Flawed Advice and the Management Trap

Flawed Advice and the Management Trap

Author: Chris Argyris

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2000-01-13

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 0199923736

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Flawed Advice and the Management Trap: How Managers Can Know When They're Getting Good Advice and When They're Not is the first book to show how and why so much of today's business advice is flawed, and how managers and executives can better evaluate advice given to their firms Practitioners and scholars agree that businesses in the coming millennium will be managed differently than firms of the 20th century. And getting there from here, according to today's best advice, will require creative change. In this pioneering work, Argyris, one of the world's leading organizational thinkers, reviews a wide array of business advice from the best and brightest thinkers and consultants and concludes that as appealing as their ideas may be, most of them are simply not workable. They are too full of abstract claims, logical gaps, and inconsistencies, to be useful. And ironically, even when their recommendations are implemented correctly, the result is often failure. Why do these gaps in logic exist, and how can they be more effectively discovered? Applying a disciplined critique to numerous representative examples of advice about leadership, learning, change, and employee commitment, Argyris shows readers how to be more critical of the advice they are given, how to learn new approaches for appraising employee performance, and how to generate an internal commitment to values and better strategy. In our ever expanding global market, innovative business advice is at a premium, and giving this advice has become a lucrative industry in and of itself. This book provides the critical lens necessary to evaluate which advice is best for your organization.


Flawed Advice and the Management Trap

Flawed Advice and the Management Trap

Author: Chris Argyris

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2000-01-13

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 0198030452

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Flawed Advice and the Management Trap: How Managers Can Know When They're Getting Good Advice and When They're Not is the first book to show how and why so much of today's business advice is flawed, and how managers and executives can better evaluate advice given to their firms Practitioners and scholars agree that businesses in the coming millennium will be managed differently than firms of the 20th century. And getting there from here, according to today's best advice, will require creative change. In this pioneering work, Argyris, one of the world's leading organizational thinkers, reviews a wide array of business advice from the best and brightest thinkers and consultants and concludes that as appealing as their ideas may be, most of them are simply not workable. They are too full of abstract claims, logical gaps, and inconsistencies, to be useful. And ironically, even when their recommendations are implemented correctly, the result is often failure. Why do these gaps in logic exist, and how can they be more effectively discovered? Applying a disciplined critique to numerous representative examples of advice about leadership, learning, change, and employee commitment, Argyris shows readers how to be more critical of the advice they are given, how to learn new approaches for appraising employee performance, and how to generate an internal commitment to values and better strategy. In our ever expanding global market, innovative business advice is at a premium, and giving this advice has become a lucrative industry in and of itself. This book provides the critical lens necessary to evaluate which advice is best for your organization.


Organizational Traps

Organizational Traps

Author: Chris Argyris

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-04-29

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0191615129

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Anyone who has spent time in an organization knows that dysfunctional behavior abounds. Conflict is frequently avoided or pushed underground rather than dealt with openly. At the same time, the same arguments often burst out again and again, almost verbatim. Turf battles continue for extended periods without resolution. People nod their heads in agreement in meetings, and then rush out of the room to voice complaints to sympathetic ears in private. Worst of all, when people are asked if things will ever change, they throw up their hands in despair. They feel like victims trapped in an asylum. And people often are trapped. But they are not trapped by some oppressive regime or organizational structure that has been imposed on them. They are not victims. In fact, people themselves are responsible for making the status quo so resistant to change. We are trapped by our own behavior. Researchers and practitioners have often reflected on these things, but there is a puzzle. On the one hand, there is substantial agreement that these traps are counterproductive to effective performance. On the other hand, there is almost no focus on how organizational traps can be prevented or reduced. This book argues that whatever theory is used to describe and understand such organizational traps should be used to design and implement interventions that reduce and prevent them. Argyris is one of the world's leading management scholars whose work has consistently shed light on orgainzational problems. This book is essential reading for MBAs, managers, and consultants.


Overcoming Organizational Defenses

Overcoming Organizational Defenses

Author: Chris Argyris

Publisher: Pearson

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13:

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Organizational defences that exist in most organizations can inhibit organizational performance. This book shows how to diagnose the organization to expose the weaknesses. Each chapter contains advice about how to reduce organizational defences to bring about improved involvement and performance.


Theory in Practice

Theory in Practice

Author: Chris Argyris

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 1992-04-16

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1555424465

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"This book is a landmark in two fields. It is a practical guide tothe reform of professional education. It is also a beacon totheoretical thinking about human organizations, about theirinterdepAndence with the social structure of the professions, andabout theory in practice." -- Journal of Higher Education


Exploring the Professional Identity of Management Consultants

Exploring the Professional Identity of Management Consultants

Author: Anthony F. Buono

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2013-03-01

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 1623961734

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The volume is based on the presentations and discussions from the Fifth European Conference on Management Consulting sponsored by the Management Consulting Division of the Academy of Management, which took place June, 2011 at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The conference theme – Exploring the Professional Identity of Management Consultants – attempted to capture the highly ambiguous social status of this young and emerging profession. Management consulting does not have professional standards or accreditation criteria like those found in medicine or law, there are low barriers to entry, and a broad range of tasks are undertaken in the name of consulting. As a result, a crucial aspect of what constitutes such a loosely defined profession is the identity of its members. The professional identity of management consultants is continuously developing through the interplay of how consultants are seen and valued by clients as well as in the larger society, and how consultancy firms and consultants identify and position themselves. This theme includes a variety of topics, ranging from the interaction between consultants and their clients, consultant rhetoric and self-presentation, and the plethora of books, media and public discourse on consulting, to human resource policies and practices, knowledge development activities of consultancy firms, career and life stories of consultants and consultancies, and consulting associations, accreditation bodies, and education programs. All of these factors contribute, either directly or indirectly, to identity construction in the field of management consulting.


Managing Services

Managing Services

Author: Kathryn Haynes

Publisher: Academic

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 019969608X

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The book is a collection of perspectives on service and service management written by leading researchers in the field. It considers the range and importance of services, the challenges of managing services and recent contemporary innovations in services and service management.


Fifty Key Figures in Management

Fifty Key Figures in Management

Author: Morgen Witzel

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 1134201141

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Fifty Key Figures in Management is a collection of biographies of fifty people who have helped to make management what it is today - through their ideas, writings and teachings, through practical example and leadership, or both. Featuring business leaders such as Henry Ford, Jack Welch and Bill Gates, all of whom were pioneers in business pratice, the book also includes thinkers and consultants who have helped to redefine the way we think about management, such as Ohmae Kenichi, Fukuzawa Yukichi, Tom Peters and Charles Handy. Moreover, new and emerging aspects of management are covered through the inclusion of such cutting-edge thinkers as Arie de Geus, Max Boisot and Nonaka Ikujiro. Taken together, the fifty biographies presented here described how management emerged as a modern discipline and grew into its present form. Organization, strategy, marketing, production management, human resource management and knowledge management all come together to show how management is a multi-faceted discipline.


Evidence-based School Leadership and Management

Evidence-based School Leadership and Management

Author: Gary Jones

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2018-09-17

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 1526453010

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There is a vast amount of research on what goes on in schools, but how can school leaders sort credible findings from dubious claims and use these to make informed decisions that benefit their schools? How can abstract ideas from research be translated into dynamic plans for action? This book is a practical guide to evidence-based school leadership demonstrating the benefits that can be gained from engaging with robust educational research and offering clear guidance on applying meaningful lessons to practice. Topics include: · What is evidence-based school leadership and why does it matter? · How to collect data from your own school and how to analyse this evidence in order to inform strategic leadership decisions · Models for implementing school improvement and change · Leadership skills for fostering a culture of evidence-based practice This is essential reading for senior and middle leaders in educational organisations who aspire to lead effective schools with high levels of staff well-being and enhanced outcomes for the learners they teach.