Productive Workplaces Revisited: Dignity, Meaning, and Community in the 21st Century

by Marvin Weisbord

In Productive Workplaces Revisited , Marvin Weisbord takes the next step in exploring effective strategies for improving workplace productivity  through dignity, meaning, and community. Remarkably, in this new edition the author revisits the case studies from the first edition, Productive Workplaces, to show the long-term effects of OD interventions -- twenty-plus years after the fact and provides invaluable insights for practitioner and student alike. In five new chapters, Weisbord reinterprets his systems work in health care and steel-making, describes how “future search,” his method for “getting everybody improving whole systems,” has crossed cultures on five continents, and summarizes his learning from following up cases decades later. This edition also presents in-depth case studies of organizations that have used these techniques to increase output, cut costs, create strategic plans, manage conflict between functions, and more.

464 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1987

Reviews

[Andrew Parker]

Mind expanding. Every page connected ideas or introduced concepts that changed the way I thought about my work.

[Norma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, read so many years ago changed my perspective on the workplace and what could be done to bring humanity and dignity to it. I read the first version then; I re-read this version in the 1990's and it still resonated with me. The first one was the only clear written account of the history of organization development from its beginnings at the turn of the 20th century. Weisbord's writing is lucid, profound and deeply human, as are the people who created and first practiced OD. Marvin Weisbord's book sustained me through my career and beyond.

[Tom Behr) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A "must read" by a consistently thoughtful and productive thinker -- note that his focus, "dignity, meaning and community" is exactly what's missing most in our businesses and society.