Skilled Incompetence


Book Description




The Peter Principle


Book Description

The classic #1 New York Times bestseller that answers the age-old question Why is incompetence so maddeningly rampant and so vexingly triumphant? The Peter Principle, the eponymous law Dr. Laurence J. Peter coined, explains that everyone in a hierarchy—from the office intern to the CEO, from the low-level civil servant to a nation’s president—will inevitably rise to his or her level of incompetence. Dr. Peter explains why incompetence is at the root of everything we endeavor to do—why schools bestow ignorance, why governments condone anarchy, why courts dispense injustice, why prosperity causes unhappiness, and why utopian plans never generate utopias. With the wit of Mark Twain, the psychological acuity of Sigmund Freud, and the theoretical impact of Isaac Newton, Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull’s The Peter Principle brilliantly explains how incompetence and its accompanying symptoms, syndromes, and remedies define the world and the work we do in it.




Managing the Unknowable


Book Description

It's What You Don't Know That Counts Discover the important roles chance and uncertainty play insuccessful strategic planning. In this ingenious work, author RalphD. Stacey shows managers how their companies can benefit from theunexpected developments that impact their business and how they canprepare to creatively leverage the opportunities such developmentspresent. He explains how an appreciation of conflict and teamdialogue can help managers discover and build on the innate energyof their organizations. And he illustrates his theories withreal-world examples from Sony, Kodak, Federal Express and othernoted market innovators.




Guiding Teams to Excellence With Equity


Book Description

Guide your school through its cultural proficiency transformation Despite the best efforts of equity leaders, our schools suffer from persistent inequities. Guiding the Journey to Excellence with Equity is a must-read for anyone who supports professional learning in our schools. It defines a process of “inside-out” growth that helps develop culturally proficient educators with the facilitation skills needed to navigate the obstacles that arise during equity transformations. Written with an equity lens, this book: Includes a powerful vignette that illustrates common challenges and solutions Focuses on mental models for managing group energy Is grounded in a systems model for personal and organizational transformation Provides tools for planning culturally proficient learning experiences




VET Boost: Towards a Theory of Professional Competencies


Book Description

The themes of the different papers in this book are related to five major areas of research. First, the book presents the work on a large-scale assessment in vocational and occupational education and training. Reason was the work of Frank Achtenhagen and his colleagues on the preparation of a VET-PISA which started in 2004 which has now become more and more a concrete program. The contributions to this part of the book contain a project description and profound presentations and discussions of measurement and evaluation problems. It reflects also the work of Achtenhagen with respect to item response theory, measurement and testing. The second part of this book presents a unique endeavour of promoting VET research: The Swiss Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology (OPET) initiated a program of Leading Houses of VET which are dedicated to different important research topics. This program might serve as example for comparable approaches in other countries. The third part highlights central issues of research on learning processes, curriculum theory and the use of technology. Here the work of Achtenhagen on competence-profile modelling, competence measurement and instructional and curriculum designing is touched. The fourth part stresses social and emotional learning as important aspects of VET learning. The fifth part considers the political and institutional dimensions of VET research which have to be taken into account when an international large-scale assessment of VET shall be getting started. Achtenhagen’s work on learning at work, leaning in economics and learning under the conditions of institutional modelling are discussed. The whole book is a collection of central issues around a field that is not yet taken enough into consideration in educational research, but pushed and supported by Frank Achtenhagen: VET research. He belongs to the founding fathers of it, and this is why precisely the book reflects new trends and new concepts with respect to the question “What can we, educational psychologists and educational researchers, learn from a rich and central research field.”




Reasons and Rationalizations


Book Description

What is the purpose of social science and management research? Do scholars/researchers have a responsibility to generate insights and knowledge that are of practical (implementable) value and validity? We are told we live in turbulent and changing times, should this not provide an important opportunity for management researchers to provide understanding and guidance? Yet there is widespread concern about the efficacy of much research: These are some of the puzzles/pressing problems that Chris Argyris addresses in this short book. Argyris is one of the best known management scholars in the world - a leading light whose work has consistently addressed fundamental organizational questions, and who has provided some of the key concepts and building blocks of our understanding of organizational learning - single and double learning, theory in use, and espoused theory etc. In this book he questions many of the assumptions of organizational theory and research, and his investigation is not confined to academic analysis. He also scrutinizes that capacity for 'unproductive reasoning' (self-deception and rationalization) that is common amongst managers, consultants, and indeed more generally. As well as engaging with the work of leading organizational researchers (Sennett, Gabriel, Burgelman, Czarniawska, Grint, for example)he also ponders the work of the consultants, commentators, and accountants who endorsed Enron. Throughout his purpose is to affirm the goal and values of useful knowledge. His style/enquiry is direct but fair, challenging, if at times uncompromising. Drawing on his own wealth of experience of researching and working with organizations, this book will be a reference point for all concerned to develop useful knowledge and confront the defences and deceptions that are only too commonplace in the business and academic worlds.




Communicating for Managerial Effectiveness


Book Description

Do you think you communicate strategically? For students and managers who want to manage and communicate more effectively, Phil Clampitt′s book is essential reading. Communicating for Managerial Effectiveness enables managers and students to clearly view their communication abilities and organizational dilemmas and challenges. The first two chapters explain the complex process of communication. The third chapter examines the impact of corporate culture on the communication climate. The next six chapters analyze critical communication challenges most managers face. These chapters discuss how to: -Manage information -Select appropriate communication channels -Develop an effective performance feedback system -Communicate about organizational changes -Foster interdepartmental communication -Create an innovative spirit The final chapter focuses on ethics and building trust through communication practices. Real world cases and examples used throughout the book are drawn from Clampitt′s extensive organizational consulting experience and from the worlds of politics, history, science, and art.




Agency and Change


Book Description

This excellent book remaps the limits and possibilities of change, clearly shifting the focus from outmoded debates on agency and structure to new practice-based discourses on agency and change. Offering readers a selective and critical review of key literature and empirical research, it will help students contextualize this complex subject area and independently evaluate future prospects for effective change agent roles in organizations Presenting an interdisciplinary exploration of competing discourses, the book uses two overarching conceptual continua: centred agency-decentred agency and systems-processes, thereby allowing a more intensive focus on agency and change. Well-written with challenging content, this book is essential reading for those interested in the origins, development and future prospects for change agency in an organizational world characterized by increasing complexity, risk and uncertainty.




Demystifying Organizational Learning


Book Description

This book presents a solid, research-based conceptual framework that demystifies organizational learning and bridges the gap between theory and practice. Using an integrative approach, authors Raanan Lipshitz, Victor Friedman and Micha Popper provide practitioners and researchers with tools for understanding organizational learning under real-world conditions.




Integrating the Individual and the Organization


Book Description

The emphasis on organizational change in the corporate life of recent years-including job redesign, autonomous groups, high performance work systems, and the redesign of control systems-owes a great deal to the pioneering work of Chris Argyris. This book examines how individuals in organizations can become more effective, in turn making organizations more effective. It explores the conventional pyramidal structure of organizations, in which there is top-down control by managers over workers, and examines their negative consequences. These include organizational injustice and eventually irrational decision-making. Argyris also discusses the characteristic learning system of the modern organization, which he describes as "single-loop" in character. This system, he argues, is only adequeate enough to permit the organization to implement existing policies. It does not permit the more difficult and comprehensive task of questioning underlying goals and assumptions, which he terms "doubt loop" learning. In this kind of learning, the organization is able to confront the more difficult problems that affect organizations in a time of transition. In his new introduction, Argyris reviews the strengths and limitations of the argument advanced in "Integrating the Individual and the Organization. "He describes why the pyramidal structure endures, and why creating a self-learning organization is an even more challenging task than he has imagined. The book will be of interest to professionals with a long-standing interest in organizational development as well as those just entering the field, managers confronting the challenge of organization change, and researchers in organizational behavior and theory.