The Intelligent Organization: Engaging the Talent and Initiative of Everyone in the Workplace

Though bureaucracy appears on almost every "biggest problems with business" list, most management books simply suggest ways to make it work better. This book show how to replace bureaucracy with fundamentally different principles for organizing and coordinating work. The authors confront head-on the key organizational issues that are threatening the very existence of today's organizations. They assert that "bureaucracy is no more appropriate to the information age than serfdom was to the industrial era. Only freedom and community will work". They "intelligent organizations" that make full use of the intelligence of all employees. By developing and engaging the intelligence, business judgement, and wide-system responsibility of all its members, an organization can respond far more effectively to customers, partners and competitors. The authors provide a far-reaching guide to establishing internal free markets; liberated teams; community in the workplace; equality and diversity; democratic self rule; multiple sources of authority; and limited corporate government. Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot support the sweeping changes they propose with numerous examples of how these changes are already being implemented in such diverse organizations as At&T, the Canadian National Railroad, DuPont, Russian entrepreneurial firms, Hewlett-Packard and the US Forest Service.