Organizational DNA: Diagnosing Your Organization for Increased Effectiveness

With its copious jargon and stiff, lab-report tone, this volume may put off all but the most serious students of organizational development, but it's nevertheless a useful guide to the building blocks--the ""organizational DNA""--of successful firms. Consultant Honold (Developing Employees Who Love to Learn) and Silverman, a professor and former editor of the Journal of Higher Education, analyze four companies that exemplify the four DNA types (factual, conceptual, contextual and individual) and explain the different ways in which they implemented company-wide corporate changes. Structure, they say, should influence strategy: for instance, if a""factual-based organization attempts to implement an improvement effort in the same way as an individual-based company, it likely will not succeed."" The DNA types aren't always truly distinguishable (their four different approaches to interpersonal relationships are""formalized,""""reliability based,"" interdependent"" or""networked"") and the often numbing prose may frustrate the managers for whom this very academic book is purportedly aimed. However, the accounts of how the companies really operate--hire workers, correct performance problems and achieve goals--give extremely helpful real-world examples of how it's possible to provide a caring, creative and challenging environment for employees.