Book picks similar to
The Social Psychology of Organizing by Karl E. Weick
business
psychology
management
organizations
Classics of Organization Theory (with InfoTrac)
Jay M. Shafritz - 1978
Designed for those new to the field, the text helps students grasp the important themes, perspectives, and theories of the field by describing what organization theory is, how it has developed, and how its development has coincided with developments in other fields. This text is not simply a retelling of the history of organization theory, its evolution is told through the words of the distinguished theorists themselves.
Organizational Culture and Leadership
Edgar H. Schein - 1985
Organizational pioneer Schein updates his influential understanding of culture--what it is, how it is created, how it evolves, and how it can be changed. Focusing on today's business realities, Schein draws on a wide range of contemporary research to redefine culture, offers new information on the topic of occupational cultures, and demonstrates the crucial role leaders play in successfully applying the principles of culture to achieve organizational goals. He also tackles the complex question of how an existing culture can be changed--one of the toughest challenges of leadership. The result is a vital resource for understanding and practicing organizational effectiveness.
Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership
Lee G. Bolman - 1990
Their four frames view organizations as factories, families, jungles, and theaters or temples:The Structural Frame how to organize and structure groups and teams to get resultsThe Human Resource Frame how to tailor organizations to satisfy human needs, improve human resource management, and build positive interpersonal and group dynamicsThe Political Frame: how to cope with power and conflict, build coalitions, hone political skills, and deal with internal and external politicsThe Symbolic Frame how to shape a culture that gives purpose and meaning to work, stage organizational drama for internal and external audiences, and build team spirit through ritual, ceremony, and story
Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock Potential in Yourself and Your Organization
Robert Kegan - 2009
Desire and motivation aren't enough: even when it's literally a matter of life or death, the ability to change remains maddeningly elusive.Given that the status quo is so potent, how can we change ourselves and our organizations?In Immunity to Change, authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey show how our individual beliefs--along with the collective mind-sets in our organizations--combine to create a natural but powerful immunity to change. By revealing how this mechanism holds us back, Kegan and Lahey give us the keys to unlock our potential and finally move forward. And by pinpointing and uprooting our own immunities to change, we can bring our organizations forward with us.This persuasive and practical book, filled with hands-on diagnostics and compelling case studies, delivers the tools you need to overcome the forces of inertia and transform your life and your work.
Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change
William Bridges - 2003
When restructures, mergers, bankruptcies, and layoffs hit the workplace, employees and managers naturally find the resulting situational shifts to be challenging. But the psychological transitions that accompany them are even more stressful. Organizational transitions affect people; it is always people, rather than a company, who have to embrace a new situation and carry out the corresponding change. As veteran business consultant William Bridges explains, transition is successful when employees have a purpose, a plan, and a part to play. This indispensable guide is now updated to reflect the challenges of today's ever-changing, always-on, and globally connected workplaces. Directed at managers on all rungs of the corporate ladder, this expanded edition of the classic bestseller provides practical, step-by-step strategies for minimizing disruptions and navigating uncertain times.
Images of Organization
Gareth Morgan - 1986
Morgan shows managers how to break free of management fads by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of management metaphors and applying them to organizational life.
Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us
Claude M. Steele - 2010
Steele’s conclusions shed new light on a host of American social phenomena, from the racial and gender gaps in standardized test scores to the belief in the superior athletic prowess of black men. Steele explicates the dilemmas that arise in every American’s life around issues of identity, from the white student whose grades drop steadily in his African American Studies class to the female engineering students deciding whether or not to attend predominantly male professional conferences. Whistling Vivaldi offers insight into how we form our senses of identity and ultimately lays out a plan for mitigating the negative effects of “stereotype threat” and reshaping American identities.
Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: The Essential Guide for Progressives
George Lakoff - 2004
He outlines in detail the traditional American values that progressives hold, but are often unable to articulate. Lakoff also breaks down the ways in which conservatives have framed the issues, and provides examples of how progressives can reframe them. Lakoff’s years of research and work with leading activists and policy makers have been distilled into this essential guide, which shows progressives how to think in terms of values instead of programs, and why people support policies which align with their values and identities, but which often run counter to their best interests. Don't Think of an Elephant! is the definitive handbook for understanding and communicating effectively about key issues in the 2004 election, and beyond. Read it, take action—and help take America back.
The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management
Jerry B. Harvey - 1988
Join Dr. Jerry B. Harvey as he clearly illustrates why no organization wants to find themselves goin' to Abilene. See how group dynamics can keep individuals from stating their true beliefs for fear of isolation and separation, and how that often leads to mismanaged agreement. You'll learn to recognize the warning signs of risky group dynamics and improve decision-making processes throughout your organization.
Leadership: Theory and Practice
Peter G. Northouse - 1997
Heartened by the positive response to previous editions of Leadership: Theory and Practice, this Fourth Edition is written with the same objective to bridge the gap between the often simplistic popular approaches to leadership and the more abstract theoretical approaches.
The Craft of Research
Wayne C. Booth - 1995
Seasoned researchers and educators Gregory G. Colomb and Joseph M. Williams present an updated third edition of their classic handbook, whose first and second editions were written in collaboration with the late Wayne C. Booth. The Craft of Research explains how to build an argument that motivates readers to accept a claim; how to anticipate the reservations of readers and to respond to them appropriately; and how to create introductions and conclusions that answer that most demanding question, “So what?” The third edition includes an expanded discussion of the essential early stages of a research task: planning and drafting a paper. The authors have revised and fully updated their section on electronic research, emphasizing the need to distinguish between trustworthy sources (such as those found in libraries) and less reliable sources found with a quick Web search. A chapter on warrants has also been thoroughly reviewed to make this difficult subject easier for researchers Throughout, the authors have preserved the amiable tone, the reliable voice, and the sense of directness that have made this book indispensable for anyone undertaking a research project.
The Heart of Change Field Guide: Tools And Tactics for Leading Change in Your Organization
Dan S. Cohen - 2005
Kotter's Leading Change became a runaway best seller, outlining an eight-step program for organizational change that was embraced by executives around the world. Then, Kotter and co-author Dan Cohen's The Heart of Change introduced the revolutionary "see-feel-change" approach, which helped executives understand the crucial role of emotion in successful change efforts. Now, The Heart of Change Field Guide provides leaders and managers tools, frameworks, and advice for bringing these breakthrough change methods to life within their own organizations. Written by Dan Cohen and with a foreword by John P. Kotter, the guide provides a practical framework for implementing each step in the change process, as well as a new three-phase approach to execution: creating a climate for change, engaging and enabling the whole organization, and implementing and sustaining change. Hands-on diagnostics—including a crucial "change readiness module"—reveal the dynamics that will help or hinder success at each phase of the change process. Both flexible and scaleable, the frameworks presented in this guide can be tailored for any size or type of change initiative. Filled with practical tools, checklists, and expert commentary, this must-have guide translates the most powerful approaches available for creating successful change into concrete, actionable steps for you and your organization. Dan Cohen is the co-author, with John P. Kotter, of The Heart of Change, and a principal with Deloitte Consulting, LLC.
Trying Hard Is Not Good Enough
Mark Friedman - 2005
It has been used in over 40 states and seven countries outside the U.S. He provides practical methods for taking action together that are simple and common sense, that use plain language, produce minimum paper and are actually useful to managers, community members and decision-makers. The book's Results Accountability framework can be used to improve the quality of life in communities, cities, counties, states and nations, including everything from the well-being of children to the creation of a sustainable environment. It can help government and private sector agencies improve the performance of their programs and make them more customer-friendly and effective. Results Accountability is a common sense approach that replaces all the complicated jargon-laden methods foisted on us in the past. The methods can be learned and applied quickly, and all the materials are free for use by government and non-profit organizations and for-profit organizations of five persons or less. In addition to presenting practical methods, this book is also makes a contribution to social theory. The book makes a clear distinction between population and performance accountability. While public and private organizations bear responsibility for their own performance, no organization can claim ownership of the well-being of a whole population. Population accountability is not an extension of performance accountability but a separate, and perpetually unfinished, collective enterprise. The book clearly and completely explains the differences and connections betweenthese two forms of accountability. The Results Accountability progression of thought from results to experience, measures, baselines, story, partners, what works and action can be applied to any population challenge from the highest level consideration of world peace to the economic prosperity of nations and states to the safety of children in a particular community. The same thought progression can be applied to any performance accountability challenge from the management of whole governments to large public and private sector agencies to the smallest program and finally to our personal lives. Results accountability may be the only planning framework of this scope.
Obedience to Authority
Stanley Milgram - 1974
Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the man dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, through defiance or submission, to the commands of others. Obedience, as a determinant of behavior is of particular relevance to our time. It has been reliably established that from 1933 to 1945 millions of innocent people were systematically slaughtered on command. Gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded, daily quotas of corpses were produced with the same efficiency as the manufacture of appliances. These inhumane policies may have originated in the mind of a single person, but they could only have been carried out on a massive scale if a very large number of people obeyed orders.Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority. Facts of recent history and observation in daily life suggest that for many people obedience may be a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed, a prepotent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct. C. P. Snow (1961) points to its importance when he writes:When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. If you doubt that, read William Sbirer's 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.' The German Officer Corps were brought up in the most rigorous code of obedience . . . in the name of obedience they were party to, andassisted in, the most wicked large scale actions in the history of the world. (p. 24)The Nazi extermination of European Jews is the most extremeinstance of abhorrent immoral acts carried out by thousands ofpeople in the name of obedience. Yet in lesser degree this type ofthing is constantly recurring: ordinary citizens are ordered todestroy other people, and they do so because they consider ittheir duty to obey orders. Thus, obedience to authority, longpraised as a virtue, takes on a new aspect when it serves amalevolent cause; far from appearing as a virtue, it is transformedinto a heinous sin. Or is it?The moral question of whether one should obey when commands conflict with conscience was argued by Plato, dramatized in "Antigone," and treated to philosophic analysis in every historical epoch Conservative philosophers argue that the very fabric of society is threatened by disobedience, and even when the act prescribed by an authority is an evil one, it is better to carry out the act than to wrench at the structure of authority. Hobbes stated further that an act so executed is in no sense the responsibility of the person who carries it out but only of the authority that orders it. But humanists argue for the primacy of individual conscience in such matters, insisting that the moral judgments of the individual must override authority when the two are in conflict.The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but an empirically grounded scientist eventually comes to the point where he wishes to move from abstract discourse to the careful observation of concrete instances. In order to take a close look at the act of obeying, I set up a simple experimentat Yale University. Eventually, the experiment was to involve more than a thousand participants and would be repeated at several universities, but at the beginning, the conception was simple. A person comes to a psychological laboratory and is told to carry out a series of acts that come increasingly into conflict with conscience. The main question is how far the participant will comply with the experimenter's instructions before refusing to carry out the actions required of him.But the reader needs to know a little more detail about the experiment. Two people come to a psychology laboratory to take part in a study of memory and learning. One of them is designated as a "teacher" and the other a "learner." The experimenter explains that the study is concerned with the effects of punishment on learning. The learner is conducted into a room, seated in a chair, his arms strapped to prevent excessive movement, and an electrode attached to his wrist. He is told that he is to learn a list of word pairs; whenever he makes an error, be will receive electric shocks of increasing intensity.The real focus of the experiment is the teacher. After watching the learner being strapped into place, he is taken into the main experimental room and seated before an impressive shock generator. Its main feature is a horizontal line of thirty switches, ranging from 15 volts to 450 volts, in 15-volt increments. There are also verbal designations which range from Slight SHOCK to Danger--Severe SHOCK. The teacher is told that he is to administer the learning test to the man in the other room. When the learner responds correctly, the teacher moves on to the next item; when the other man gives an incorrectanswer, the teacher is to give him an electric shock. He is to start at the lowest shock level ( 15 volts) and to increase the level each time the man makes an error, going through 30 volts, 45 volts, and so on.The "teacher" is a genuinely naive subject who has come to the laboratory to participate in an experiment. The learner, or victim, is an actor who actually receives no shock at all. The point of the experiment is to see how far a person will proceed in a concrete and measurable situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim.
The Principles of Scientific Management
Frederick Winslow Taylor - 1911
But American engineer FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR (1856-1915) broke new ground with this 1919 essay, in which he applied the rigors of scientific observation to such labor as shoveling and bricklayer in order to streamline their work... and bring a sense of logic and practicality to the management of that work. This highly influential book, must-reading for anyone seeking to understand modern management practices, puts lie to such misconceptions that making industrial processes more efficient increases unemployment and that shorter workdays decrease productivity. And it laid the foundations for the discipline of management to be studied, taught, and applied with methodical precision.