The Blockage: Rethinking Organizational Principles for the 21st Century

By Eva Kras

Why do we see so many positive sounding ecological and socially based policies marketed in organizations but rarely find them put into practice? Author and transcultural management specialist Eva Kras... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 156167981X
• ISBN13: 9781561679812
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: American Literary Press
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Author raises question

Reviewed by Anita D. McClellan for Reader Views (10/07) Eva Kras, transcultural management specialist and author of the acclaimed "Management in Two Cultures: Bridging the Gap between US and Mexican Managers," among other books, turns her expertise to "business as usual" commonalities in play today at multi-national organizations around the world. Present-day management values and principles upon which decision-makers are dependent fail to lead them to viable solutions in the global marketplace. There is a blockage within huge corporations that generates negative outcomes in an organization's efforts to produce sustainable management results. The importance of human and ecological values has not penetrated to the roots of these international organizations, which are, as a result, unstable systems. In a survey of young professionals in both Americas, the author reports wide dissatisfaction with life/family/work balance and with ecological issues that impact global distribution of water, oil, and food. Kras identifies the blockage as a mismatch between organizational mission and marketing statements, which she terms "traditional economic-based values," and practices and policies that would prioritize human and ecological concerns alongside economic ones. Her author's ambition is to "provide much food for thought...a process of genuine reflection" through which readers identify their personal, deeply-held values and so pave their ways to "a fulfilling and happy life. ...these newly discovered values will begin to form a new view of life, and new universal `working values' in organizations at all levels." Superficial changes can be achieved at a person's conscious and subconscious thought levels. However, Kras hones in on inner-core thinking, which visionaries term "deep human consciousness." Only from that root level can a person or an organization identify universal values that will prevail as common ground for formulating sustainable working relationships. To recast global, for-profit organizations from their roots up in order to locate a solid foundation for principles, policies, and practices based on deep-seated human values, Kras invokes Adam Smith, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, E. F. Schumacher, Willis Harman, Ervin Laszlo, Herman Daly, Erich Fromm, Marilyn Ferguson, among many others. Her goal in "The Blockage" is to "assist readers firstly in their personal search process, to identify those desirable values that we all strive for but sometimes are hidden or forgotten for a long period of time." The next step in deblocking established mindsets is "to gain insight into how these [desirable values] can be applied to our personal life, our community, and finally to our work and organizations in general." From there, the values extend into our small planet and the cosmos itself. Casteneda's Don Juan takes on Bank of America, Royal Dutch Shell, Mobil Exxon, and WalMart? Yes, and Former United States Vice Pres