Jetblue Pilot: What Were They Thinking?: Unconventional Wisdom About Management [Hardcover]

Product Details

Hardcover: 241 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press (July 10, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1422103129
ISBN-13: 978-1422103128
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

By : Jeffrey Pfeffer
Price : $17.25
You Save : $7.75 (31%)

What Were They Thinking?: Unconventional Wisdom About Management [Hardcover]

Consumer Reviews

Jeffery Pfeffer takes the materials in is recurring column in Business two. and expands them into brief vignettes on management and leadership topics. Generally, this approach does not function as either the book becomes a trite reiteration of preceding materials or the suggestions that had been fantastic for a column are not robust adequate for remedy in a book. Pfeffer does a excellent job staying away from each as each and every chapter/believed is concise totally developed and warrants a couple of page treatment. A summary of each and every section and chapter highlights is at the end of this assessment. This book has the consideration and wisdom to be the accurate direct help managers have to have for managing their consumers, business enterprise plans, and ad hoc circumstances.
Pfeffer's focused and extensive treatment gives wisdom that each manager should really have access to and often reference. I would recommend that executives and managers use this book as a cost helpful tool for management improvement by followng three measures:
Very first, I would have just about every manager read the book now.
Second I would make it element of your arranging procedure by requiring managers to re-read the book prior to undertaking their plans and budgets for 2008.
Finally, I would make certain the book is employed in executive and corporate governance processes when a lot of of the suboptimal choices Pfeffer discusses get created. In that way executives will be informed and make a organization choice rather than 1 that 'makes the numbers work'.
The book is decent, but there are a few weak spots. Pfeffer is a globe renowned organizational style and Human Capital specialist and this shows in the book. The book can be a tiny many people heavy to the exclusion of other considerations such as strategic, market, monetary and so on. Pfeffer raises troubles of corporatepolicy problems that are often outside the power of individual managers to modify. Pfeffer addresses this concern in Chapter 20 - No a lot more excuses so I would suggest reading chapter 20 initially or at least appropriate just after the initially section of the book.
Overall the book contains wisdom that each manager wants simply because so typically we turn out to be `autistic' in business enterprise, by that I mean that we appear at employees as things rather than people today. This book is valuable to every single manager and executive and will them maintain things in balance and be a improved manager.
The book is divided into the following components and I have highlighted a handful of of the finest chapters.
Component A single Persons-Centered Methods concentrates on issues connected to insights into how the organization operates with its people. Certain topics include:
Chapter two Many people as the face of your business -- a clear statement of the obvious but overlooked truth that folks are central to the enterprise
Chapter three Creating providers perform like communities offers human view on the problem of culture, not as an abstract notion but as the human interactions inside the company that make it tick
Chapter five How firms get smarter through taking probabilities and creating mistakes supplying a definition of the energy of a fault-tolerant corporation. It reminds me that the most useful employee is the 1 who has just learned from a error
Portion Two Building Helpful Workplace offers a practicable assistance on how to manage core workplace issues.
Chapter 8 Let workers perform -- discusses the genuine but not recognized corporate impact of the trend to have employee directed rewards and applications.
Chapter 9 Why Spy on Your Workers addresses the difficult problem of monitoring employee perform activities in an interconnected world.
Chapter 10 All work and no play is of certain interest as it highlights the distinction among activities (I function extended and tricky) and outcomes. As well quite a few consumers confuse the two to the detriment of the corporation and themselves.
Chapter 13 Resumes don't tell covers the problem of talent choice and the facts you have to have to get the most effective many people.
Component 3 Power Plays discusses the function of the senior executive and paths to gaining that role.
Chapter 14 The Courage to Rise Above is maybe the most fundamental chapter in the book for the person manager as it contains some difficult to hear, but need to be heard suggestions on establishing and advancing your profession and the profession of other people. The wisdom in this section is hard but extremely valuable.
Chapter 15 Executive in Chief highlights the significance and energy of top by means of a method of framing, measurement and communication that every person can use. Some leaders lead by force of will, this is a course of action for major that creates leadership capability rather than demands political capital.
Chapter 20 No excuses discusses the prevalent subject of executives and managers concentrating on how things will not work, rather than how they could operate. This chapter works well with the earlier chapter on persistent. No Excuses need to be mandatory reading and critique whenever someone says that "we can not" or we can when pigs turn out to be aerodynamically sound.
Component Four Measures of Good results discusses difficulties of measurement and efficiency management. The chapters right here are pretty self explanatory, strong and include
Chapter 23 Dare to be numerous - discussion of the evils of benchmarking
Chapter 25 Don't' think the hype about strategy - something each and every manager and executive who has written a check for consultants to ghost write their approach should read.
Component 5 Facing the Nation discuses the policy implications of management and human performance troubles. This section addresses difficulties concerning unions, executive spend and corporate responsibility.

Jeffrey Pfeffer is an exceptional management author, who has written twelve fantastic books, amongst which The Understanding-Performing Gap, Hidden Value, The Human Equation, and Tough Facts. This book, What Were They Thinking, is based on a series of columns Pfeffer wrote for the magazine Enterprise two.. In it, he covers a wide range of topics, from persons centered management approaches to building effective workplaces, working with energy strategies, thinking differently about success, executive spend and corporate ethics. The amazing thing in all Pfeffers writing is that whatever he says is so properly argued and details-based. If you're familiar with his earlier books, you will surely recognize a lot of of the points he's making in this book. At the exact same time, but, there is a specific freshness in this book, maybe due to the reality that it is based on columns. A further cause is there are new examples from the corporate world, and there are a lot of new research references. Friend and colleague of Pfeffer, Bob Sutton, has mentioned this about him: "And no matter how strongly you disagree with him, he has this annoying habit of basing his arguments on the most effective theory and evidence in peer-reviewed academic publications. Plus when he writes about an unstudied subject, his logic is sometimes so compelling that refuting his arguments is really tricky." When reading this book (and practically anything else he has written) you will acquire it hassle-free to agree with Sutton: it is pretty hard to disagree with Pfeffer once you comply with his reasoning and evidence. Some of the chapters I liked greatest in this book had been: The courage to rise above, Dare to be diverse, A lot more mister Great guy, Curbing the Urge to Merge, In praise of organized labor, Stopping corporate misdeeds. A excellent book. Just about every student of organizational effectiveness should read it.
Coert Visser