Calling a Halt to Mindless Change: A Plea for Commonsense Management

by John MacDonald

Book Overview

John Macdonald gives a refreshing dose of restraint and reason in today's fad- and fear-driven business environment. Macdonald makes the strong, rational, and long-awaited argument that common sense... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814470262
• ISBN13: 9780814470268
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: American Management Association International
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Re-infuse common sense into your management practices

The business world abounds with guru's spouting a message of revolutionary change. Business people are commanded to take immediate and drastic action or they will be left behind and their businesses will fail. It is true that things are changing, says the author, but change is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Instead of pursuing the latest management fads, companies need to return to the fundamentals of commonsense management. The author provides the following advice for companies seeking to get back to basics and handle change intelligently: · Common sense, not fads, leads to success. Too many executives lose touch with the world outside their corporate offices; their markets, customers and employees. Alert, effective corporate managers should be able to anticipate changes without making drastic changes to their companies. · Business is simple, don't complicate it. There are three key processes for every company: Customer focus, Company strategy and Delivery. Too many managers divert their attention from these core processes and focus instead on complicating issues, like manipulating pubic opinion or monitoring legal liability. · Learn to adapt, not adopt, new ideas. Instead of instituting wholesale change within the organization in order to conform to a new idea, examine the idea to see how it applies to the organization. Adopt only ideas that are appropriate for your organization and adapt them to meet your specific needs. · Become an evolutionary organization by focusing on the essentials of business, the customer and the processes that serve the customer. Get to know your customers well enough that you are able to understand and meet their wants and needs. Focus on the processes in your company that enable you to meet customer needs.

Evolution, not Revolution

A wonderfully thought provoking work by a man with much experience and knowledge. Mr. MacDonald maintains that so-called revolutionary changes are the result of mis-management in the first place, and many "management gurus" are ill informed, self serving, and dangerous. He laces his book with examples of both evolutionary companies and "revolutionary" firms, outlining their successes and failures. Three simple but profound ideas form the center of this book; adapt instead of adopt, evolution not revolution, and responsibility. If you are feeling like you are behind the curve because you have not studied or adopted the latest management fad, pause, take a deep breath, and read this book.

Sends an important message in these change obsessive times.

This work argues that thoughtfulness must be used in decision making, limiting change to what will improve operations. It gives examples of companies that have been successful by focusing on vision, customers, employees, communications, and ethics. Sends an important message in these change-obsessive times.