Authors: Eliyahu M. Goldratt.
Paperback, 283 pages
Publisher: North River Press
Publication Date: 1994-10
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Cash is needed and Alex Rogo's companies are to be put on the block. Alex needs to complete the turnaround of his companies if they can be sold for the maximum return: if he fails they will be closed down. This text highlights the techniques needed to survive at home and at work....

Authors: John Whitmore.
Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
Publication Date: 2002-05-25
Edition: 3

Reviews :

    A new edition of the book that took the art of coaching to new heights. Since COACHING FOR PERFORMANCE was first published over a decade ago, John Whitmore has lead the way with this best-selling classic that has sold more than 200,000 copies worldwide. Translated into a dozen languages and considered a ‘must-read' by such international leaders as Coca-Cola, this is the definitive guide to mastering the skills needed to help people unlock their potential and maximize their performance....

Authors: Peter M. Senge. Art Kleiner. Charlotte Roberts. George Roth. Rick Ross. Bryan Smith.
Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books
Publication Date: 1999-03-16
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Since Peter Senge published his groundbreaking book The Fifth Discipline, he and his associates have frequently been asked by the business community: "How do we go beyond the first steps of corporate change? How do we sustain momentum?" They know that companies and organizations cannot thrive today without learning to adapt their attitudes and practices. But companies that establish change initiatives discover, after initial success, that even the most promising efforts to transform or revitalize organizations--despite interest, resources, and compelling business results--can fail to sustain themselves over time. That's because organizations have complex, well-developed immune systems, aimed at preserving the status quo.

Now, drawing upon new theories about leadership and the long-term success of change initiatives, and based upon twenty-five years
of experience building learning organizations, the authors of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook show how to accelerate success and avoid the obstacles that can stall momentum. The Dance of Change, written for managers and executives at every level of an organization, reveals how business leaders can work together to anticipate the challenges that profound change will ultimately force the organization to face. Then, in a down-to-earth and compellingly clear format, readers will learn how to build the personal and organizational capabilities needed to meet those challenges.

These challenges are not imposed from the outside; they are the product of assumptions and practices that people take for granted--an inherent, natural part of the processes of change. And they can stop innovation cold, unless managers at all levels learn to anticipate them and recognize the hidden rewards in each challenge, and the potential to spur further growth. Within the frequently encountered challenge of "Not Enough Time," for example--the lack of control over time available for innovation and learning initiatives--lies a valuable opportunity to reframe the way people organize their workplaces.

This book identifies universal challenges that organizations ultimately find themselves confronting, including the challenge of "Fear and Anxiety"; the need to diffuse learning across organizational boundaries; the ways in which assumptions built in to corporate measurement systems can handcuff learning initiatives; and the almost unavoidable misunderstandings between "true believers" and nonbelievers in a company.

Filled with individual and team exercises, in-depth accounts of sustaining learning initiatives by managers and leaders in the field, and well-tested practical advice, The Dance of Change provides an insider's perspective on implementing learning and change initiatives at such corporations as British Petroleum, Chrysler, Dupont, Ford, General Electric, Harley-Davidson, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi Electric, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shell Oil Company, Toyota, the United States Army, and Xerox. It offers crucial advice for line-level managers, executive leaders, internal networkers, educators, and others who are struggling to put change initiatives into practice....

    Since its release in 1990, Peter M. Senge's bestselling The Fifth Discipline has converted readers to its innovative business principles of the "learning organization," personal mastery, and systems thinking. Published nearly a decade later, Dance of Change provides a formidable response to businesspeople wondering how to make his programs stick. He outlines potential obstacles (such as initiating transformation, personal fear and anxiety, and measuring the unmeasurable) and proposes ways to turn these obstacles into sources of improvement. Senge--with considerable help from the team who worked on the follow-up development manual, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook--presents an insider's account of long-term maintenance efforts at General Electric, Harley-Davidson, the U.S. Army, and others who are learning organization, along with experience-based suggestions and exercises for individuals and teams. "We are seeking to understand how people nurture the reinforcing growth processes that naturally enable an organization to evolve and change," Senge explains, "and how they tend to the limiting processes that can impede or stop that growth." --Howard Rothman...

Authors: Eliyahu M. Goldratt.
Paperback, 246 pages
Publisher: North River Press
Publication Date: 1997-04


Reviews :

    Powerful yet simple techniques to solve project management's toughest problems. This book teaches companies to drastically cut project development times resulting in early completion within budget and without compromising quality or specifications....

Authors:
Paperback, 213 pages
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication Date: 1996-01-01
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    This book was sparked by the discussions attorney Joe Jaworski had with his father, special Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski, about the lack of moral and ethical standards at high levels. The author maintains that true leadership creates a domain in which people become ever more capable and "predictable miracles" can happen. ....

Authors: Peter M. Senge. C. Otto Scharmer. Joseph Jaworski. Betty Sue Flowers.
Hardcover, 289 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books
Publication Date: 2005-08-16


Reviews :

   

Presence is an intimate look at the development of a new theory about change and learning. In wide-ranging conversations held over a year and a half, organizational learning pioneers Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers explored the nature of transformational change—how it arises, and the fresh possibilities it offers a world dangerously out of balance. The book introduces the idea of “presence”—a concept borrowed from the natural world that the whole is entirely present in any of its parts—to the worlds of business, education, government, and leadership. Too often, the authors found, we remain stuck in old patterns of seeing and acting. By encouraging deeper levels of learning, we create an awareness of the larger whole, leading to actions that can help to shape its evolution and our future.
 
Drawing on the wisdom and experience of 150 scientists, social leaders, and entrepreneurs, including Brian Arthur, Rupert Sheldrake, Buckminster Fuller, Lao Tzu, and Carl Jung, Presence is both revolutionary in its exploration and hopeful in its message. This astonishing and completely original work goes on to define the capabilities that underlie our ability to see, sense, and realize new possibilities—in ourselves, in our institutions and organizations, and in society itself.

...

    Presence can be read as a both a guide and a challenge to leaders in business, education, and government to transform their institutions into powerful agents of change in a world increasingly out of balance. Since business is the most powerful institution in the world today, the authors argue, it must play a key role in solving global societal problems. Yet so many institutions seem to run people rather than the other way around. In this illuminating book, the authors seek to understand why people don't change systems and institutions even when they pose a threat to society, and examine why institutional change is so difficult to attain.

The authors view large institutions such as global corporations as a new species that are affecting nearly all other life forms on the planet. Rather than look at these systems as merely the extension of a few hyper-powerful individuals, they see them as a dynamic organisms with the potential to learn, grow, and evolve--but only if people exert control over them and actively eliminate their destructive aspects. "But until that potential is activated," they write, "industrial age institutions will continue to expand blindly, unaware of their part in a larger whole or of the consequences of their growth." For global institutions to be recreated in positive ways, there must be individual and collective levels of awareness, followed by direct action. Raising this awareness is what Presence seeks to achieve. Drawing on the insights gleaned from interviews with over 150 leading scientists, social leaders, and entrepreneurs, the authors emphasize what they call the "courage to see freshly"--the ability to view familiar problems from a new perspective in order to better understand how parts and wholes are interrelated.

This is not a typical business book. Mainly theoretical, it does not offer specific tips that organizational managers or directors can apply immediately; rather, it offers powerful tools and ideas for changing the mindset of leaders and unlocking the latent potential to "develop awareness commensurate with our impact, wisdom in balance with our power." --Shawn Carkonen...

Authors: Gary Harpst.
Paperback, 296 pages
Publisher: Synergy Books
Publication Date: 2007-04-01


Reviews :

    Six Disciplines Corporation is dedicated to helping small businesses achieve and sustain success. Six Disciplines for Excellence provides six fundamental business principles that are specifically designed to help small businesses move beyond momentary success to attain enduring excellence. This book is not for those who are looking for a quick fix. Six Disciplines for Excellence is a long-term fitness program, not a fad diet....

Authors: Etienne Wenger. Richard McDermott. William M. Snyder.
Hardcover, 352 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication Date: 2002-03-15
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Today's marketplace is fueled by knowledge. Yet organizing systematically to leverage knowledge remains a challenge. Leading companies have discovered that technology is not enough, and that cultivating communities of practice is the keystone of an effective knowledge strategy.

Communities of practice come together around common interests and expertise- whether they consist of first-line managers or customer service representatives, neurosurgeons or software programmers, city managers or home-improvement amateurs. They create, share, and apply knowledge within and across the boundaries of teams, business units, and even entire companies-providing a concrete path toward creating a true knowledge organization.

In Cultivating Communities of Practice, Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder argue that while communities form naturally, organizations need to become more proactive and systematic about developing and integrating them into their strategy. This book provides practical models and methods for stewarding these communities to reach their full potential-without squelching the inner drive that makes them so valuable.

Through in-depth cases from firms such as DaimlerChrysler, McKinsey & Company, Shell, and the World Bank, the authors demonstrate how communities of practice can be leveraged to drive overall company strategy, generate new business opportunities, tie personal development to corporate goals, transfer best practices, and recruit and retain top talent. They define the unique features of these communities and outline principles for nurturing their essential elements. They provide guidelines to support communities of practice through their major stages of development, address the potential downsides of communities, and discuss the specific challenges of distributed communities. And they show how to recognize the value created by communities of practice and how to build a corporate knowledge strategy around them.

Essential reading for any leader in today's knowledge economy, this is the definitive guide to developing communities of practice for the benefit-and long-term success-of organizations and the individuals who work in them.

...

    From the time our ancestors lived in caves to that day in the late '80s when Chrysler sanctioned unofficial "tech clubs" to promote the flow of information between teams working on different vehicle platforms, bands of like-minded individuals had been gathering in a wide variety of settings to recount their experiences and share their expertise. Few paid much attention until a number of possible benefits to business were identified, but many are watching more closely now that definitive links have been established. In Cultivating Communities of Practice, consultants Etienne C. Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William Snyder take the concept to another level by describing how these groups might be purposely developed as a key driver of organizational performance in the knowledge age. Building on a 1998 book by Wenger that framed the theory for an academic audience, Cultivating Communities of Practice targets practitioners with pragmatic advice based on the accumulating track records of firms such as the World Bank, Shell Oil, and McKinsey & Company. Starting with a detailed explanation of what these groups really are and why they can prove so useful in managing knowledge within an organization, the authors discuss development from initial design through subsequent evolution. They also address the potential "dark side"--arrogance, cliquishness, rigidity, and fragmentation among participants, for example--as well as measurement issues and the challenges inherent in initiating these groups company-wide. --Howard Rothman ...

Authors: Irwin L. Goldstein. Kevin Ford.
Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
Publication Date: 2001-06-21
Edition: 4

Reviews :

    In this extensive revision of his best-selling text, Irwin Goldstein, a leader in the training field, teams up with Kevin Ford, well-known for his work in "the learning organization," to provide readers with a framework for examining and establishing viable training programs in education, business, and government. Capturing the excitement of training research and systems issues, the author discusses training as it occurs in real organizations. Part I focuses on societal training issues, how organizations conduct assessments to understand their training needs, and significant issues in learning and instruction. Part II focuses on the evaluation process, and Part III reviews training programs and procedures....

Authors: Robert Kreitner. Angelo Kinicki.
Hardcover, 808 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Publication Date: 2005-11-30
Edition: 7

Reviews :

    Organizational Behavior, Seventh Edition continues in its tradition of being up-to-date, relevant and user-driven. Kreitner and Kinicki’s approach to organizational behavior is based on the authors’ belief that reading a comprehensive textbook is hard work, but that the process should be interesting (and sometimes fun). Thus, they consistently attempt to find a way to make complex ideas understandable through explanations, contemporary examples, and/or learning exercises. With every edition, the authors make every effort to respond to user feedback and ensure the text covers the very latest OB research and practices. The seventh edition of Organizational Behavior again uses the familiar wolf image on its cover. This remains a central theme because Kreitner and Kinicki see wolves as an instructive and inspiring metaphor for modern Organizational Behavior. Wolves are dedicated team players, great communicators, and adaptable. These are key success attributes in today’s workplace. Organizational Behavior uses these fundamentals to explore and explain the forces behind conventional corporate behavior and organizational theory....