Strategy 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 Contents:
Updates 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