Productive Workplaces

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.

• Updates from the Field xxiForeword by Billie Alban: The Existential Question xxiiiPreface: Welcome to Productive Workplaces, 25th Anniversary Edition xxviiIntroduction: Getting the Most from Productive Workplaces xxxiiiPart One Mythology and Managing 1One A Mythology of Organizational Change 3Two How I Learned to Manage by Managing 15Part Two Searching for Productive Workplaces 33Three Scientific Management: A Tale of Two Taylors 35Four Taylor Invents a New Profession 59Five Action Research: Lewin Revises Taylorism 79Six Lewin’s Legacy to Management 97Seven The Transition to Experiential Learning 113Eight McGregor and the Roots of Organization Development 133Nine Theories X and Y for a New Generation 149Ten Emery and Trist Redefine the Workplace 167Eleven Learning to Work in a New Paradigm 185Part Three Learning from Experience 203Twelve Putting Action Research to Work 207Thirteen Rethinking Diagnosis and Action 221Case 1. Food Services Turnover: Action Research and Human Resource Accounting 223Case 2. Chem Corp R&D: Managers Do Their Own Feedback 230Case 3. Packaging Plant: Operators Meet Expert Analysis 235Case 4. Solcorp: Expertise Can’t Fix the Old Paradigm 244Fourteen Managing and Consulting in Permanent White Water 253Fifteen Involving Everyone to Improve the Whole 269Case 5. Medical School: Stakeholders Plan the Future 270Case 6. Printing Inc.: Getting the Report Out of the Drawer 277Sixteen Revising Theories of What Works 289Seventeen Making Systems Thinking Experiential 303Part Four Integrating the Past into the Present 317Eighteen 21st Century Managing and Consulting 321Nineteen Changing Everything at Once 343Twenty Teamwork in a Fast-Changing World 375Twenty One Designing Work for Learning and Self-Control 387Twenty Two Future Search: The Whole System in the Room 411Twenty Three Cross-Cultural Future Searching 427Part Five Learning Then and Now 443Twenty Four: Ten Cases Decades Later: What’s Sustainable About “Change”? 445Twenty Five: Changing the World One Meeting at a Time 459Twenty Six: The Future Never Comes, It’s Already Here 471References 483Acknowledgments 501About the Author 505Index 507