Productive Workplaces Dignity, Meaning, and Community in the 21st Century

by Weisbord, Marvin R.

• ISBN13: 9780470900178
• ISBN10: 0470900172
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-01-11
• Publisher: Pfeiffer

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Marvin Weisbord is co-director of Future Search Network, an international non-profit service organization. He also is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Organizational Dynamics Graduate Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, resource faculty in the Organization and Systems Renewal Program at Seattle University, and a fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Science. During 50 years as a manager, consultant, researcher and teacher he has worked with businesses, NGO's, medical schools and hospitals. He was for more than 20 years a partner in the consulting firm Block Petrella Weisbord and a member of NTL Institute and the European Institute for Transnational Studies. He is the author of Productive Workplaces, 3rd Edition (2012), Discovering Common Ground (1992), Organizational Diagnosis (1978), and co-author with Sandra Janoff of Future Search, 3rd Edition (2010) and Don't Just Do Something, Stand There! (2007). He has a Lifetime Achievement award from the OD Network which voted Productive Workplaces one of the most influential books of the past 40 years.

Table of Contents

Updates from the Field xxi Foreword by Billie Alban: The Existential Question	p. xxiii
Preface:Welcome to Productive Workplaces, 25th Anniversary Edition	p. xxvii
Introduction: Getting the Most from Productive Workplaces	p. xxxiii
Mythology and Managing	p. 1
A Mythology of Organizational Change	p. 3
How I Learned to Manage by Managing	p. 15
Searching for Productive Workplaces	p. 33
Scientific Management: A Tale of Two Taylors	p. 35
Taylor Invents a New Profession	p. 59
Action Research: Lewin Revises Taylorism	p. 79
Lewin's Legacy to Management	p. 97
The Transition to Experiential Learning	p. 113
McGregor and the Roots of Organization Development	p. 133
Theories X and Y for a New Generation	p. 149
Emery and Trist Redefine the Workplace	p. 167
Learning to Work in a New Paradigm	p. 185
Learning from Experience	p. 203
Putting Action Research to Work	p. 207
Rethinking Diagnosis and Action	p. 221
Food Services Turnover: Action Research and Human Resource Accounting	p. 223
Chem Corp R&D: Managers Do Their Own Feedback	p. 230
Packaging Plant: Operators Meet Expert Analysis	p. 235
Solcorp: Expertise Can't Fix the Old Paradigm	p. 244
Managing and Consulting in Permanent White Water	p. 253
Involving Everyone to Improve the Whole	p. 269
Medical School: Stakeholders Plan the Future	p. 270
Printing Inc.: Getting the Report Out of the Drawer	p. 277
Revising Theories of What Works	p. 289
Making Systems Thinking Experiential	p. 303
Integrating the Past into the Present	p. 317
21st Century Managing and Consulting	p. 321
Changing Everything at Once	p. 343
Teamwork in a Fast-Changing World	p. 375
Designing Work for Learning and Self-Control	p. 387
Future Search: The Whole System in the Room	p. 411
Cross-Cultural Future Searching	p. 427
Learning Then and Now	p. 443
Ten Cases Decades Later: What's Sustainable About "Change"?	p. 445
Changing the World One Meeting at a Time	p. 459
The Future Never Comes, It's Already Here	p. 471
References	p. 483
Acknowledgments	p. 501
About the Author	p. 505
Index	p. 507
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