Culture Shock: A Handbook For 21st Century Business

by Will McInnes

‘Will McInnes has nailed it. Inspiring and comprehensive,Culture Shock is aspirational future thinking with its feet firmly on the ground’
Jemima Kiss, Digital Media correspondent, The Guardian

Join the work-place revolution

There's a revolution afoot . . . don't be left behind. A new dawn has broken. Business has changed profoundly—fueled by aggressively advancing technology and a volatile global economy. So why has most business culture remained unchanged? Most organizations are closed, secretive, siloed, slow to change, and deeply hierarchical. It's time to shock these cultures. Let's burn up the old and start something new.

The wonderfully inspiring Will McInnes is here to make a change—he wants us all to work in places that are supportive, open, conducive to creativity, motivating, and fun. In this book he maps out brilliant ways to create an uplifting work culture. Learn to create a more open, democratic, and productive workplace

Packed with real-world examples and backed up by facts Step-by-step, practical framework with actionable tasks to help you transform the way you work for the better

Genres: Business

290 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 26, 2012

Reviews

[Nic Brisbourne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Culture Shock is an entertaining and thought provoking read and I recommend it to anyone interested in how the trends towards greater open-ness and authenticity will impact how businesses are run and managed. Will McInnes believes passionately that they are causing a revolution in the work place that will ultimately result in a more engaged and productive work force and a fairer distribution of wealth.

Will argues that we should be building businesses with purpose and meaning, organisational open-ness, empowered workforces, progressive and conscious leadership. Generation-Y workers will accept nothing less and I think that consumers will increasingly choose to shop from companies with these characteristics (they already are). The book combines theoretical arguments for why these changes are coming with a number of practical tips for managers and employees who want to make their businesses more progressive.

I stopped short of awarding a five star rating because at some points the book is too polemic. Will has not only seen the future, but he desperately wants it to come about as quickly as possible and his writing appears motivated by a desire for social justice as well as a desire to accurately predict how we will be managing our businesses in the future.

[Saleh Abdulrab · Rating 5 out of 5]

الكتاب رائع ومحاولة متميزة لأخذنا إلى منظور جديد وفق ثورة التكنولوجيا والتغيير الثقافي، من خلال التركيز على بناء غاية وهدف المنظمات والتركيز على التمكين والقيادة.

[Jan Höglund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Culture Shock: A Handbook For 21st Century Business by Will McInnes is a brilliant title on a book which is about the culture shock of moving from the traditional autocratic way of doing business to a democratic approach where there is true participation, openness, fairness, and connectedness. The perspective of Culture Shock is that an organization is made up of people, rather than resources (although human). This means that for an organization to thrive it needs a very clear purpose, which creates meaning way beyond financial results.

The book resonates strongly with me. Will McInnes eloquently puts words on what I think and feel. I fully agree with him that a democratic workplace makes business-sense, society-sense, and people-sense. I think he is right in saying that the huge potential lies in the distribution of power through shared decision making. An inclusive, participative, approach to running our organizations has a “direct knock-on effect” on the way the organization performs. We all know innately that “being bad to people is being bad to the bottom line”.

There are a few areas where I have somewhat different perspectives than Will, but that is okay. We are talking about democracy and being authentic here. One example is the pace of change. Will thinks the new business culture is going to be mainstream within five or ten years. I do hope so, but I think the change we are talking about will take much more time. We are talking about changing domination structures. This change is a culture shock for those in power.

For the rest of us, it is an opportunity to be set free, to be allowed to thrive and show up fully as a human being even in the workplace. And here is the other culture shock. The emotional transparency required to be fully you is a demanding shift. And maybe this is why we have allowed our real lives to be different from our working lives for so long?

So, to give us the best chance of success, we need to step in and support each other. What is so nice is that there are people out there who have actually walked the alternative path for some time now. Will McInnes is one of them.

[أمينة عايش · Rating 4 out of 5]

الديمقراطية هي الشعار والهدف الجديد الذي يتبناه ويطرحه ويل ماكينيس في كتابه لتغيير ثقافة الاعمال والشركات في القرن الواحد والعشرين والذي يهدف إلى جعل مليار موظف يعملون في بيئات عمل ديمقراطية .

الكتاب مقسم إلى 8 أبواب يتناول فيها عدة مواضيع تساعد على صنع الاهداف وتغيير في الافكار والاساليب التي تساعد على الانفتاح ومواكبة التغييرات العالمية التي تحصل وتلهم رواد الاعمال لصنع الفارق في اماكن عملهم . طرح الكاتب افكار مبتكرة لتطوير الحوافز واستخدام التكنولوجيا وتغيير اساليب القيادة بشكل مذهل ومختلف وجعلها تتواكب مع التطور والانفتاح الذي نعيشه في هذا العصر ودعمها بتجارب حقيقة لشركات كبرى وعالمية وهذه ميزة أعجبتني وابعدت الكتاب عن الافكار المفرطة في المثالية والغير واقعية ، ربما بدت بعض الافكار جريئة إلى حد ما وهذا ما يثبت ان نحن فعلا بصدد عصر يتحول فيه كل شيء وينتقل إلى مستوى آخر ومختلف تماماً ولكي تستمر الشركات والمؤسسات يجب ان تعي ان التغيير والتطوير ضرورة في هذا الوقت لكي تستمر مع تغيرات الثقافة والمجتمع الذي يفرض عليها ان تخلع ثوب البيروقراطية وتتحول إلى بيئات عمل ديموقراطية .

[Souad Je · Rating 5 out of 5]

وأنت تقرأ الكتاب سيسرح خيالك إلى عالم الأعمال و الإدارة والتجارة، تشعر وكأنك تمشي بين أقسام كبرى الشركات العالمية وإداراتها.
الكتاب ورغم المصطلحات الاقتصادية المتخصصة والمصطلحات المستحدثة في هذا المجال(التي تتلام مع القرن الحادي والعشرين)إلا أنه في اعتقادي سيكون واضحا ومفهوما لغير المتخصصين، ليس أكاديميا بحتا، بل اعتمد الكاتب على طريقة السرد البسيط مع الاستدلال بالكثير من الأمثلة والتجارب الحية للثقافات الإدارية المعاصرة التي تنتهجها شركات هذا العصر. وأنت تقرأ سيظهر جليا أن العنوان إنما هو مرآة عاكسة لمحتوى الكتاب، لكن ما يعيبه أنه أغفل الكثير من السلبيات والعيوب التي يخلفها انتهاج الأساليب المعاصرة في الإدارة مثل التكنولوجيا والأنترنيت والشفافية المفرطة التي قد تودي بحياة الشركات، إلى غير ذلك...ركز الكاتب (الذي هو مؤسس لشركة خدمات في المملكة المتحدة)على الموظفين خاصة وضرورة تمكينهم ومشاركتهم في اتخاذ القرارات المصيرية للشركة، وبالمثل على العملاء وأفضل الطرق وأسرعها للتعامل معهم.
وأخيرا الترجمة كانت موفقة جدا.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written business book exploring the opportunities, challenges and thinking of what a 21st century business could and should be. As a non-business owning person, there isn't as much for me to take away and act on immediately, but there is plenty for me to talk about, and drop into conversation with those people I know who are.

[سارة shaalan) · Rating 1 out of 5]

مقدرتش أكمله للأسف . ونجمة واحدة عشان لقيت فيه بعض concepts الكويسة