How Organizations Work: Taking a Holistic Approach to Enterprise Health

By Alan P. Brache

Book Overview

A groundbreaking approach to successful performance improvement Almost every executive in business today is faced with the challenge of improving performance, from incremental improvements to wholesale organizational change. Here, a world-renowned expert in organizational improvement asserts that most hard-won changes don't last for long, however, because of the inability to identify the root causes of the problem. How Organizations Work offers a clear, integrated solution to performance improvement via a new "Enterprise Model"-which takes into account all variables that influence performance. Alan Brache provides a comprehensive "physical exam" for checking an organization's vital signs and a 360-degree picture of how organizational dynamics can be harnessed to effect permanent improvements in performance.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471200336
• ISBN13: 9780471200338
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Understanding Alignment Is The How

Strategy is the framework of choices that determine the nature and direction of an organization. Top management must take the time to develop strategy to position the organization in its external environment and focus decisions such as whom to hire, priority of product development projects, capabilities to build into business processes, the structure of the organization, as well as daily decisions.

Handy reference for managers and executives

Many executives can envision how their companies can reach higher goals, but they fail to implement their ideas. Why? It's not bad vision; it's bad execution. Accomplishing projects is challenging in companies of any size, so Alan Brache and Sam Bodley-Scott provide a blueprint for getting your initiatives implemented. They move through various strategies and tactics using charts, checklists and case histories. This somewhat dry manual is specifically for executives and managers who want to implement solutions for failing or failed corporate initiatives, and who seek good advice. getAbstract endorses it as a handy reference for managers and executives who have grand visions, but need good execution to achieve them.

A STRAIGHT-FORWARD BOOK ABOUT STRENGTHENING ORGANIZATION.

Using a model of an enterprise, this book is a guide for exploring key aspects of organization, revealing how they are interrelated, and assessing them. The work focuses on: the external environment; leadership; strategy; business processes; goals and measurement; human capabilities; knowledge management; organizational structure; and culture. There are self-assessment questions throughout the book and numerous guidelines for diagnosing and designing a healthy organizational. Illustrations are used to flesh-out the diagnostic process. The work is a how-to guide; it is well organized, comprehensive, and highly useful. As a management consultant in organization analysis and design, as well as editor of Stern's Management Review, I seldom have encountered a book on this subject that is as straight-forward in its delivery of value as this work. Highly recommended.

Finally, a book true to the words of the jacket...

How many times have we been disappointed in the content of a book after having been impressed by the slick words on the jacket? Well, prepare yourself! Sometimes things really are the way they are stated. No illusions. And this is just such the case with Alan Brache's new book "How Organizations Work." From his opening quotation of holistic unity from Chief Seattle on the jacket to his final inspiring words at the conclusion of the book, Brache ties all the elements of improving organization performance together in a scholarly, yet easy to read creation. His "Enterprise Model" for organizations, provides an impressive blueprint or x-ray for understanding the "complex network of interlocking factors" which contribute to How Organizations Work.Using a model analogous to human biology, Brache has provided a framework within which we might better understand our organizations and the various factors that influence performance.It is a great, easy read -- just in time for our serious summer reading list. Enjoy!

Alan Brache Does It Again

It is refreshing to run across a business book that goes beyond generalizations. In How Organizations Work, Alan Brache deconstructs the business organization to reveal all the elements of which it is made up. He then examines each, methodically, raising questions that really enable an executive to take stock and stock planning for improvement. I worked with Alan many years ago, and I'm pleased to say that he is as lucid and logical as ever--and remains just as witty. His writing is crisp and to the point, and the real-life case studies that he intersperses ensure that the reader is never bored. Alan has done a fine job with a subject that, in other hands, could have been not only dull but also purely theoreti-cal. Instead, this is a book you can read once to get the big picture, then go back to again and again for practical day-to-day advice. Dale Corey, Business Writer & Researcher