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Marvin Weisbord is co-director of Future Search Network, an international non-profit service organization. He also is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Organizational Dynamics Graduate Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, resource faculty in the Organization and Systems Renewal Program at Seattle University, and a fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Science. During 50 years as a manager, consultant, researcher and teacher he has worked with businesses, NGO's, medical schools and hospitals. He was for more than 20 years a partner in the consulting firm Block Petrella Weisbord and a member of NTL Institute and the European Institute for Transnational Studies. He is the author of Productive Workplaces, 3rd Edition (2012), Discovering Common Ground (1992), Organizational Diagnosis (1978), and co-author with Sandra Janoff of Future Search, 3rd Edition (2010) and Don't Just Do Something, Stand There! (2007). He has a Lifetime Achievement award from the OD Network which voted Productive Workplaces one of the most influential books of the past 40 years.

Updates from the Field xxi

Foreword by Billie Alban: The Existential Question xxiii

Preface:Welcome to Productive Workplaces, 25th Anniversary Edition xxvii

Introduction: Getting the Most from Productive Workplaces xxxiii

PART ONEMythology and Managing 1

ONE A Mythology of Organizational Change 3

TWO How I Learned to Manage by Managing 15

PART TWOSearching for Productive Workplaces 33

THREE Scientific Management: A Tale of Two Taylors 35

FOUR Taylor Invents a New Profession 59

FIVE Action Research: Lewin Revises Taylorism 79

SIX Lewin’s Legacy to Management 97

SEVEN The Transition to Experiential Learning 113

EIGHT McGregor and the Roots of Organization Development 133

NINE Theories X and Y for a New Generation 149

TEN Emery and Trist Redefine the Workplace 167

ELEVEN Learning to Work in a New Paradigm 185

PART THREELearning from Experience 203

TWELVE Putting Action Research to Work 207

THIRTEEN Rethinking Diagnosis and Action 221

Case 1. Food Services Turnover: Action Research and Human Resource Accounting 223

Case 2. Chem Corp R&D: Managers Do Their Own Feedback 230

Case 3. Packaging Plant: Operators Meet Expert Analysis 235

Case 4. Solcorp: Expertise Can’t Fix the Old Paradigm 244

FOURTEEN Managing and Consulting in Permanent White Water 253

FIFTEEN Involving Everyone to Improve the Whole 269

Case 5. Medical School: Stakeholders Plan the Future 270

Case 6. Printing Inc.: Getting the Report Out of the Drawer 277

SIXTEEN Revising Theories of What Works 289

SEVENTEEN Making Systems Thinking Experiential 303

PART FOURIntegrating the Past into the Present 317

EIGHTEEN 21st Century Managing and Consulting 321

NINETEEN Changing Everything at Once 343

TWENTY Teamwork in a Fast-Changing World 375

TWENTY ONE Designing Work for Learning and Self-Control 387

TWENTY TWO Future Search: The Whole System in the Room 411

TWENTY THREE Cross-Cultural Future Searching 427

PART F IVELearning Then and Now 443

TWENTY FOUR Ten Cases Decades Later: What’s Sustainable About “Change”? 445

TWENTY FIVE Changing the World One Meeting at a Time 459

TWENTY SIX The Future Never Comes, It’s Already Here 471

References 483

Acknowledgments 501

About the Author 505

Index 507