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All Hat And No Cattle: Tales Of A Corporate Outlaw
Are "knowledge-work," "empowerment strategies," and "continuous improvement" making your head spin? Have you heard "let's get everybody on the same page" just one time too many? Was the latest management training just another dose of warmed-over dogma? Then it's time to start kicking up some dust and making a difference. In All Hat and No Cattle , maverick consultant and writer, Chris Turner, serves as our guide, and with a healthy dose of Texas humor and the wisdom gained from experience on the front lines, she exposes much of what passes for management wisdom as baloney and offers alternative ways of thinking about organizations and the people who bring them to life. Not your father's management textbook, All Hat and No Cattle shows how real growth, vitality, and change result when all of us take responsibility for doing things in new ways -- ways that create the future now. All Hat and No Cattle is chock full of ideas guaranteed to help frazzled folks shake up the workplace.
- GenresBusiness
272 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 1999
11 people want to read
About the author
Chris Turner
176 books4 followersThere is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
For the GoodReads SciFi author see Chris Turner.
For the Canadian climate change author see Chris Turner
For the law author see Chris Turner
For the GoodReads SciFi author see Chris Turner.
For the Canadian climate change author see Chris Turner
For the law author see Chris Turner
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 4, 2012
Probably one of the most searing, and brutally honest, books on the subject of business structure and organization of the 20th Century. All is told in an entertaining style, and with refreshing clarity.
Chris succeeds in melding the lessons of complexity theory into a comprehensive, and very practical book dealing with the deficiencies of modern business. She does this by constantly ripping apart the prevailing hierarchical mindset so often found in big companies, and by contrasting that to real success stories obtained through viewing business as a complex adaptive system, instead of a machine. Where people get treated like intelligent human beings, and not as second-hand citizens.
Through various stories and anecdotes she illustrates the incredible potential of the new way of seeing reality. She excels in making the case for unleashing the creativity and promise of employees, through allowing greater openness, and the freedom to learn, collaborate, and interact across geographical and functional boundaries.
Some of her no-holds barred quotes will make the point stronger than I can get across in these few words:
1. There is no telling how much 'pee-pee' there is in the corporate coffee. People who feel shat upon often get revenge.
2. Executive pay is obscene. I mean, these folks make feudal lords look like philanthropists...Lou Gerstner, who axed two hundred thousand IBM employees in 1993 and 1994, simultaneously tripled his own pay to $12 million. What a guy.
3. We should understand that when people are hanging out in the hallways or on the production floor, there is learning going on.
4. People are either learning things that support the strategic intent of the organization, or they are learning how to retire on the job.
5. Understanding the assumptions underlying current organizational practices is the first step toward creating productive organizations filled with learning, creativity, imagination, energy, fun and meaning.
6. The planning process is useful only to the extent that it is thoughtful, that it provokes questioning and causes people to challenge old thinking.
7. Given the dollars spent on wooing new customers, wouldn't it make sense, to try to hang on to them? Wouldn't it make sense to design systems and create environments that amaze customers?
8. Organizational disturbances should unsettle, cause a commotion, create a ruckus, and shake things up. Designed well, they lead to new thinking, new doing, to questioning the status quo, and to give rise to a new level of consciousness. Good disturbances create the future now.
Chris succeeds in melding the lessons of complexity theory into a comprehensive, and very practical book dealing with the deficiencies of modern business. She does this by constantly ripping apart the prevailing hierarchical mindset so often found in big companies, and by contrasting that to real success stories obtained through viewing business as a complex adaptive system, instead of a machine. Where people get treated like intelligent human beings, and not as second-hand citizens.
Through various stories and anecdotes she illustrates the incredible potential of the new way of seeing reality. She excels in making the case for unleashing the creativity and promise of employees, through allowing greater openness, and the freedom to learn, collaborate, and interact across geographical and functional boundaries.
Some of her no-holds barred quotes will make the point stronger than I can get across in these few words:
1. There is no telling how much 'pee-pee' there is in the corporate coffee. People who feel shat upon often get revenge.
2. Executive pay is obscene. I mean, these folks make feudal lords look like philanthropists...Lou Gerstner, who axed two hundred thousand IBM employees in 1993 and 1994, simultaneously tripled his own pay to $12 million. What a guy.
3. We should understand that when people are hanging out in the hallways or on the production floor, there is learning going on.
4. People are either learning things that support the strategic intent of the organization, or they are learning how to retire on the job.
5. Understanding the assumptions underlying current organizational practices is the first step toward creating productive organizations filled with learning, creativity, imagination, energy, fun and meaning.
6. The planning process is useful only to the extent that it is thoughtful, that it provokes questioning and causes people to challenge old thinking.
7. Given the dollars spent on wooing new customers, wouldn't it make sense, to try to hang on to them? Wouldn't it make sense to design systems and create environments that amaze customers?
8. Organizational disturbances should unsettle, cause a commotion, create a ruckus, and shake things up. Designed well, they lead to new thinking, new doing, to questioning the status quo, and to give rise to a new level of consciousness. Good disturbances create the future now.
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