Bøker av Larry (Ctr For Applied Research) Hirschhorn

This book is essential reading for all managers in contemporary business organizations who are attempting to work productively in today's challenging economic environment. As the organizational model based on hierarchy and conformity has increasingly revealed its inability to meet competitive challenges, a new team environment has evolved. Larry Hirschhorn's "Managing in the New Team Environment" presents an overview of the skills and techniques required to manage successfully in this new environment and focuses in particular on the ways in which the manager's role should change in response to changes in the nature of the team. The book, which includes extensive case studies, is designed to help managers understand the social and psychological realities that shape their choices and behaviors. The manager in the new team environment is at once a member of the team and the leader of the team. Hirschhorn presents guidelines to help the manager adapt to this dual role, to become a "learner" as well as a "controller, " and thereby ensure that the team functions at optimal effectiveness. Divided into five chapters and a summary, the book introduces the manager to the nature of the new team. The following key concepts are addressed in the book: managing the triangle formed by the individual, the manager, and the team balancing empowerment and collaboration in the team process defining the team's environment measuring and rewarding performance facilitating group problem solving promoting a sense of fairness

One critical change in how people work, argues Larry Hirschhorn, is that they are expected to bring more of themselves psychologically to the job. To facilitate this change, it is necessary to create a new culture of authority—one in which superiors acknowledge their dependence on subordinates, subordinates can challenge superiors, and both are able to show their vulnerability.For many companies, the past decade has been marked by a sense of turbulence and redefinition. The growing role of information technologies and service businesses has prompted companies to reconsider how they are structured and even what business they are in. These changes have also affected how people work, what skills they need, and what kind of careers they expect. One critical change in how people work, argues Larry Hirschhorn, is that they are expected to bring more of themselves psychologically to the job. To facilitate this change, it is necessary to create a new culture of authority—one in which superiors acknowledge their dependence on subordinates, subordinates can challenge superiors, and both are able to show their vulnerability. In the old culture of authority, people suppressed disruptive feelings such as envy, resentment, and fear of dependency. But by depersonalizing themselves, they became "alienated"; in the process, the work of the organization suffered. In building a new culture of authority, we are challenged to express these feelings without disrupting our work. We learn how to bring our feelings to our tasks. The first chapters of the book examine the covert processes by which people caught between the old and new culture of authority neither suppress nor express their feelings. Feelings are activated but not directed toward useful work. The case studies of this process are instructive and moving. The book then explores how organizations can create a culture of openness in which people become more psychologically present. In part, the process entails an understanding of the changes taking place in how we experience our own identity at work and that of "others" in society at large. To do this, the book suggests, we need a social policy of forgiveness and second chances.

In this revealing study, Larry Hirschhorn examines the rituals, or social defenses, organizations develop to cope with change.