Managing at the speed of change

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Robert Kanigel

"In the past man has been first. In the future the System will be first," predicted Frederick Winslow Taylor, the first efficiency expert and model for all the stopwatch-clicking engineers who stalk the factories and offices of the industrial world. In 1874, eighteen-year-old Taylor abandoned his wealthy family's plans for him to attend Harvard, and instead went to work as a lowly apprentice in a Philadelphia machine shop, shuttling between the manicured hedges of his family's home and the hot, cussing, dirty world of the shop floor. As he rose through the ranks of management, he began the time-and-motion studies for which he would become famous, and forged his industrial philosophy, Scientific Management. To organized labor, Taylor was a slave-driver. To the bosses, he was an eccentric who raised wages while ruling the factory floor with a stopwatch. To himself, he was a misunderstood visionary who, under the banner of Science, would confer prosperity on all and abolish the old class hatreds. To millions today who feel they give up too much to their jobs, Taylor is the source of that fierce, unholy obsession with "efficiency" that marks modern life. The assembly line; the layout of our kitchens; the ways our libraries, fastfood restaurants, and even our churches are organized all owe much to this driven man, who broke every job into its parts, sliced and trimmed and timed them, and remolded what was left into the work of the twentieth century.

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Deborah Meier

Deborah Meier has for twenty years led one of the most remarkable public schools in the country, Central Park East (CPE) in East Harlem, where 90 percent of the students graduate high school and 90 percent of those go on to college, this in a city where the average graduation rate is 50 percent. CPE is a school where inner-city kids and teachers experience and act on the "power of their ideas," and it has been called the best school in New York City. As founder and advocate, Meier has won national acclaim as a leading voice and visionary writer in education. In this long-awaited book, Meier issues an eloquent, timely defense of public education. Taking on pessimists and privatizers, she tells us all why public education is vital to the future of our democracy and our kids. Equally important, she shows why good education is possible for all our children, starting with the remarkable success story of Central Park East. Drawing on her life as a teacher and principal, Meier argues for radical innovation: for breaking up huge schools into small schools; for choice within the public school system; for respect; for teaching that connects learning to real-world activities; for a new ideal of being "well-educated."

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Lloyd Dobyns and Clare Crawford-Mason

W. Edwards Deming's revolutionary management ideas brought about a complete turnaround at companies like Ford, Xerox and General Motors. His name is legendary in Japan for the role he played in reinvigorating their industries after World War II. But American managers, many of them looking for a quick-fix recipe for success, undertook the Deming method as if it were a simple management plan. What they failed to recognize was that the Deming method is a philosophy - and calls for radical changes in how we think about everything we do. It represents a holistic worldview and not the fragmented, analytical approach westerners are most comfortable with. In Thinking About Quality, Lloyd Dobyns and Clare Crawford-Mason, who worked with Dr. Deming for over a dozen years and are the authors of Quality or Else and its companion PBS series, take readers through the basic tenets of Deming's ideas, which for the first time are interpreted as much more than a list of things to do. They describe the changes that must be undertaken in order to practice Deming effectively; they show managers how to view the Deming method, how to interpret it and use it - and, most important, how to think about it. The authors' extensive research and investigation of companies and agencies using Deming has helped them isolate the "devils" that prevent American managers from fully integrating the kind of radical change required by philosophies such as Deming's. They address the core of Deming's beliefs, what he called Profound Knowledge, as the authors write, "until you are acquainted with Deming's philosophy, you have little or no hope of understanding what he is doing or why he's doing it, or, how your organization might improve." Dobyns and Crawford-Mason also explore how Americans have historically viewed systems and help managers place the Deming method within their own understanding of this concept. And they draw the most useful connection so far between Deming's famous 14 Points and the seven criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige Award, on which the federal government's effort to reinvent itself will be based, business contestants are judged, and future educational reform may be modeled. Using examples ranging from a New York inner-city high school to the U.S. Department of the Navy, they show how Deming's ideas can work in areas such as education, health care, government and the press. . Thinking About Quality is an in-depth discussion of one of the most important thinkers of our time.

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M. Beth Page

"Change Happens, and the 5C Model contain your answer to the question 'why does it matter?' If you are seeking to navigate a change initiative that demonstrates respect for employees, builds trust, invites employee participation and allows employees to claim ownership for the change, then Change Happens is written for you. -- Publisher description.