled throughout. A landmark book by one of the most perceptive voices in the field of innovation.
Customer Reviews:
Readable User-Friendly Book on Innovation.......2005-04-30
I am enjoying this book. I like the title "Serious Play", but I dislike the sub-title "How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate". Companies don't innovate people do is my thought. I think the author could have taken this concept one step further. That is tie in the concepts of how innovation relates to chaos theory and fractals and larger concepts. The author's ideas are not that new to me because I am a project manager in a software engineering environment where prototyping and iterations is the name of the game. We have at most 3 months to make a difference, to deliver and then we are swept into the ocean of change. You have a small window of opportunity before both the game and the players change.
I think that the world may be on the verge of moving so fast that we begin to see things like the wiki, open source culture in that it takes all of us innovating collectively in serious play. Long term I wonder if you are not free, workable and now, you are not in the game.
Some concepts for me are:
1) Importance of being able to improvise in the moment
2) Prototyping both reveals the underlying power cutural structures and changes them.
3) Human beings are relationship morphing entities.
4) the importance of shared collaboration space that invite clever interactions between people.
5) Treating prototypes as conversation pieces
6) Watch for the underlying feeling of geniune fun
7) The importance of the challenge or obstacles to the game
8) We shape our models, our models shape us
9) "In order to have actionable meaning, the fuzzy mental models ... must be externalized in representations in ways... that can be grasped"
10) Prototypes force individuals to confront the tyranny of tradeoffs (i.e. difficult decisions)
11) "All models are attempt to manage the complexity by making it simpler and more accessible"
While the text is very readable I had trouble pulling out the underlying structure of the book. But I felt redeemed when I read the User's Guide at the end of the book. Interesting you would think a User's Guide would go at the beginning. Fortunately I do not read sequentially so I found that chapter fairly quickly.
Three years on, still a great book.......2002-09-16
Here's the best review I can give Michael Schrage's "Serious Play": Three years on, it's consistently the first book I pull out of my bookshelf when I'm looking for ideas for presentations, thoughts on introducing new products or services, etc. His commentary on "mean-time-to-payback" is something that will stick with you for years. It's brilliant stuff, written in clear, concise terms. And, surprisingly, very little of it is dated. Unlike many books from that era, there's no .com or Enron fixation for the author to be embarrassed about. Schrage's examples are pulled from health care technology, animation, theater...in short, an eye-opening spectrum of ideas. I consider "Serious Play" one of my best purchases ever.
Preaching to the choir.......2002-08-22
This is a good book for someone to read if they are skeptical of the benefits of prototypes. However, since I already know the value of interactive prototypes I became quickly tired with the book.
Other critiques: it felt like the author had a bunch of cool little examples lying around and finally got the idea to put it together, surrounded by some fluffy text to make it thick enough to sell as a book, and put it on the market. Lots of space is taken up by these excerpts, as well as big text in the margins summing up "important points," which I would usually find useful but instead gave the impression of just taking up space.
Also, the author makes repeated use of similes to the point that it got annoying; "Just like a is to b, c is to d."
At one point, the author brings up the difference between a "simulation" and a "prototype," and just when you think the core of the matter is going to be distinguished the author backs out, leaving you wondering why they brought it up in the first place if they weren't going to take a stab at defining and differentiating them.
Sorry, but given the hype I was sorely disappointed. Read the first chapter or so in a bookstore before actually buying this.
Enlightening.......2002-07-11
This book gave me a very good and new insight of how to manage prototyping. It is enlightening for not only it explains and lists the topics that are important. It also gives us lots of practical examples of implementations.
I kept refering it, and i DON't usually do that.........2001-03-14
The most significant aspect of this book is that it provides a vocabulary and a language to discuss the nature of creative prototyping and modeling behaviors. The first thing you do is take off the cover, otherwise people think you're reading a really cheesy book. It's everything but that. It's been 4 weeks, and i'm on my 3rd time through it. I reference it and re-use it over and over. I've since recommended it to a genetic scientist friend of mine that works for a major drug company, a software engineer, and a broadcast designer. The thinking in this book has an epidemic effect with those that read it, and the excitement that it carries into their work and mine is the most influential and direct I have ever experienced. Some books are relevant once, but this will be accessed for years to come. This is my first book recommendation i have ever made. that is all...
Book Description
Boogie the caveman is on a quest to understand how his people have become stuck in beliefs that drastically limit their ability to share insights and make progress. Join his hilarious journey of discovery and learn how to surface, share, and challenge your own and others' hidden beliefs and to recognize how they inform--and often misinform--what we do. With its engaging use of metaphor and detailed discussion guide, Shadows of the Neanderthal is a must-have resource for any organization on its own quest for clear and open communication.
Customer Reviews:
Perfect book for a half-day seminar in business management.......2007-05-01
Plato's allegory of the cave is a story that everyone must read in order to claim to be educated. In it, people are permanently located in a cave with their back to the entrance. The shadows of what takes place outside the cave appears on the wall and the residents use that information to reach conclusions regarding what is outside. It is designed to show you that much of what you think you know is only a faint shadow of what the world really is.
This story begins in that vein; Unga, Bunga, Oogie, Boogie and Trevor are cave dwellers with a fear of the outside. They watch the shadows and reach conclusions and each has a different opinion regarding what terrible fate would befall them if they ever set foot outside their domain. They eat only what blows into the cave, so their diet consists largely of dried plant life and dead insects.
Eventually, Boogie expresses a desire to explore the exterior world, an opinion that immediately gets him ostracized. When he leaves, he discovers an amazing world of animals and vegetation. He wanders until he encounters a wise man named Mike, who tells him how it used to be.
In the old days, there was a major civilization that built towers to see what was beyond their immediate vicinity. In one direction, there were enormous herds of wild animals and in the other direction there were abundant fruits and vegetables there for the harvesting. There were two groups, each of which looked in only one direction. This led to an immediate split, one group wanted to build spears and other hunting tools while the other wanted to build baskets for gathering. Neither side would budge from their position, which led to a battle for control. This battle led to separate groups retreating into caves, where they remained to this day.
After the initial story of the cave dwellers, there is a serious discussion of the meaning of the tale. You are asked to ponder the significance of the story and how it relates to the modern business world. With the advent of global markets and the instantaneous transfer of information, for most companies a strategy of staying put is suicide. Each and every day, someone in the company must be examining all of the fundamental assumptions used to justify the business decisions.
This is a short book that is perfect for the half-day management seminar. Illustrated and only 81 pages long, it can be read in about an hour and is packed with information designed to get you thinking about your approach to life, work and career.
Shadows of the Neanderthal.......2006-11-05
Fun and easy read but compelling! This is a book that I will want to keep on my bookshelf and revisit. A must read for managers, educators, and leaders.
Just as enjoyable and illuminating, Outlearning the Wolves, again, by David Hutchens.
Pocket Wisdom.......2003-02-24
Simple, yet powerful. A fun way to learn and very effective for group discussion.
An excellent resource!.......2000-07-03
I really enjoyed this book! The author's clever sense of humor and the great illustrations make a difficult subject--mental models--fun and easy to learn about. I think the book would help any company, family, or even couple get better at exploring why they think the way they do, and how to communicate better with colleagues and loved ones. The discussion guide at the end of the book makes it easy to start using the ideas in your day-to-day life.
Should be required reading if responsible for company growth.......1999-08-13
David Hutchens brings new insight and twists to an age old metaphor. This book begins with a humorous tale whose analogy, to the world in which we live and the mental models which we hold, will hit you between the eyes. The writer quickly points out problems every organization battles with to improve performance and grow. While the business culture has become so overwhelmed with change, many leaders have embraced their current state of affairs. Holding tight to what we have, we spend much of our energy trying not to lose market share. This book gives insight into why and when this happens and how to move from there. "In a world of chaotic information, the mind instantly locks onto that which it already knows--and simply filters out other data." (from Shadows of the Neanderthal) I'm glad I bought it. Thom Hazelip, Arthur Andersen LLP
Book Description
How Do You Ensure that Employees Are Doing the Right Things?
Many of us ask, "What does it take to do a job well?" and stop there. But there's more to it than that.
What skills and knowledge are necessary for effectiveness in a certain job? Does the employee have the appropriate skills and knowledge, or is some kind of training necessary? Are these job expectations aligned with the culture and strategy of the organization as a whole?
These questions are essential to performance improvement efforts. And competency modeling is designed to help you find answers to questions such as these.
A competency model is . . . a descriptive tool that identifies the skills, knowledge, personal characteristics, and behaviors needed to effectively perform a role in the organization and help the business meet its strategic objectives.
From the authors of the best-selling book The Art and Science of 360? Feedback comes this guide to the design and implementation of competency models.
"The authors have taken competency modeling out of the domain of academics and social scientists by creating a practical 'how-to' work that clearly and simply explains the steps in developing and using competency models. I recommAnd this book to anyone whose job includes the pinpointing and sharpening of relevant competencies, for themselves or for others."
--Scott B. Parry, chairman, Training House
"Lucia and Lepsinger have demystified competency models and put in the hands of the reader a blueprint for developing meaningful recruiting, performance measurement, and succession planning systems. They succeed with a straightforward, pragmatic style, using actual examples that make the book an easy read."
--Frank Ashen, senior vice president, New York Stock Exchange
Get the Results You Expect!
Competency models are a means of ensuring that your investment in your employees will yield the expected results. The popularity of competency modeling is steadily increasing: human resource pro
You'll use this cutting-edge guide to:
- Clarify job and work expectations
- Hire the best available people
- Maximize productivity
- Enhance a 360? feedback process
- Align behavior with organizational strategies and values
- Adapt to change
Customer Reviews:
A very good place to start.......2007-03-24
If you are new to this topic, you will get a good grounding of why and how you should go about developing a competency framework for your organisation. This book is thorough, to the point and easy to follow.
A good coverage of the field of competency models.......2001-06-26
Competency Models have become a must for an up-to-date HRM system - I have been helping companies to build this kind of models since 1996. These models make great tools for selection, training and development, appraisal and succession planning. Unfortunately, until I came accross this book, I found that most of the reference works to this field are quite unaccessible, not the kind I would put into the hands of a newcomer. This is a practical book, showing why competency models are important and helping the reader to go through the complete process of setting up such a system, including a chapter on how to sell the idea to others in the organisation - I wish some of the people I work with would have read this book before, that would have smoothened the problems that are caused if these steps aren't followed well. The book also shows how to transform your competence model into a 360° feedback questionnaire. It was the first time I came accross a book explaining how to do that! The only area that I found a bit weak is the compentency-interview (both for building the model, als doing behavior-based interviews for recruiting), but maybe that's a bias coming from my own expertise in that domain (my book "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence" includes a full chapter on how to ask the right questions).
Conclusion - whether you know about Competency Models or not - add this book to your library! And if you are a consultant in the field of competency models, this is a book you might recommend to your customers.
Patrick E. Merlevede -- co-author of "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence"
Very readable overview.......2000-04-25
This is a perfect choice for the novice reader who is trying to get a basic understanding of the whys and wherefores of compentency models. It's very readable book and not nearly as dry as I might have expected. In particular, the authors' copious use of real-world examples, cases and models is extremely helpful. I even got some great ideas for project management that I'll be able to apply broadly in my work, regardless of whether or not my organization undertakes a competency modeling project.
My only criticism is that the book focuses exclusively on CMs in a HRM context; there is no real discussion of industry-scale models, which was my main reason for reading the book. Nevertheless, a very good resource for a beginner.
A must read for everyone!.......1999-10-26
Well written. Reader-friendly without sacrificing depth of content. I am not an HR specialist, but I still find this book to be very useful. Provides me with knowledge on competency and how to build a competency model for my own company.
A "must" reading guide !!!.......1999-09-18
"Competency models that identify the skills, knowledge, and characteristics needed to perform a job have been in use for more than three decades. In the last five years, interest in them and their potential to help staffing and development efforts has increased dramatically among our client group. We believe this interest will continue to grow over the next few years due to three key, related trends-intensified competition, aggressive cost management and downsizing, and the proliferation of 360-degree feedback system (A. D. Lucia & R. Lepsinger / Preface xiii)."
In this invaluable study authors
* define what a competency model is, describe its components, and discuss some of their broad, general applications.
* examine how competency models can be applied within selection, training and development, appraisal, and succession planning systems to support an organization's business objectives.
* discuss establishing the performance criteria with which your organization measures success to better focus your data collection and analysis.
* describe specific action steps to follow during the development of the competency model from scratch.
* discuss various methods of data collection and how they can be used to increase the likelihood of identifying the knowledge, skills, and characteristics required to succeed in the job.
* describe the process of creating competency-based selection, training and development, appraisal, and succession planning systems.
* discuss the methods for converting the model into the necessary formats or tools to integrate the competencies into each step of human resource management.
This study is a "must" reading guide for HR professionals and line managers. I highly recommend.
See also :
* The Competency Casebook/D. Dubois
* Strategic Human Resource Leader/W.J.Rothwell et.al.
Book Description
Why do some changes fail while others succeed?
How can you make sense of the many tools and approaches for managing change?
How can you lead change successfully, both in your personal life and professional career?
After more than 14 years of research with corporate change, the ADKAR model has emerged as a holistic approach that brings together the collection of change management work into a simple, results oriented model. This model ties together all aspects of change management including readiness assessments, sponsorship, communications, coaching, training and resistance management. All of these activities are placed into a framework that is oriented on the required phases for realizing change with individuals and the organization.
The ADKAR perspective can help you develop a "new lens" through which to observe and influence change. You may be working for change in your public school system or in a small city council. You may be sponsoring change in your department at work. You may be observing large changes that are being attempted at the highest levels of government or you may be leading an enterprise-wide change initiative. The perspective enabled by the ADKAR model allows you to view change in a new way. You can begin to see the barrier points and understand the levers that can move your changes forward. ADKAR allows you to understand why some changes succeed while others fail. Most importantly, ADKAR can help your changes be a success. Based on research with more than 1100 companies from 59 countries, ADKAR is a simple and holistic way to manage change.
Customer Reviews:
Thought provoking.......2007-01-06
Good book makes a lot of sense and will make you think differently about project/change management. I find myself looking at projects that are not moving and/or moving very slowly and trying to find which "letter" is causing the project to stall. ADKAR stands for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. The author does a very good job explaining each of the ADKAR elements, what they are, how they affect a project and gives suggestions to improve each one. Only real question I had is how to apply it consistently. My guess is you learn how to implement it by taking his week long class on change management.
Book Description
"In business, either you're an agent of change, or you're destined to become a victim of change." -- Norm Brodsky in Inc Magazine
Customer Reviews:
Not Very Practical.......2007-07-03
If you are a practitioner you will not find this book very helpful. It has a number of interesting ideas, but they randomly presented. If you are looking for a more systematic or strategic approach, I'd recommend Beitler's Strategic Organizational Change or Kotter's Leading Change.
Learning to Make the Best of Change.......2007-05-12
Good Book. It presents the reader with seveal different theories and I learned alot about how change takes takes place in the work place. Overall a good book to read for any leader.
Making Sense?.......2007-04-07
I'm not sure it made that much sense. I was looking for a more practical book on how to do it - how to design an organization based on the needs.
Basic.......2007-01-15
This book would be useful if you do not practice as a manager. It provides an elementary overview. If you are a practitioner, I'd recommend Kotter, Beitler, or Bridges.
A must-have.......2007-01-10
This is one of the most useful, accessible and instantly applicable books on change management out there!
It collates quite a few well-published theorems and methodologies in one place, demonstrates the pros and cons of each without going into too much detail, but leaves it to the reader to decide which is appropriate in a given situation and, as a whole, the authors provides you with an unsurpassed collection of tools and models to apply in any given change scenario.
You will find yourself referring back to this again and again.
Book Description
Click 'Additional Materials' for downloadable sample chapter
Many managers and organizational leaders face shrinking budgets, growing competition, and changing organizational alliances and missions A bewildering array of new technologies and management techniques offer help in handling these challenges. To respond effectively and avoid wasting resources, decision makers need to diagnose organizational conditions, plan changes carefully, and apply appropriate technologies and management techniques.
The
Third Edition of the bestselling
Diagnosing Organizations shows how consultants and applied researchers can help decision makers quickly and flexibly diagnose problems and challenges and decide how to deal with them.
Key Features
- Models for framing diagnostic problems, identifying underlying conditions, and providing feedback
- Methods for gathering and analyzing diagnostic data
- Processes for working on a diagnosis with clients and other members of an organization
This thoroughly revised edition can help practitioners of diagnosis directly address concerns that are critical to clients, rather than just provide feedback on current conditions and operations. In an authoritative, yet readable fashion author Michael I. Harrison presents updated treatments of the uses of diagnosis, evaluating organizational effectiveness, improving team performance, planning organization redesign projects, and assessing organization-environment relations and competitive strategy. Also treated are the politics of change management, professional dilemmas, and ethical issues confronting practitioners.
Professors of research methods across the social sciences will find
Diagnosing Organizations, Third Edition an invaluable text for their courses. The second edition was widely adopted in departments of Management, Public Health, Nursing, Education, Public Administration, Psychology, Criminal Justice, and many others.
Customer Reviews:
Diagnosing Organizations - A step by step approach.......2000-05-01
Michael Harrison's book Diagnosing Organizations Methods, Models and Processes, is just that, a book that explains and gives a format for consultants to utilize while diagnosing an organization. Harrison's approach is more academic in nature and is very detailed. The methodology used in Harrison's book is meant to equip a consultant with the necessary information, tactics, and tools to best complete an organizational diagnosis accurately. The methodology Harrison puts forth is also designed to aide the consultant to be able to provide the client with clear, objective, valid and reliable data and information regarding (but not limited to) various existing work functions, the working environment and employee morale. Thus, in order to be able to come to a point of understanding of where exactly the organization is at today and to strategize what needs changed. In addition to, how the consultant can effectively create such an organizational change to help the clients get to tomorrow. Throughout his book, Harrison stresses the importance of the role of the consultant. A consultant might be called in for many reasons. The client organization might seek to use the diagnosis as an independent or "outside" resource for evaluating organizational work functions, existing programs, or as a means to carry out organizational change. The consultant's job is very broad, especially in relation to assisting the client with implementing organizational change. It is very important for the consultant and the client to have an open and communicative relationship and to agree upon the terms of the relationship and contract at the very first meeting or initial contract agreement. It must be understood that in order to perform his or her job to their best abilities the client must trust and support the consultant and the consultant reserves the right to end the diagnosis at any time for any reason (withholding information or not collaborating with the consultant are examples). Harrison uses the open systems model of diagnosis as a means for the consultant to evaluate the entire organization. The open systems model is a method that views the organization in an objective manner and attempts to interpret organizational activities without focusing on the political powers that might exist within the organization. This model encourages consultants to examine every aspect of the client's organizational functions and for the consultant to look beyond the problems presented and addressed by the client. The open systems model evaluates the condition of the client's inputs, outputs, goals, strategies, culture and other important facets of the organizational process. By examining every aspect of the organization, the consultant can better understand the origins of the problems and design methods to effectively accommodate change. The diagnostic process itself is broken down into three key steps. The first step in the process is to identify how the study will be conducted and what type of relationship will exist between the client and the consultant. As mentioned previously, it is of utmost importance that the client and the consultant reach an agreement that is amicable for both parties before any work begins. The second phase in the process deals with the how the consultant's view on how the diagnosis should proceed taking into account the client's concerns and timeline. The third step in the process entails the various scientific and analytical methods of data collection and analysis. Harrison explains that these three steps do not necessarily have to be completed in the order listed, but should always be present in any organizational diagnosis to ensure accuracy.
Harrison stresses that the role of a consultant is not to tell the client what they want to hear. At the same time, nor is it the consultant's place to use the client's organizational problems as a platform for his own research ideas or interests. Rather, a good consultant will listen to what the client expresses as their concerns, set those concerns aside and go about the organizational diagnosis to get a true concept of where the organization is and see if it adds up to the client's original statements of concern. Yet, at the same time, the consultant must keep the client's needs in mind throughout the entire diagnostic process and also not let the client's needs compromise the scientific method utilized in the collection and analysis of data. The dynamics of the individual to the group, the group to the organization and the individual to the organization are examined throughout the book. By analyzing these perspectives a description of the working relationship that each group within the organization can be understood in addition to the effects each group has upon the others. The descriptions and various information that the consultant gathers during personal interviews, observation and other methods can then be used as an informational tool to show how and what motivates employees to perform in addition to how various groups and their interactions with each other might be causing organizational dysfunction. Harrison also examines the distribution of power amongst groups in the organization in relation to how that power is used to effectively turn resources into services or products. Often, groups within an organization may not possess the power to fully achieve their objectives or tasks while other groups in the same organization might abuse or neglect their power indicating too much power might have been given to said group. The analysis of power distribution goes much further than just the hierarchy of the organization and can tell the consultant a great deal. However, this is often one of the more "touchy" and difficult areas to assess. It is critical that the client is willing to endure the analysis of the power distribution and to hear the consultant out in relation to his findings. Ultimately, a redistribution of power might be suggested to improve work effectiveness of the divisions and organization to create a more efficient organization. Yet, this very discussion makes many clients nervous for a redistribution of power is much more than shifting power and responsibilities. The client and consultant also must take into account the psychological factors that accompany power and empowerment and the taking away of power from individuals or a group. I found the case nine example on page 99 of the text very easy to identify with in relation to power relationships and it also helped me begin thinking and analyzing my place of employment more. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Book: Harrison's book, Diagnosing Organizations Methods, Models and Processes, provides details and examples for what seems might be every case scenario that a consultant could face. His examples give the reader a better understanding of the open systems model in addition to applicable case scenarios to transfer the theoretical into practice. Harrison's focus on the "macro" organizational elements of environment, organizational structure, technology, goals and strategies, inputs and outputs rather than the traditional low morale, or high turnover was fascinating. By understanding how these macro or "underlying" elements work and effect the organization the consultant is able to derive the reasons for low employee morale or high turnover rates. This new way of looking at organizational problems and organizations as a whole is very enlightening.
Product Description
This book introduces DEA as a multiple-measure performance evaluation and benchmarking tool. The focus of performance evaluation and benchmarking is shifted from characterizing performance in terms of single measures to evaluating performance as a multidimensional systems perspective. This book also provides easy-to-use DEA software - DEA Excel Solver. This DEA Excel Solver is an Add-In for Microsoft® Excel and provides a custom menu of DEA approaches, which include more than 150 different DEA models. It is an extremely powerful tool that can assist decision-makers in benchmarking and analyzing complex operational efficiency issues in manufacturing organizations as well as evaluating processes in banking, retail, franchising, health care, e-business, public services and many other industries. The DEA Excel Solver does not set limit on the number of units, inputs or outputs. With the capacity of Excel Solver, the DEA Excel Solver can deal with large sized performance evaluation tasks. For a free version of DEA Excel Solver, please visit www.deafrontier.com.
Customer Reviews:
GREAT BOOK...THE BEST DEA CD.......2004-05-20
The book is excellent with a nice mix of theory and applications in DEA. I believe this is the best book on DEA. Of special interest is the CD that looks at many DEA models. The CD has no competitor and is by far the best around. I have used this CD in many of my academic papers on DEA. If you need DEA software this is the book.
very good DEA book and software.......2003-02-01
This is the DEA book has many DEA models that you can apply with the software supplied. The software is an Excel Add-In which can be easily used. The book also has good intro. on DEA. It is a book for both DEA beginner and advanced users.
Product Description
Two fundamentally different business models of capitalism are operating in the business world today. One is self-destructive and increasingly corrupt. The other is emergent, flourishing, and inspirational. The author explains the differences between the two and reveals the extraordinary results of the more successful model. Profit for Life draws on nearly forty years of research on the empirical connections between stewardship and profitability.
Customer Reviews:
Review of Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels by Joseph H. Bragdon.......2007-04-08
Profit for Life shatters the old paradigm that success in business means sucking the life from people and natural resources by viewing both as dispensable commodities. By showing us how success in business--including big business--goes hand-in-hand with respect for human and natural communities, Bragdon frees us from the wrenching misconception that profit and citizenship represent a kind of zero-sum game.
Bragdon unites head and heart in one of the most uplifting books I have ever read. Profit for Life offers hope with a firm footing. I recommend Profit for Life to anyone with an interest in business management, strategic investment, or corporate citizenship.
Daniel D. Dutcher, J.D., Ph.D.
Project Director
The Clean Energy Group
Montpelier, Vermont
Book Review for Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels.......2007-01-31
Book Review for Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels
by Ann McGee-Cooper
How do you measure the value of servant leadership in business? How can we know it works? These have been two of the most frequently asked questions in our consulting practice over the past 30 years.
In Profit for Life, Jay Bragdon provides us with some compelling answers. He does this by setting aside much of the linear cause-and-effect thinking that drives business these days, and adopts a more rounded, holistic approach that gives us deeper insight into the firm.
The book is based on the experiences of 60 companies - Bragdon's "learning lab" - that broadly represent the industry/sector diversity of the world economy. Throughout the text he describes 16 of these pioneering companies, called the Focus Group. The distinguishing feature of all these firms is their effort to mimic living systems - in the ways they organize, manage and add value. This mental model is radically different from the traditional one that views the firm as a money making machine.
Although it may seem counter intuitive, the living system approach yields vastly superior results than the traditional one. For example, the average equity return of learning lab companies was nearly double the S&P 500 over the past decade; and their excess performance continues as this review is written. Bragdon expects such premium returns will diminish over time as the more effective methods of the living system model become copied and enter the mainstream. Nevertheless, these results are a strong affirmation of the milieu in which servant leadership normally operates.
Servant leadership, to Bragdon, is all about relationships. He says "relational equity" is the foundation on which companies build financial equity. When companies care about people and the things people care about, Employees become inspired and their inspiration cascades into everything they do, including their relationships with customers, suppliers and other key stakeholders.
The raison d'etre of these servant-led firms is value creation - value that permeates all relationships. Companies that excel at such value creation pursue a strategy Bragdon calls "living asset stewardship" (LAS). The fundamental premise of LAS is: Profit arises from life, and must therefore serve life if it is to be sustainable.
To understand the strategic value of living asset stewardship, Bragdon makes a critical distinction between living assets (people and Nature) and non-living capital assets (buildings, equipment and financial reserves). We see this in three contexts. First, people are closely bonded to Nature - genetically, physically and spiritually - in ways that capital assets are not. Second, living assets are the source of non-living capital assets. And third, because living assets are inherently creative and emergent, their value grows over time rather than depreciating as capital assets do.
The operating leverage in the learning lab and the 16 Focus Group companies resides in the human heart rather than in mechanistic financial gearing. This is supported by the fact that they generate consistently higher returns on equity while carrying substantially lower debt ratios.
Although traditionally managed companies have been adopting some stewardship practices in the past decade, Bragdon finds their approach differs fundamentally from those in his study. In the mechanistic view of these firms, stewardship is an add-on that is subservient to their drive for profit. By contrast, in companies that have adopted the living system model, LAS is deeply woven into the value creation process - reflecting the fact that they see themselves as "living" and therefore integral to, rather than separate from, Nature and society.
Profit for Life builds on the brilliant work of Arie deGeus, former coordinator of Group Planning at Royal Dutch/Shell, and Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson. DeGeus' classic, The Living Company, noted that long-lived companies had a collective consciousness, were sensitive to their environments, tried to work in harmony with the world around them, and strove to leave a legacy to future generations. Wilson tells us this collective consciousness is an expression of humanity's deep affinity for life, which he calls "biophilia," and that our biophilic instincts have evolved over thousands of generations of natural selection.
In my work as a teacher of servant leadership, I would highlight the paradigm shift Bragdon describes. The mission of leaders in LAS organizations is to serve and grow their people because that is the source of the firm's liveliness and capacity for growth. As Robert K. Greenleaf said: "The first order of business is to build a group of people who, under the influence of the institution, grow taller and become healthier, stronger and more autonomous." That seminal quote is used twice in the book to describe the power and generative capacity of LAS.
I highly recommend this book and will be using it regularly in our practice.
Ann McGee-Cooper, Ed.D., Business Consultant & Executive coach
in the field of Servant Leadership & growing Learning Organization.
Ann McGee-Cooper & Associates, Inc.
An Extraordinary Book: A Must Read.......2006-11-26
I intend to recommend Profit for Life to all my current MBA students. Next fall I am team teaching an MBA core course that combines Operations Management and Managerial Accounting. I intend to make the case that your book should be required reading and part of the course.
I became familiar with the work of W. Edwards Deming in 1990 and attended one of his four day seminars a year later. I also began to follow Peter Senge's work and later read Margaret Wheatley's book, Leadership and the New Science. Tom Johnson's book, Profit Beyond Measure, has been required reading in my Advanced Managerial Accounting elective at the MBA level.
Bragdon's book has brought the ideas, theories, and concepts discussed by these individuals together for me in a way that I could not have imagined. More importantly, he has not only taken their ideas to the next level, but done it in a way that provides a tangible blue print for how to change our current style of command and control management with its focus on profit maximization to a LAS Theory of Management.
The use of the sixteen focus companies from the LAMP INDEX and the author's ability ability to clearly show the distinctions in their style of management from the traditional management models that continue to be taught in almost all business schools, and the success these companies have achieved not just financially, gives those of us hoping to change management education and core business curriculums a new hope.
Thank you for such an outstanding book.
Joseph F. Castellano
Professor, Department of Accounting
University of Dayton Business School
Excellent, highly readable information.......2006-11-18
This is not one of those lightweight business books that repeats its Chapter 1 message over and over. It's chock full of research-based information that anyone involved in the sustainability movement should have. The publisher is Peter Senge's non-profit, so if you're familiar with his excellent work over the years, this would make a great addition to your library. The author's passion for his subject is obvious from page one.
Book Description
Pathfinders unpacks the performance improvement models that can be best used to aid organizations in going beyond training and achieving the needed performance results. Part I introduces the context of the attention converging on performance improvement, and why. Part II presents the preeminent performance improvement models that have stood as solid foundations on which to research theory or practice applications. It also offers a metamodel that provides a common framework for these models and shows how they relate to interventions that can be used to improve performance. Part III presents an unprecedented collection of biographies and bibliographies that provide an overview of the dominant performance improvement models.
Books:
- Shy Bladder Syndrome: Your Step-By-Step Guide to Overcoming Paruresis
- Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After
- Successful Woman's Guide to Working Smart: 10 Strengths that Matter Most
- Technical Communication
- The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
- The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
- The Assertiveness Workbook: How to Express Your Ideas and Stand Up for Yourself at Work and in Relationships
- The Black Belt Memory Jogger: A Pocket Guide for Six Sigma Success
- The Carbon Buster's Home Energy Handbook: Slowing Climate Change And Saving Money
- The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Electronic Commerce 2004: A Managerial Perspective, Third Edition
- The Limits of Expertise: Rethinking Pilot Error and the Causes of Airline Accidents
- Hong Kong's Transition: A Decade After the Deal
- Mr. Sorkin Goes to Washington: Shaping the President on Television's the West Wing
- Probability Methods for Cost Uncertainty Analysis : A Systems Engineering Perspective
- The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Mos
- Strategies for Profiting on Every Trade: Simple Lessons for Mastering the Market
- Century 21 Acct, Advanced Crsetextbook T
- Microeconomic Theory: An Integrated Approach
- Molecular Mechanisms of Microbial Adhesion: Proceedings of the 2nd Gulf Shores Symposium
Strategy & Competition
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Bringing Design to Software
Experimentation Matters: Unlocking the Potential of New Technologies for Innovation
The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization
No More Teams
