Productive Workplaces

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.

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

The Author

Marvin R. Weisbord is an internationally-known consultant, writer, and teacher. He co-founded the Future Search Network to involve volunteers worldwide in building collaborative planning networks in every sector of society. He is the author of classic titles—Organizational Diagnosis and Discovering Common Ground—and co-author (with Sandra Janoff) of Future Search and Don't Just Do Something, Stand There! He has been a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, a visiting research scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, an elected fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Science, and a resource faculty member in Seattle University's Organization Systems Renewal Master's program.

PRODUCTIVE WORKPLACES

It's been twenty-five years since the publication of Marvin Weisbord's classic book Productive Workplaces. This third edition of the bestselling text revises that thoughtful, well-written, well-researched, somewhat provocative, one-of-a-kind inquiry into the integration of economics, technology and people. Weisbord shows how "experts solving problems" evolved toward "getting everybody improving whole systems," and why the latter strategy is the only one likely to satisfy you in a diverse world of non-stop change.

From his work in corporations and medical schools, Weisbord demonstrates how novel practices grounded in scientific management, participative management, and sociotechnical systems—all based on shared values of ration- al cooperation—became obsolete over time. He traces today's practices back more than 100 years, using his experiences as manager and consultant to illuminate what works and what doesn't. Reviewing the influence on workplaces of Frederick Taylor, Kurt Lewin, Douglas McGregor, Eric Trist, and Fred Emery, the author encourages you to explore their evolving change theories in concert with your own values.

Against the mindless repetition of shopworn techniques, Weisbord juxtaposes effective methods for getting everybody improving the whole. He goes further, advocating work on self—e.g., awareness of your own assumptions about human nature—as the bedrock for change strategies that trump "shorter, faster, cheaper." His themes, illustrative case studies, and useful models come across as relevant today as they were a quarter of a century ago.

This third edition includes many new features—a robust Instructor's Manual, a revisioning of organization development myths, a critical appreciation of new large group methods, case study follow-ups across 15 to 30 years, and 40 personal essays by practitioners influenced by earlier editions. Their writings show how the themes and values they share with Weisbord influence current practices around the world.