Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, flexible working has become the norm for many workers. This volume examines flexible working using data from 30 European countries and drawing on studies conducted in Australia, the US and India
How do firms cope with changing environments? Is flexibility really the solution? How can we measure a firm's flexibility? Can a more flexible firm be created? Based on an Igor Ansoff Award-winning study and now available for the first time in paperback, Henk Volberda's Building the Flexible Firm shows how flexibility has become the new strategic challenge for contemporary firms. Although traditional organizational forms have worked well in the relatively stable environments of the past, the globalization of markets, rapid technological change, shortening product life cycles, and increasing aggressiveness of competitors have radically altered the ground rules for competing in the 1990s and beyond. Increased competition forces firms to move more quickly and boldly than before, and to experiment in ways that do not conform to traditional administrative theory. This book offers a wealth of insights into the way firms can increase their flexibility. It is based on extensive interviews with practitioners and supported by many longitudinal case studies on flexibility improvement within large corporations. The author provides a strategic framework which explains what types of flexibility are effective under different organizational conditions and environmental characteristics. He also demonstrates an integrated method for diagnosing a firm's flexibility and for guiding the transition to greater flexibility and responsiveness.
With “groundbreaking research on the psychology of resilience” (Adam Grant), a top expert on human trauma argues that we vastly overestimate how common PTSD is in and fail to recognize how resilient people really are. After 9/11, mental health professionals flocked to New York to handle what everyone assumed would be a flood of trauma cases. Oddly, the flood never came. In The End of Trauma, pioneering psychologist George A. Bonanno argues that we failed to predict the psychological response to 9/11 because most of what we understand about trauma is wrong. For starters, it’s not nearly as common as we think. In fact, people are overwhelmingly resilient to adversity. What we often interpret as PTSD are signs of a natural process of learning how to deal with a specific situation. We can cope far more effectively if we understand how this process works. Drawing on four decades of research, Bonanno explains what makes us resilient, why we sometimes aren’t, and how we can better handle traumatic stress. Hopeful and humane, The End of Trauma overturns everything we thought we knew about how people respond to hardship.
A compelling vision. Bold leadership. Decisive action. Unfortunately, these prerequisites of success are almost always the ingredients of failure, too. In fact, most managers seeking to maximize their chances for glory are often unwittingly setting themselves up for ruin. The sad truth is that most companies have left their futures almost entirely to chance, and don’t even realize it. The reason? Managers feel they must make choices with far-reaching consequences today, but must base those choices on assumptions about a future they cannot predict. It is this collision between commitment and uncertainty that creates THE STRATEGY PARADOX. This paradox sets up a ubiquitous but little-understood tradeoff. Because managers feel they must base their strategies on assumptions about an unknown future, the more ambitious of them hope their guesses will be right – or that they can somehow adapt to the turbulence that will arise. In fact, only a small number of lucky daredevils prosper, while many more unfortunate, but no less capable managers find themselves at the helms of sinking ships. Realizing this, even if only intuitively, most managers shy away from the bold commitments that success seems to demand, choosing instead timid, unremarkable strategies, sacrificing any chance at greatness for a better chance at mere survival. Michael E. Raynor, coauthor of the bestselling The Innovator's Solution, explains how leaders can break this tradeoff and achieve results historically reserved for the fortunate few even as they reduce the risks they must accept in the pursuit of success. In the cutthroat world of competitive strategy, this is as close as you can come to getting something for nothing. Drawing on leading-edge scholarship and extensive original research, Raynor’s revolutionary principle of Requisite Uncertainty yields a clutch of critical, counter-intuitive findings. Among them: -- The Board should not evaluate the CEO based on the company’s performance, but instead on the firm’s strategic risk profile -- The CEO should not drive results, but manage uncertainty -- Business unit leaders should not focus on execution, but on making strategic choices -- Line managers should not worry about strategic risk, but devote themselves to delivering on commitments With detailed case studies of success and failure at Sony, Microsoft, Vivendi Universal, Johnson & Johnson, AT&T and other major companies in industries from financial services to energy, Raynor presents a concrete framework for strategic action that allows companies to seize today’s opportunities while simultaneously preparing for tomorrow’s promise.
With current socio-economic development trends and changing work landscapes, modern workplaces are progressively becoming a subject of flexibilisation and hybridisation. Contemporary office environments are commonly adapting to the needs of the flexible labour markets by offering the non-territorial and rotation-based practice of allocating desks to workers on dynamic schedules. This book explores this growing trend by offering different perspectives on the benefits and challenges of the flexible workplace phenomena. Topics discussed range from defining and comparing flexible, coworking and corpoworking spaces, policies made in local environments, and the flexible working taxonomy.
In this title, Charles Handy offers profound observations about the world that lies ahead and helps us search for meaning in our personal and professional lives.
Many managers and organizations still assume that employees who devote long hours to their jobs with no family interference are “ideal workers”. However, this assumption has negative consequences for employees, their families and, more interestingly, for their organizations. This book provides a wealth of empirical evidence from around the globe, as well as innovative conceptual frameworks, to help practitioners and researchers alike to go beyond the classic notion of the “ideal worker” and to rethink what companies actually need from their employees. As it demonstrates, doing so will be beneficial for countless men and women, and for society at large.
Smart Flexibility: Moving Smart and Flexible Working from Theory to Practice is an engaging and practical management book to help organisations implement Smart Working, and take a business-focused approach to ’Flexible Working’. Written for managers at the leading edge of change, Andy Lake takes a strategic, comprehensive and integrated approach to Smart and Flexible Working. Taking an evidence-based approach, he sets out how to achieve measurable benefits across the Triple Bottom Line. Starting from the underlying principles and the compelling context for change, he takes a pragmatic approach to delivering change in each of the key areas of People (HR), Property and Technology. The book is designed to help professionals understand the vital connecting points across disciplines as well as innovations in their own fields. And there are separate chapters that look at the real impacts for sustainability, the impacts for ’Smart Government’, how to manage the ’Anywhere Anytime Team’ and how to take people on the journey towards a Smart Flexibility organisational culture. The book includes many insights based on the author’s experience and the latest research, many practical techniques for implementing change plus ten new case studies. Smart Flexibility is essential reading for anyone involved in workplace change and increasing the efficiency of organisations. It is aimed at managers who need to deliver change, and will be of great interest to consultants in the fields of workplace design, new technologies and HR/OD/Training.
The notion of paradox dates back to ancient philosophy, yet only recently have scholars started to explore this idea in organizational phenomena. Two decades ago, a handful of provocative theorists urged researchers to take seriously the study of paradox, and thereby deepen our understanding of plurality, tensions, and contradictions in organizational life. Studies of organizational paradox have grown exponentially over the past two decades, canvassing varied phenomena, methods, and levels of analysis. These studies have explored such tensions as today and tomorrow, global integration and local distinctions, collaboration and competition, self and others, mission and markets. Yet even with both the depth and breadth of interest in organizational paradoxes, key issues around definitions and application remain. This Handbook seeks to aid, engage, and fuel the expanding interest in organizational paradox. Contributions to this volume depict how paradox studies inform, and are informed, by other theoretical perspectives, while creating a resource that enables scholars to learn about and apply this lens across varied organizational phenomena. The increasing complexity, volatility, and ambiguity in our world continually surfaces paradoxical dynamics. Thus, this Handbook offers insights to scholars across organizational theory.
Leaders’ actions can have consequences opposite to those they intend. These unintentional results are difficult to detect, understand, and change. Consequently, leaders’ actions tend to persist resulting in further unexpected outcomes. This can create a vicious cycle of leadership failure. With all their best efforts, strategic, financial, scenario, human capital and operational plans in place, they fail. Unaware, they self-sabotage and sabotage others; again, the result is unintended consequences, no matter how hard they try. This book gives a glimpse into why and how this happens, and what to do about it. Understanding the Power of Paradox can empower leaders in uncertain times. Paradox reveals uncertainty giving leaders room to breathe and time to think, better able to deal with ambiguity and manage complexity, no longer stymied. Learning to think differently and behave with capabilities, you already have, more resilient, adaptive and flexible leaders execute conscious actions effectively, inspire and empower others, creating the consequences they intend, successful Protean Leaders.