This month, Greg and Steve share with you some books they hold near and dear to their hearts—personally, as well as professionally.
Words of Wisdom
This month, Greg and Steve share with you some books they hold near and dear to their hearts—personally, as well as professionally.
Steve Crandall says: Once
again, we’re taking a break from questions (but, please,
keep them coming, folks!) and going from a reactive into
a proactive mode. Greg and I chose this month to each
look at two books we think are significant and worth of
your attention. I’d like to discuss a couple of books
that are more organization-oriented.
Being binary, I’ve chosen books from opposite perspectives.
One does an excellent job of describing and interpreting
organizations as they are; the other prescribes what organizations
should or could be.
The first is an old favorite, now in its fifth edition:
The Ropes to Skip and the Ropes to Know: Studies in
Organizational Behavior, by R. Richard Ritti. I discovered
this book a few lifetimes ago in my short-lived MBA period.
I think I’d love this book just for its exquisite title,
but no other book I’ve found does such a good job of describing
why organizations are the way they are and why things
happen as they do. Yes, this is a textbook, but like no
other you’ve ever read. It’s an excellent guide to how
corporate life really functions. As an example, the introduction
offers a memo posted on “The Company” bulletin board:
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“The office of the president announced today that Ben
W. Franklyn has been named to the newly established office
of corporate director for Safety Programs. Mr. Franklyn
moves from his post as plant manager at Portsmouth. Replacing
Mr. Franklyn at Portsmouth will be Edward Wilson Shelby
IV. Shelby will hold the position of acting plant manager
with specific responsibility for the development of our
new Expandrium program. Ted Shelby has been staff assistant
to the president, responsible for financial control systems.”
Sounds pretty innocuous, rather mundane, right? Well,
to those adept at reading the tea leaves at The Company,
here’s what it really means: Ben Franklyn has been a loyal,
valued, longtime employee of the company, but his time
has passed. Notice that he wasn’t promoted—he was named
to this “newly established” position. In other words,
The Company found a nice, safe place for Ben to stay in
the remaining years until his retirement. Meanwhile, the
new Expandrium line is in trouble, so Ted Shelby, a bean
counter from the president’s office, has been dispatched
to shake things up. He’s acting plant manager so he can
do the dirty work, make some heads roll, and then get
out and let someone with real plant experience get things
going again.
The Ropes is full of little lessons like this.
Its chapters are all stories from the life of The Company,
with characters like Ted Shelby; Ben Franklyn; Kerry Drake
(the engineering manager); and Stanley, the up-and-coming
trainee. The book includes stories such as what happens
to Ted when he replaces his Level I Manager furniture
with a round table and chairs (to “facilitate communication”
); why Stanley is befuddled by the reaction to his first
important presentation; and why the mail boy and secretary
are Jimmie and Bonnie, but the president is Mr. Marsh.
This book is a fascinating look at the reasons why things
are as they are.
A caution: Read this book in small chunks. Taking it
all in at once can be somewhat depressing. Ritti isn’t
cynical as such; rather, his descriptions and explanations
of office politics and corporate behavior are so true,
you wonder how any productive work gets done.
From how things are to how things should be: The Fifth
Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization,
by Peter M. Senge. I’m not fond of books that promise,
“Just do this, this, and this, and your company will be
100 percent more productive, your employees will love
you, and you’ll get rich.” And there are a lot of them
out there. The Fifth Discipline, however, is a
favorite of mine because it avoids the “quick fix,” instead
describing some common organizational and individual problems
and pointing the way to possible solutions.
The premise is that organizations, as well as individuals,
must be learning entities, always open to new ways, always
searching for new structures and procedures. The fifth
discipline of the title is the concept of “systems thinking”—the
ability to put everything into a larger context and to
recognize that many problems are not the result of errors,
but of structure.
Senge highlights this by describing a business simulation
he uses with his clients, the “beer game,” which demonstrates
how—when each team in a system only sees its own point
of view—disasters can (and usually will) occur. Even if
you only get this far in the book, you’ll gain some valuable
insights into how mental models and shared vision can
affect actions, or as Senge puts it, “structure affects
behavior.” Every manager can get some benefit from this
book, if only to see the enormity of the task of changing
organizational behavior.
I haven’t the space here to do justice to these two works,
but I encourage each of you to find a copy and read them.
I’ll be interested to get your comments.
About the Author
Steve Crandall, MCSE, is a principal of ChangeOverTime, a technology consulting firm in Cleveland, Ohio, that specializes in small business and non-profit organizations. He's also assistant professor of Information Technology
at Myers College and a contributing writer for Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine.