Adhocracy: The Power to Change

By Robert H. Waterman Jr.

Book Overview

In an era of accelerating change, the people, the organizations, the national economies most likely to succeed are those with the ability to adjust and adapt. Robert H. Waterman, Jr., coauthor of the best-selling "In Search of Excellence," shows how and why this sort of innovation must become a way of life for business organizations across the board. What is needed is an environment that fosters the use of an ad-hoc problem-solving technique, in effect an "adhocracy" that functions outside the often initiative-stifling bureaucracy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393310841
• ISBN13: 9780393310849
• Release Date: October 1993
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Quick and Insightful

Robert Waterman, the quieter co-author of In Search of Excellence, highlights ways to make organizations hum. The Adhocracy is organized around solving problems and gettiing results, not functional organizations. The concepts precede the re-engineering craze, and are compactly written and easily accesible for any reader.

Sound, quick, clear

This small book packs a lot of insight into a very few pages. It points out the virtues of bureaucracy -- and then shows one how to make organizations function better by adding "adhocracy" to the mix. It also provides some helpful tips about why big initiatives so often go wrong in organizations. If your organization is contemplating any kind of big change, this is a book to curl up with for a few hours. After that, you may well want to get back online and order copies for the other persons whose participation is needed in the change process.