Book Description

Organisations private and public operate in an increasingly uncertain landscape, in which they are confronted with challenges they might not be ready to face. They desperately need the engaged minds of their workforces. The evidence, however, suggests that for the most part they don't have that. There is an urgent need to address the high cost of low trust and employee disengagement. Revealing a new approach centred on redefining what we mean by 'management' and 'business', and that it is a collective form of learning that binds them together and facilitates sustained high performance, Donal Carroll examines high performing organisations to uncover how they have built trust, managed value, adopted new types of business model and successfully engaged in collective learning. The new management model is about retaining control by giving it away, more accountable self-management, a new professionalism, and about framing organisation as the basic unit of purpose rather than management itself. Next, new business models are examined more suited to complex, internet-enabled markets that allow greater choice, but which need organizational alertness to what works. Thirdly, learning is considered, with a focus on moving from organisational learning to productive interference sustaining action-based learning that thrives on 'mess' in an open, trusting, democratic climate. The author provides tools and techniques enabling organisations to measure creativity and innovation and to undertake self-assessment of their position in relation to the new management, business and learning models, as well as guidance on energising change initiatives, self-leading and accountability. Practicing managers, change leaders, coaches and consultants, as well as business scholars and researchers, will find much that is useful in this book.