Productive Workplaces Revisited (2004)

Quotes from the INTRODUCTION...

"During a decade of teaching future search to people around the world, I heard a theme repeated time and again. How can anybody be sure the plans people make are actually carried out? How can we build in enduring, constructive norms and processes?

"I have pondered that question for many years. I doubt that anybody can ’Äúbuild in’Äù a technical insurance policy for ongoing success that trumps people’Äôs willingness to keep revisiting worthy goals and to stay connected with each other. The key leadership policy I advocate is involving those who do the work in planning the work. The best methods for doing that tend to be simple.

"Why then lust after high-performing work systems through increasingly complicated programs? As I pondered that question, I began wondering what had happened to the organizations whose case studies form the core of this book. For nearly 30 years I had been involved in strategic reorganizations intended to create and maintain productive workplaces.

"What happened afterwards? What could I learn about turbulence, transformation, stability, follow-up and continuity by seeking out clients I’Äôd known years back and tracing the lives of organizations I once had sought to make more productive? With 20/20 hindsight and 15 to 30 years of emotional distance could I discern patterns now that weren’Äôt apparent then? Productive Workplaces Revisited is the result. This work contains nearly all the text of the first edition plus 100 pages of new material."

Advice on Techniques...

’ÄúI believe that ’Äúgetting everybody improving whole systems’Äù remains a worthwhile and elusive purpose if you care about worthy workplaces. Embedded in this prescription are values of ongoing inquiry and widening inclusion. The hard part, in a world of infinite choices, is finding techniques equal to our values."