Sometimes big ideas come in small packages! And when the writer can pack pithy and insightful material into 193 pages at under $10 cost, you have to admire him and take notice of this bargain! Dr Richard Bellingham has done just that in his handy volume on corporate culture change. Drawing on a quarter century experience as a management consultant, he is a master at aligning human and organizational abilities behind coporate mission, vision, and shared values. The work is a well illustrated, very readable, interactive guide to transforming organizational performance, workshop technology, and virtual work.
The author organizes the book's content around strategies that alter organizational structures and systems in terms of four major tasks for accomplishment. First, is maximizing commitment through three skills for human development for mobilizing and empowering people, as well as by recognizing individual and team performance. Second, is building organizational capacity through human resource development (HRD) and by creating a learning environment. Third, is aligning the corporate culture with requirements for success and organizational renewal. Fourth, is improving the management of change through assessment and transitional strategies. Each task analysis includes an exercise for reader involvement, plus a summary of the principal skills to be acquiried.
Within business, the twin concepts of culture and change have slowly increased in understanding and application over the past 30 years. In 1975, I wrote my first book on the “management of change”, and in 1979 co‐authored my first work on managing cultural differences. The latter contained a seminal chapter on organizational culture, then a relatively unknown concept among both behavioral scientists and managers. Now, as we write the 6th edition of that classic volume, the discussion today centers around diversity in the global work culture (www.bh.com/management). Actually, the real issue is preparing personnel to manage and function in a knowledge culture!
At the beginning of this twenty‐first century, the world of management is quite conscious of the impact of culture on systems, and the need for continuous planned change in that regard. What is helpful for beginners in management and HRD is this type of understandable compact manual which the HRD Press is offering on a number of management issues, as their catalogs will confirm (www.hrdpress.com; tel: 1 800/822 2801). Dr Richard Bellingham has provided readers with a model of the busy Manager's Pocket Guide that underscores the virtue of both preciseness and conciseness!
