Ingenious, carefully researched, and impressively detailed; both a hands-on workbook and a leadership guide.
A Fulbright scholar and business consultant offers a broadly applicable strategy for implementing organizational change.
Rather than theorizing about organizational leadership, this debut guide delves into the operational specifics of how a leader can influence change. The book is separated into two distinct parts. In Part 1, Tkaczyk introduces a framework for what he terms “an alternative strategy for leading positive organizational change.” The framework consists of three phases, “Energize, Redesign, and Gel (ERG),” each of which is further discussed and explored throughout the volume. The author builds a firm foundation for his framework by citing research-based examples and appending extensive references to each of the three chapters in the first part. While the writing style borders on the scholarly, the manual includes two particularly helpful sections, a “Lead-in” to stimulate interest in the chapter and “Summary propositions,” a bulleted segment that recaps the main takeaways. The content strongly reinforces the ERG framework, concluding with the third chapter that focuses on organization development consulting. Here, Tkaczyk precisely describes the global market, providing a statistical overview of consulting in specific countries and regions. Perhaps more intriguing is the comprehensive case study of a Middle Eastern insurance company in which the author discusses how “positive strategic transformation” was achieved via the ERG strategy. Tkaczyk takes pains to describe actions the company took that were related to each of the three phases, but he notes that they should be viewed in the context of a “dynamic continuous and concurrent process.” The case itself is invaluable in illustrating the application of the ERG method.
Part 2 of the book is a unique “ToolBox” divided into three “WorkBoxes,” one for each of the three phases. Ten highly useful interactive tools, drawn from the author’s knowledge of projects from around the world, are included in each WorkBox. For example, the Energize WorkBox begins with the “ERG organizational change scorecard,” a tool designed to assess leadership performance. An especially creative tool in this WorkBox centers on crafting a story about an organization that mirrors a neuron and “F.I.R.E.S. (Fresh, Informative, Related, Energizing/Evangelical, Strategic).” In the Redesign WorkBox are several imaginative tools, such as the “Innovation booster,” a matrix of numerous terms associated with the categories “Benefits,” “Needs,” “Positive feelings,” and “Action.” Tkaczyk includes pertinent questions to guide an organizational leader in the use of this tool. The Gel WorkBox is the culmination of the volume; here readers will find a tool that helps in developing reward strategies for employee teams as well as one to encourage “continuing executive development.” As a whole, the all-inclusive ToolBox is the equivalent of a consultant in a box. It is likely that the exceptional value of the 30 tools generously shared by the author in Part 2 will far exceed the cost of the manual. As Tkaczyk accurately observes, his framework appears to be a “straightforward, effective, action-oriented, designerly, collaborative approach” to “organizational renewal.”
Ingenious, carefully researched, and impressively detailed; both a hands-on workbook and a leadership guide.Pub Date: Dec. 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-367-90347-3
Page Count: 186
Publisher: Routledge
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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