Leading Change

Book Description

In Leading Change, John Kotter examines the efforts of more than 100 companies to remake themselves into better competitors. He identifies the most common mistakes leaders and managers make in attempting to create change and offers an eight-step process to overcome the obstacles and carry out the firm's agenda: establishing a greater sense of urgency, creating the guiding coalition, developing a vision and strategy, communicating the change vision, empowering others to act, creating short-term wins, consolidating gains and producing even more change, and institutionalizing new approaches in the future. This highly personal book reveals what John Kotter has seen, heard, experienced, and concluded in 25 years of working with companies to create lasting transformation.

Customer Reviews:

Effectively Managing Change.......2007-08-17

In this book, Kotter methodically and carefully explains his eight-step process for creating major change in business organizations. He notes that the rate of organisational change has been increasing in recent years. The rapid and continual innovation in technology is driving changes to organisational systems and processes. There are also increased expectations of employees as they move more freely between organisations.

Kotter highlights the critical importance of leadership in any change programme. Strong, sustained leadership is crucial to changing deeply rooted corporate cultures and successfully implementing the change process.

John Kotter describes a helpful eight step model for understanding and managing change. Each stage acknowledges a key principle identified by Kotter relating to people's response and approach to change, in which people see, feel and then change.

In spite of the importance and permanence of organisational change, most change initiatives fail to deliver the expected organisational benefits. This book should help those involved in the change process to avoid the pitfalls and follow the eight steps that are explained in detail in the book.

Anyone planning or implementing a change programme will find the book useful, helpful and handy. The author presents the subject in a simple, concise, and easy to follow format.

Wow - thoughtful AND useful.......2007-06-28

Kotter's book is a roadmap of how to introduce a culture change effectively into an organization. Similar to "Good to Great" (Jim Collins), the book is much better organized and thorough.

Amazing!!.......2007-06-26

Have no further words to describe how increrable John Kotter brings in a easy way a subject so complex and important now-a-days. Indeed, it is recommend for all leaders who wants to take right decisions during turbulent times.

Still the definitive work on Change.......2007-06-13

I have been working in the change arena for the last 15 years and Kotter's book on Leading Change is still the definitive work. Based on his seminal 1994 HBR article "Leading Change: Why Transformations efforts fail" this is the best down-to-earth guide for both consultants and managers leading change. It has good practical examples and straightforward arguments - no psychological mumbo jumbo.

Envision, introduce, sustain change. or die........2007-05-09

Kotter gives us here a valuable handbook on how to visualize, introduce, and sustain change in an organization. Here are a few quotes:
"Handling new initiatives quickly is not an essential component of success in relatively stable or cartel-like environments. The problem for us today is that stability is no longer the norm. And most experts agree that over the next few decades the business environment will become only more volatile."
"Useful change tends to be associated with a multistep process that creates power and motivation sufficient to overwhelm all the sources of inertia."

Evaluating Practice: Guidelines for the Accountable Professional (5th Edition)

Average customer rating:

A great text book...
Another Edition to a fantastic text
enough is enough
A Classic in Practice Evaluation

Evaluating Practice: Guidelines for the Accountable Professional (5th Edition)
Martin J. Bloom , Joel Fischer , and John G. Orme
Manufacturer: Allyn & Bacon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

Program Evaluation: An Introduction
Social Work Practice with Children, Second Edition (Social Work Practice with Children and Families)
Introduction to Group Work Practice (with MyHelpingLab), An (5th Edition)
Ego Psychology and Social Work Practice: 2nd Edition
Research Methods for Social Work

ASIN: 0205466982

Book Description

Now with a free SINGWIN CD-ROM, Evaluating Practice, Fourth Edition is even easier for readers to understand and apply data analysis. Unsurpassed among human service evaluation books, Evaluating Practice, Fourth Edition, includes the innovative SINGWIN program, created by Charles Auerbach, David Schnall, and Heidi Heft Laporte of Yeshiva University. Evaluating Practice instructs readers on managing cases and charting and filling out scales. Although the authors are best known within the social work discipline, this book can also be used in other professional programs such as nursing, counseling, psychology, and psychiatry. The free supplement with practice test questions provides a number of helpful exercises. For anyone interested in social work at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Also for those interested in psychology, counseling, psychiatry, or psychiatric nursing.

Customer Reviews:

A great text book..........2007-01-02

I ordered this textbook for an MSW course, and it's wonderful. I love all the examples and the software that comes with it.

Another Edition to a fantastic text.......2005-08-10

This new edition of the text once again proves that these authors are the masters of single subject research. I have used this text for five years in my graduate methods course and am completely satisfied with their coverage of the material of single subject research design. Just when a researcher thought it could not get any better, this new edition comes along with updates to the software.

Get this book.

enough is enough.......2005-03-22

I was pleased to hear that this text had been assigned in a graduate research course at my graduate school of social work. I'm seriously disappointed. I would not recommend this text's continued use. It is excessively repetitive, constantly restating previous material (commonly referred to as 'rehashing'), and, as a sidebar, i can't help but mention an irritating habit of unnecessary references to material yet to come ('we'll talk about that more in chapter 14.'). The writing style is terribly wordy, and in a weighted, clunky pseudo-conversational style that rarely is effective in a textbook. The actual technical information is obscured in a constant river of verbiage, usually in page after page of solid block text, the least helpful format when learning technical information (or when subsequently searching for specific information or techniques). The result? It serves as a strong sedative. Finally, the authors repeatedly express apologies, in what eventually (by page 350) feels like an obsequious and cloying manner, for putting forward an empirical and accountable approach to clinical practice. The worst, though, is the repetition of material, as if the reader were an idiot. The sheer relentlessness of it is what is so galling, and at $100 bucks, neither affordable nor worth the investment. There are other texts out there with clearer, cleaner, more articulate prose, that are more respectful of the reader, and at half the price, such as the classic and affordable: Single-Case Research Designs: Methods for Clinical and Applied Settings by Alan E. Kazdin. Ignore the pollyanna reviews above and below, and avoid this text, or if on the syllabus, protest and suggest an alternative.

A Classic in Practice Evaluation.......2003-11-13

Bloom, Fischer and Orme continue to make an unique contribution to improving practice in the human services by providing a road map by which practitioners can evaluate their effectiveness. I've been using their text book for over 15 years in teaching practice evaluation and in has been an invaluable help. The new edition has a CD Rom with SingWin, CAAP,and CAAS which I was able to install in Windows XP Home edition. You must install CAAS before CAAP for it to work. The sofware computerizes record keeping, score computation, and graph construction. I strongly reccommend this textbook for human services faculty.

The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

Average customer rating:

This book Is The Best of The Best!
Effectiveness, honesty, simplicity
Overcoming Inertia - Uniting New Knowledge with Action
Packed with Knowledge!
Knowledge alone is a watseful Investment

The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action
Jeffrey Pfeffer , and Robert I. Sutton
Manufacturer: Harvard Business School Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management
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ASIN: 1578511240

Amazon.com

Every year, companies spend billions of dollars on training programs and management consultants, searching for ways to improve. But it's mostly all talk and no action, according to Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton, authors of The Knowing-Doing Gap. "Did you ever wonder why so much education and training, management consultation, organizational research and so many books and articles produce so few changes in actual management practice?" ask Stanford University professors Pfeffer and Sutton. "We wondered, too, and so we embarked on a quest to explore one of the great mysteries in organizational management: why knowledge of what needs to be done frequently fails to result in action or behavior consistent with that knowledge." The authors describe the most common obstacles to action---such as fear and inertia---and profile successful companies that overcome them.

Among the companies that Pfeffer and Sutton say do it right: General Electric, the Men's Wearhouse, SAS Institute, Southwest Airlines, Toyota, and British Petroleum. The book, based on four years of research, is broken into chapters with titles such as "When Talk Substitutes for Action," "When Fear Prevents Acting on Knowledge," "When Internal Competition Turns Friends into Enemies," and "Turning Knowledge into Action." Each chapter contains tips on what to do and what to avoid, and provides examples of how a lethargic company culture can be transformed. The Knowing-Doing Gap is a useful how-to guide for managers looking to make changes. Yet, as Pfeffer and Sutton point out, it takes more than reading their book or discussing their recommendations. It takes action. --Dan Ring

Book Description

The market for business knowledge is booming, as companies looking to improve their performance pour billions of dollars into training programs, consultants, and executive education. Why, then, are there so many gaps between what firms know they should do and what they actually do? Why do so many companies fail to implement the experience and insight they've worked so hard to acquire? The Knowing-Doing Gap is the first book to confront the challenge of turning knowledge about how to improve performance into actions that produce measurable results.

Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, well-known authors and teachers, identify the causes of the knowing-doing gap and explain how to close it. The message is clear-firms that turn knowledge into action avoid the "smart talk trap." Executives must use plans, analysis, meetings, and presentations to inspire deeds, not as substitutes for action. Companies that act on their knowledge also eliminate fear, abolish destructive internal competition, measure what matters, and promote leaders who understand the work people do in their firms. The authors use examples from dozens of firms that show how some overcome the knowing-doing gap, why others try but fail, and how still others avoid the gap in the first place.

The Knowing-Doing Gap is sure to resonate with executives everywhere who struggle daily to make their firms both know and do what they know. It is a refreshingly candid, useful, and realistic guide for improving performance in today's business.

Download Description

Why are there so many gaps between what firms know they should do and what they actually do? Why do so many companies fail to implement the experience and insight they've worked so hard to acquire? The Knowing-Doing Gap is the first book to confront the challenge of turning knowledge about how to improve performance into actions that produce measurable results. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, well-known authors and teachers, identify the causes of the knowing-doing gap and explain how to close it. The message is clear--firms that turn knowledge into action avoid the "smart talk trap." Executives must use plans, analysis, meetings, and presentations to inspire deeds, not as substitutes for action. Companies that act on their knowledge also eliminate fear, abolish destructive internal competition, measure what matters, and promote leaders who understand the work people do in their firms. The authors use examples from dozens of firms that show how some overcome the knowing-doing gap, why others try but fail, and how still others avoid the gap in the first place. The Knowing-Doing Gap is sure to resonate with executives everywhere who struggle daily to make their firms both know and do what they know. It is a refreshingly candid, useful, and realistic guide for improving performance in today's business.

Customer Reviews:

This book Is The Best of The Best!.......2007-07-26

This book hits the nail on the head. It's straight forward, easy to read format makes it a must read for every business leader who wants to get out from under knowing what to do and move to DOING the things that need to be done to move their organization forward!

Effectiveness, honesty, simplicity.......2006-10-24

Certainly in modern hi-tech work people need to be skilled, and know how to do their work well. But with all that knowledge, and people and systems concerned with knowledge management (and management in general), one may wonder at times why more work doesn't get done sooner. The authors of The Knowing-Doing Gap address this question. If you see parts of yourself or your work environment in these examples, it may be time to discuss it with others so you can get more work done with what you know already.

Overcoming Inertia - Uniting New Knowledge with Action.......2005-11-08

Two stellar professors use their experience and research to address the problem of organizational inertia in spite of our wide-spread and prevailing knowledge.

The premise is that a gap exists between our knowledge and the application of that knowledge in business... and that it can be closed. It cites that every year 1,700 business books are published, 60 billion dollars spent on training, 443 billion dollars spent on consulting and 80,000 new MBAs hit the business landscape... and still businesses are failing to apply the latest well-known and most viable principles and practices.

The authors break down the causes of this gap into five main reasons. After backing-up each reason with facts and examples, direct solutions are given to its remedy. Eight guidelines for action are then presented to fix this problem in your company. Case studies of business that have made huge turn-arounds using this appoach really amplify the authors' message.

This book is a great guide and loaded with ideas to getting the ball rolling in your business, non-profit organization... and dare I stretch to say your personal affairs. Knowing what to do, by itself is not enough... in businesses, churches or homes.

Application of this book's guidelines will make all of your other books, training, consulting, and manpower pay off. The tendency to just 'intellectualize' this information will be offset by your exposure to the real reasons knowledge hasn't lead to action in your experience. At least, that is the goal!

Five Stars

Packed with Knowledge!.......2005-06-20

Comedian Bill Cosby once sang a metaphorical ditty about a man who sat on the railroad tracks each day, only to be hit by a train. He knew when the train was coming, but he just couldn't apply that knowledge to get out of the way. That circumstance will sound hauntingly familiar to corporate consultants. Consider the experience of two consultants conducting deregulation research for a Latin American utility company. They stumbled over an excellent 500-page report completed years previously by a prior consultant. The document had all the information and analysis the company was seeking, but it had never been utilized. Authors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton expose the alarming gap between what senior managers know and what they actually implement. After four years of intensive research into this issue, they uncover valuable lessons on how to make sure your organization doesn't talk itself to death. Today's companies are struggling to overcome inertia and become more nimble. That's why we strongly recommend this book for managers at every level; if nothing else, you'll know what you ought to be doing.

Knowledge alone is a watseful Investment .......2004-10-10

The only book on the very important subject I know off. The authors share their views on the their a well researched topic.
The key issues in Knowing Doing gap are 1. Top management 2. The culture 3. Aura of being knowledgable 4. Focus on sounding great with less emphasis on performance 5. Faulty Measurements 6. Fear.

They also cite exeample of companies that have less of this gap by focussing on simplicity, communcation that is imlementation oriented, simple plans that work rather than complex issues such as balance score cards. They indirectly bring out the fact that Top management gap in understanding of the ground realities, has a direct bearing on knowing doing gap.

Going by their own emphasis to help readers in reducing the knowing doing gap, they could have reduced the descriptive nature of the book. They could have inserted an overview chart, showing the various symptoms of knowing doing gap in one column, ccauses, remedies, good co examples in another column. Subsequesnt revisions of this book may consider this feedback.

Action Inquiry: The Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership

Average customer rating:

Unique ideas that work, but some shortcomings....
"Action inquiry" is the process of transformational learning
The Art and Science of Transformational Leadership

Action Inquiry: The Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership
William R Torbert
Manufacturer: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 157675264X

Book Description

"Action inquiry" is the process of transformational learning that individuals (and even whole organizations) can undertake to better assess current dangers and opportunities, act in a timely manner, and make future visions come true. Through short stories of leadership and organizational changes in the areas of business, politics, health care, and education, this book illustrates how this process can increase personal integrity, improve relationships, and lead to company profitability and long-term success.

Customer Reviews:

Unique ideas that work, but some shortcomings...........2007-02-03

ACTION-INQUIRY is a great book with lots of useful concepts. The editorial and other reviews focus on the content and I won't repeat a lot of that. However, I have some other comments to make that may be useful and I can describe my experience applying the ideas in daily life.

The authors introduce the idea that every action is an inquiry and every inquiry is an action. The premise of the book is that you need to be in inquiry in every moment at different levels to make the best choices and approach decisions with full awareness. This is a useful concept and it is illustrated throughout the book with many real-life business examples.

As a former director in a large company, I can say that these are practical ideas that if applied could be very transformational to an organization. The challenge is to really impliment them and not just pay lip service to the concepts. This must begin with the leaders. If they don't buy into the model, it will be difficult to get other people onboard, but not impossible. The book is about each individual being a change agent through action-inquiry.

What I didn't like about the book is that I found there were too many examples to illustrate the same basic concepts, there was also quite a bit of repetition of concepts and an unnecessary use of jargon where plain everyday language would have done just fine.

I think this book could have been half the length and been just as effective. I also think the author could have presented his ideas more clearly and concisely. In places, he uses different language for the various levels of inquiry and this tends to make the flow more confusing than it has to be. In the next revision, it would be good to see some of these issues addressed.

However, I still recommend this book to business and other leaders. In fact, it is useful for anyone who wants to live with more awareness and choice through tuning into various levels of inquiry in the midst of action. Basically, we are talking about taking a systems approach to life where we have practices that give us access to better quality feedback. This is the essence of the book.

"Action inquiry" is the process of transformational learning .......2005-08-05

Action Inquiry offers a fresh approach to helping individuals and organizations learn in the midst of the cut and thrust of daily action. Bill Torbert and Associates detail a highly accessible process for transforming power into action. Through real-life examples, they illustrate how action inquiry increases personal integrity, relational mutuality, company profitability, and long-term organizational and environmental sustainability.

The Art and Science of Transformational Leadership.......2004-08-02

Does everyone in your organization do the best they can, as they see it, yet the organization still fails to achieve its desired results? Action Inquiry shows why this often happens and how to convert this seeming paradox into a transformational change, taking everyone and the organization to the next level of performance.

Whether we look at the level of the individual, project, organization, network, or society, we each follow a path of development over time. For example, I think about the world in a different way today than I did when I was 10, 20 or 30. Likewise, my organization sees the world different after 10 years of success than we did as a startup. Based on over forty years of observation in the field, Bill Torbert and his associates find that we often get stuck in early levels of understanding of the world, even as we grow older. While it's obvious that it is appropriate to act like a teenager when you are 16 and not when you are 30, when we apply this same developmental logic to organizational life, the authors find that most organizations get stuck in early levels of development (like the teenager) that were appropriate in the first years and not in later years.

To show us what can be done about this and its implications, the authors provide many examples of how the action inquiry approach helped these individuals and organizations grow to the next level, taking on a broader understanding of the reality that faced them, which led to greater value being created for all.

We can see that the evidence is mounting: those leaders who understand and work with an action inquiry approach to leadership and development create significantly more value for their organizations in the short term for the long term, sustainably. Based on rigorous theory and scientific evidence, this is the art and science of transformational leadership for leaders who can handle the truth.

The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Second printing with new preface and appendix (Harvard Economic Studies)

Average customer rating:

A Genuine Classic that Urgently Demands New Attention
The Logic of Collective Action
Insightful book
Somewhat dated, but still worth reading
Logically indeed

The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Second printing with new preface and appendix (Harvard Economic Studies)
Mancur Olson
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
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Binding: Paperback

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Congress: The Electoral Connection, Second Edition

ASIN: 0674537513

Book Description

This book develops an original theory of group and organizational behavior that cuts across disciplinary lines and illustrates the theory with empirical and historical studies of particular organizations. Applying economic analysis to the subjects of the political scientist, sociologist, and economist, Mr. Olson examines the extent to which the individuals that share a common interest find it in their individual interest to bear the costs of the organizational effort.

The theory shows that most organizations produce what the economist calls "public goods"--goods or services that are available to every member, whether or not he has borne any of the costs of providing them. Economists have long understood that defense, law and order were public goods that could not be marketed to individuals, and that taxation was necessary. They have not, however, taken account of the fact that private as well as governmental organizations produce public goods.

The services the labor union provides for the worker it represents, or the benefits a lobby obtains for the group it represents, are public goods: they automatically go to every individual in the group, whether or not he helped bear the costs. It follows that, just as governments require compulsory taxation, many large private organizations require special (and sometimes coercive) devices to obtain the resources they need.

This is not true of smaller organizations for, as this book shows, small and large organizations support themselves in entirely different ways. The theory indicates that, though small groups can act to further their interest much more easily than large ones, they will tend to devote too few resources to the satisfaction of their common interests, and that there is a surprising tendency for the "lesser" members of the small group to exploit the "greater" members by making them bear a disproportionate share of the burden of any group action.

All of the theory in the book is in Chapter 1; the remaining chapters contain empirical and historical evidence of the theory's relevance to labor unions, pressure groups, corporations, and Marxian class action.

Customer Reviews:

A Genuine Classic that Urgently Demands New Attention.......2007-08-07

I initially read Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action over 30 years ago, and have found it to be a seminal work of economic scholarship that resonates over the decades. This masterpiece is in urgent need of new attention, especially as America confronts its role in a post September 11 society.

Olson's theory is deceptively simple: goods that are primarily public (everything from a town park to a cruise missile) suffer from a "free rider" problem, in that most of those who would benefit from their provision are not personally motivated to pay for them. Thus, collective action, undertaken through the political sphere, is needed to provide goods and services intended for the collective welfare.

"The Logic of Collective Action" is based on economic theory. Olson's theory recognizes that competitive markets are the best source of private goods, but draws an articulate and compelling case for the intervention of government to provide those goods and services that are beneficial for society, but which cannot be offered effectively through market mechanisms.

A re-reading of this concise and well-written volume is urgently needed in 2007 America. For close to three decades, the downsizing of government has been the dominant theme in U.S. political life. Some of this trimming may well have been appropriate, but events of recent years (September 11, the Katrina hurricane, the possibility of adverse climate change) suggest that collective action is needed to address the most pressing problems of our time.

Olson's gem of a book is a worthwhile place to start our national reconsideration of the logic of collective action.

The Logic of Collective Action.......2007-01-10

This is a fine new edition of a seminal work in modern economics and political theory. Olson, in this work, introduced the concept of collective action problems: that the costs imposed on individuals for actions beneficial to a group may be too great, and the rewards to them too small, to induce them to act on behalf of the group. The book is highly readable and extremely thought-provoking.

Insightful book.......2006-08-29

Although refuting Marx is hardly a challenge, the argument against Marx here deviates from the norm with a refreshing new perspective.

Just as psychology has gotten, of all places, its most practical insight from the FBI via John Douglas and Michael Stone, and just as physics gets its most fruitful insights from mathematics, politics appears to get its most fruitful insights from economics. That is the corollary of this book.

There is tacit reference to Arrow's theorem in this book. However, more significant is the insight about collective bargaining one gains here. In the area of labor law, understanding collective thinking can help predict outcomes and therefore aid legal judgment.

Somewhat dated, but still worth reading.......2004-10-10

This book does a good job of describing the effects of financial incentives on the ability of large and small groups to organize to promote their interests. But it doesn't try to analyze the effects of non-financial incentives such as the desire for a reputation for altruism.
One of the most striking features of this book is the worldview that it criticizes. Apparently when the book was written, it was respectable to believe that special interest group politics improved democracy. This book seems to have been one of the original reasons for the shift of opinions away from that view. But from today's perspective, Olson seems a bit naive in his optimism that large governments and labor unions will serve the public interest in spite of the problems that the book describes of small interest groups with concentrated interests being more effective at lobbying than large groups with diluted interests.
His clear reasoning on his main points is still not as widely understood as it should be. But the other two books of his that I've read are better (The Rise and Decline of Nations, and Power and Prosperity).

Logically indeed.......2004-04-06

In this influential work, Mancur Olson is dismissing the 'classical' group theories, as he calls them. Rational individuals will rarely contribute to a common (or collective in the economics-lingo) good, because their contribution will be insignificant and the good will be produced whether the individual provides the good or not. With his stringent logic, the late Olson reminds his readers that groups of all kinds consist of individuals, and that these individuals usually follow there own interest, which not necessarily correspond with the organization's.

The book's explanatory powers are tremendous. Why large groups very rarely if ever are able to organize, and at the same time why some small groups exercise extraordinary amounts of power is Olsons main point of interest. In the very interesting last chapter he describes which features an organization, be it a farmer union, a labor union, a profession lobby or a special interest group, must inhibit to attain members.

The best trait of the book (at least for this reviewing economist) is the persuasive logic with which the arguments are hammered home, and the instructive examples that are used to illustrate the point just made. One little objection should be Olson's (human) tendency to arrogance when he is most pleased with his own conclusions. However: still an excellent read, 40 years after it's first printing.

Knowledge for Action
Average customer rating:

Another attempt for racionality behind human behavior

The one book to read on ending office politices

Knowledge for Action
Chris Argyris
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1555425194

Book Description

Must reading for academics and executives alike. Leading business scholar Chris Argyris helps readers understand why individuals and organizations are unable to learn from their action, then presents the steps that must be taken to change.

Customer Reviews:

Another attempt for racionality behind human behavior.......2000-12-11

I must confess I do not have psychological background. From my humble point of view, all books like this, look at "the good and rational background" of people. They have the premise that all the staff is doing their best but "strange forces" makes them not to get the optimum for the organization. So, the goal is overcoming those refraining forces. I do believe that behavior of people is headed for their own rational interest which is not always the best for the company. In adition, we are looking for rationality in behavior which is only part of the truth. Is not envy, jealousy, narrow-minded, stuborness and so on, part of human being behavior?. without them, we only have part of the great picture and so, remedies will not work properly. Apart from that, the book is well organized and explains clearly the models the author is working with and the methodology used. Premises are strong and goals interested which lead to good results (provided human being were not as they are).

The one book to read on ending office politices.......1997-07-01

Argyris cuts to the heart of why organizations go wrong with a combination of passion and precision. Several authors who have written about effective teams and organizations such as Peter Senge and Gerald (Jerry) Weinberg regard Argyris's work quite highly, and rightly so. While other authors talk about and round the problems and issues, Argyris creates models which show not just what people do, but how they think. Other books in the field of Organizational Design that I have looked at appear dry as dust next to Argris. Readers should be cautioned, however, that Argyris is a academic and researcher -- reading his books requires work, but work well worth the effort. - Cortlandt Wilson, Software Consultan

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Good Review Text on Rat-Choice Politics and Public Choice

Public Choice III
Dennis C. Mueller
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521894751

Book Description

This book represents a considerable revision and expansion of Public Choice II (1989). As in the previous editions, all of the major topics of public choice are covered. These include: why the state exists, voting rules, federalism, the theory of clubs, two-party and multiparty electoral systems, rent seeking, bureaucracy, interest groups, dictatorship, the size of government, voter participation, and political business cycles. Normative issues in public choice are also examined. The book is suitable for upper level courses in economics dealing with politics, and political science courses emphasizing rational actor models.

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Good Review Text on Rat-Choice Politics and Public Choice.......2003-05-22

This is a great book! As a political-science graduate student I've been exposed to a great deal of game-theory and rat-choice in my seminar classes, but, unfortunately, it has come in the form of numerous papers, piles of books, and several classes that did not build off of one another. I was left with the feeling that it was a very, very important subject, but it was presented in a manner that left me, as a student, with an incomplete picture of the topic and the breadth of work that has gone on in this field.

Mueller's achievements in this volume have been three:

1. Coherent presentation of the theory of public choice / rational politics.

2. Discussion of the most important empirical work that has gone on in this field in a unified fashion that leads one naturally into further inquiry in this area.

3. Logically organizes and presents the material in a way that reinforces concepts, logic, and thinking in the book.

These three things make this book a great review or introductory text to the field of public choice / rational politics that should be on the "must have" list of every serious student of politics and economics. Moreover, not being terribly skilled at mathematics myself, the material is presented both through intuitive written discussions, fairly simplistic "example" equations that are pretty easy to follow if you've had a "principles" microecon course with calculus, and, which I greatly appreciate, a fair amount of graphs. Moreover, the bibliography that the book draws on is very, very extensive...meaning that it has the additional utility of being a handy jumping off point if you're doing research in this area.

My only complaint, and this is a minor one, is that I would like a bit more math in the book either at the end of each chapter or in an appendix that works out, step-by-step, some of the additional concepts he runs over that aren't dealt with mathematically in the main text of the chapters themselves.

This, at least in my opinion, is an excellent book for the graduate student interested in learning about public choice / rational politics.

Leading in a Culture of Change Personal Action Guide and Workbook
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Leading in a Culture of Change Personal Action Guide and Workbook
Michael Fullan
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0787969699

Book Description

Leading in a Culture of Change: Personal Action Guide and Workbook is an essential companion to Michael Fullan's bestselling book, Leading in a Culture of Change. This practical guide is designed to help leaders in all sectors (corporate, education, public, and nonprofit) manage and drive productive change within their organizations.

The workbook is filled with illustrative case examples, exercises, and resources that you can use with individuals or groups. It will help you (and any change agent) integrate the five core competencies—attending to a broader moral purpose, keeping on top of the change process, cultivating relationships, sharing knowledge, and setting a vision and context for creating coherence in organizations—and empower you to deal with the issues of complex change.

Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory (Classics in Organization and Management Series)
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A founding blocks of contingency approaches in organizational studies and human resource management

Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory (Classics in Organization and Management Series)
James Thompson
Manufacturer: Transaction Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0765809915

Customer Reviews:

A founding blocks of contingency approaches in organizational studies and human resource management.......2007-06-13

1967 saw the publication of three books that are now considered founding blocks of contingency approaches in organizational studies and human resource management. Theory of Leadership Effectiveness by Fred Fiedler, Organization and Environment: Managing Differentiation and Integration by Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch, and "Organizations in Action" by James D. Thompson. Fiedler created a model of leadership for industrial and organizational psychology while Lawrence, Lorsch, and Thompson studied organizational structure.

Thompson's book aims at providing what he calls a "conceptual inventory": a framework for tying together a multitude of concepts by various authors. The book reads like a serialized decision tree - a hundred propositions presented in the order of their dependencies, fleshed out by explanations and some examples of the concepts involved.

Thompson's approach is based on two fundamental ideas: 1) The nature of uncertainty in the environment is a determining factor of organizational structure. 2) Simple models cannot work for complex organizations, but for their respective components.

Uncertainty in the environment - variables the organization can neither control nor predict - is a key to understanding organizational structure, according to Thompson. An organization is built around a technical core; in order to achieve high performance, the organization shields the core from uncertainty by setting up separate components that serve as an interface to the outside world. Such a division of responsibility allows an organization to structure their technical core from a closed-system perspective and hence with a rational model. Uncertainty is taken care of, and the technical core component can be designed for maximum performance. The components at the managerial level are also tasked with controlling the technical core. Components at the third, the institutional level cover aspects of the environment that go beyond a straight-forward provision of resources and sales channels - here, uncertainty is high and means of control are few and weak.

In part two of the book, Thompson takes a stab at the human factor. He sketches out some goals of employees: individuals in early-ceiling occupations, for instance, use collective bargaining to improve the standing of their occupation while individuals in late-ceiling occupations try to improve their standing among their peers. Exercising discretion appears as a key problem to Thompson; while acknowledging that "some individuals are more tolerant of risk and ambiguity than others", he goes on with the assumption "that individuals exercise discretion whenever they believe it is to their advantage to do so and seek to evade discretion on other occasions." Individuals make entirely rational choices to present their work in the best light possible (pp. 123, 124), but they are not opportunistic; Thompson briefly discusses what he terms "deviant discretion" and presents it as a relatively minor problem, at least "in societies which possess the appropriate supporting institutions" (p. 122).

In this second part, Thompson appears to be out of his depth. He is not a psychologist - the concepts and models of part two look crude compared to the framework in part one. And while mechanistic models of organizations are commonplace, the reader may be less forgiving when simple models are applied to humans.

It is safe to assume that Frederick W. Taylor was aware that resources don't simply materialize in the factory as needed. Max Weber presented bureaucracy as an answer to an environment where rational-legal authority was on the rise. And both intended to tailor organizations to given problems, guided by their respective principles. From this perspective, Thompson does not stray far from the idea that there should be "one best way" - he offers a formalized, fairly deterministic way for finding the structure that can cope with a given environment, including its uncertainties. In fact, Thompson performs a sleight of hand in plain view of the reader: the highest uncertainty is relegated to a barely defined institutional level - but for that level, precious little insight is offered beyond the common measuring of success in satisficing terms.

What really differentiates Thompson from Weber and Taylor with regards to uncertainty is the assessment of organizations: goals may be unclear or conflicting, and cause/effect relations may be unknown - these are hard problems that bureaucracies and scientific management are ill-equipped to deal with.

Books are not very flexible as a medium. The process of creating and distributing new editions is expensive, and the readership may not even be appreciative, particularly if a book is popular enough to warrant further editions or even regarded as a "classic" (reference books are an obvious exception). And so this reader stumbled over several oddities and omissions: Thompson didn't foresee the rise of Just-In-Time production (pp. 20-23). Within his model, increasing interdependence results in increased power and dependence - an explanation of how this constitutes an "important escape from the 'zero-sum' concept of power" seems lacking (pp. 30-32). And he fails to mention that in many scenarios, coalescence is less constraining than co-optation - joint ventures are separate entities while members of the board of directors affect the main organization (pp. 35, 36). It is worth pointing out that this last problem becomes only obvious when looking at the specific examples given by Thompson.

Thompson's legacy is a more differentiated look at the complexity of organizational structure. If theories evolved, it might have been a decent starting point for a more comprehensive framework of organizational studies. In some disciplines, however, theories tend to be more closely associated with authors than with research subjects. They rarely evolve. They are superseded.

Managing by Values: How to Put Your Values into Action for Extraordinary Results

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Aligning Rewards
Beyond Power to Stakeholder-Centered Missions and Values

Managing by Values: How to Put Your Values into Action for Extraordinary Results
Ken Blanchard , and Michael O'Connor
Manufacturer: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1576752747

Book Description

The Fortune 500 list, defined by size and volume, is the current measure of success in the corporate world. This timely book suggests instead a "Fortunate 500" list, based on the quality of service available to customers and the quality of life accessible to employees. Managing by Values shows how all stakeholders in a company can win based on their commitment to a common purpose and a set of shared values emphasizing stability, continuity, and growth, all in an ethical context. More than a "must read," this book is a "must do" that shows organizations, owners, managers, and employees how to create and apply a plan to ensure they survive - and thrive.

Customer Reviews:

Aligning Rewards.......2007-05-18

One takeaway keyword from Blanchard & O'Connor's book for me is "alignment". The authors provide an excellent illustration of transformational leadership. Take note that this leadership style is not conducive and/or effective for all. For example, the book highlight many examples related to the use of rewards and incentives. They are more than "just posters on the wall" or "overkill" attempts to reward people for a job they are supposed to do. I heartily disagree.

Incentives and motivation need to be aligned with the culture of the company. In some instances, "job well done" or "annual teaching award" certificates may not be appropriate and use financial incentives instead, like annual bonuses. I'm sure many of us have received at least one of these in the past. A "wall of fame" or annual bonuses may do very well in a sales-driven corporate setting....if that is the culture of the workplace. I believe in awarding employees for a job well done, in form of: whether monetary, PTO, promotions, certificates, awards, visible accolades.....whatever is fitting for the workplace culture I am in. They're symbols of extraordinary results similar to....hmm...hanging a framed, doctoral degree on the wall.

I think Blanchard & O'Connor have provided an excellent example of leadership in action.

Beyond Power to Stakeholder-Centered Missions and Values.......2004-09-25

If you like Ken Blanchard's other books (like The One Minute Manager with Spencer Johnson), this could turn out to be your favorite Blanchard book of all time. This book looks more fundamentally at how people get their business and personal lives out of whack than the other Blanchard books. That usually means putting the pursuit of prosperity ahead of health, happiness, and peaceful relations with others. The book is built on this premise: "It's values that align people, that get them all committed to working for the common good."

On the other hand, if you dislike Blanchard's general approach to business and book-writing, enough said. This one will affect you the same way, and you should skip it.

Most people who think about leadership imagine exercising great power by using moral persuasion and commands to shift an organization into a better direction. Actually, that's harder than turning a supertanker around, and often less useful.

In my experience, and in the views of this book, it works better to find a purpose for the organization that is equally valuable and meaningful to everyone involved (those who work there, customers, suppliers, shareholders, distributors, partners, and the communities you serve). That purpose doesn't come from the CEO, but rather it emerges from conversations with all of the interested parties.

Then, by using that central purpose, and the values to support it, everyone can decide what the right thing to do is in any situation with a minimum of leadership and management from elsewhere. Johnson & Johnson is probably a good example of a company that runs this way. When someone tampered with some Tylenol capsules, the company quickly recalled all Tylenol products as a reflection of its value of providing only helpful, healthful products.

Unlike Ken Blanchard's other books, this one has a lot of process-oriented information about how to go from how you lead today to a mission and value-centered process. I found that very helpful, and the process suggestions seemed sound to me. I have not actually seen a company use the exact process here, but it seems reasonable compared to the examples I have seen in other companies.

As you probably guessed, the book is built around a fable that involves someone (CEO Tom Yeoman of RimCo) having an epiphany that leads to a desire to change his life and improve his company. The epiphany follows his best friend refusing to help start a new business with him, saying, "The trouble with you, Tom, is that you're in a rat race. Remember, even if you win the race, you're still a rat."

Tom meets a change agent (a consultant who specializes in Managing by Values) and several clients of the change agent who share their experiences.

The book goes on to describe how Tom's company implements that advice.

You'll also recognize the familiar summaries, diagrams and short quotes ("The most important thing in life is to decide what's most important.") to emphasize what you have just learned.

This book is also a good reference tool, because it has a lot of detail about how to implement the process.

The main drawback to the reader is that you probably cannot implement this process very well by yourself. You will probably want to hire one of the firms that the coauthors work for if you like the process. Normally, I complain bitterly about this in other business books. I am making an exception here, because my experience has clearly been that an outsider can be essential to establishing personally-meaningful missions, values by consensus, and creating the adjustments needed to live by those values.

The actual content in the book is probably five times greater than in a typical Ken Blanchard book, so you'll definitely get your money's worth.

Live long and prosper by your values!

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