Description
Book SynopsisStrategy and Business 2012 Organizational Culture Book of the Year
This third edition of the classic resource, Productive Workplaces is smart, well-written and well-researched, thoughtful, somewhat provocative, and a one-of-a-kind review of the integration of economics, technology, and people. It covers such topics as: the work on self as integral to organizational change; the revision of Lewinian concepts for a new era; and the history behind getting everybody improving whole systems as a response to fast change and increasing diversity (not the same as using any particular method). The themes, case studies (many revisited), and models are as relevant as ever.
Table of ContentsUpdates from the Field xxi
Foreword by Billie Alban: The Existential Question xxiii
Preface: Welcome to Productive Workplaces, 25th Anniversary Edition xxvii
Introduction: Getting the Most from Productive Workplaces xxxiii
Part One Mythology and Managing 1
One A Mythology of Organizational Change 3
Two How I Learned to Manage by Managing 15
Part Two Searching for Productive Workplaces 33
Three Scientific Management: A Tale of Two Taylors 35
Four Taylor Invents a New Profession 59
Five Action Research: Lewin Revises Taylorism 79
Six Lewin’s Legacy to Management 97
Seven The Transition to Experiential Learning 113
Eight McGregor and the Roots of Organization Development 133
Nine Theories X and Y for a New Generation 149
Ten Emery and Trist Redefine the Workplace 167
Eleven Learning to Work in a New Paradigm 185
Part Three Learning from Experience 203
Twelve Putting Action Research to Work 207
Thirteen Rethinking Diagnosis and Action 221
Case 1. Food Services Turnover: Action Research and Human Resource Accounting 223
Case 2. Chem Corp R&D: Managers Do Their Own Feedback 230
Case 3. Packaging Plant: Operators Meet Expert Analysis 235
Case 4. Solcorp: Expertise Can’t Fix the Old Paradigm 244
Fourteen Managing and Consulting in Permanent White Water 253
Fifteen Involving Everyone to Improve the Whole 269
Case 5. Medical School: Stakeholders Plan the Future 270
Case 6. Printing Inc.: Getting the Report Out of the Drawer 277
Sixteen Revising Theories of What Works 289
Seventeen Making Systems Thinking Experiential 303
Part Four Integrating the Past into the Present 317
Eighteen 21st Century Managing and Consulting 321
Nineteen Changing Everything at Once 343
Twenty Teamwork in a Fast-Changing World 375
Twenty One Designing Work for Learning and Self-Control 387
Twenty Two Future Search: The Whole System in the Room 411
Twenty Three Cross-Cultural Future Searching 427
Part Five Learning Then and Now 443
Twenty Four: Ten Cases Decades Later: What’s Sustainable About “Change”? 445
Twenty Five: Changing the World One Meeting at a Time 459
Twenty Six: The Future Never Comes, It’s Already Here 471
References 483
Acknowledgments 501
About the Author 505
Index 507
