The Human Asset Manifesto: What Happens When Organizations Allow People the Freedom to Be

By Jonathan Ledwidge

While dysfunctional human relationships are a widely studied topic, it isn't common to equate dysfunctionality to the relationships between organizations and their workforce. In his new book The Human Asset Manifesto; What Happens When Organizations Allow People The Freedom To BE, Jonathan Ledwidge makes the bold assertion that organizations are not only socially dysfunctional but they subjugate and destroy the human spirit Managers often say good things about the importance of people but very seldom mean it, comments Ledwidge. This can be seen from the rightsizing, downsizing, reorganizing and outsourcing that happens with unabashed frequency. These actions represent a failure to comprehend the true value of people and people processes. Worse still, this cycle is constantly repeated even when it obviously doesn't work.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 160037042X
• ISBN13: 9781600370427
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Length: 348 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Thought-provoking and entertaining

Jonathan Ledwidge's writing does not fit a conventional mold - and that is its attraction. It also makes his work difficult to categorize. The Human Asset Manifesto is a book of changing moods. Basically, it is a serious, informative business book. Although his focus is on how businesses are run, Jonathan Ledwidge takes us beyond the office walls, and views organizations as an inseparable part of their historical and contemporary social context. At the same time it is a highly entertaining book. The writer's plain-speaking, wit and eclectic interests make the book very reader-friendly, and provoke you to broaden your vision, to think, to laugh and to BE. This is the work of a well-read, witty humanitarian and businessman who is presenting a strong case for valuing the human asset in business organizations and, thus, increasing productivity. You may be, but you don't have to be a business person to learn and benefit from The Human Asset Manifesto. The book makes it plain that business is not a static side issue; it exists in the changing fabric of all our lives.

The Human Asset Manifesto: What Happens When Organizations Allow People The Freedom To BE

As a student of business with over 30 years management, consulting, and entrepreneurship experiences, needless I say, I too have read many graduate level text books on the subject of business management and strategy before awarded a Master of Business Administration degree. Might I further state, that with the emphasis of my graduate course of study having been Management and Strategy, you may appreciate that I've found myself studying the salient characteristics that frame successful organizations throughout the ages, while recognizing the absences thereof that led to the demise of many prior successful business enterprises littering the pages of business history but having ceased to exist many moons ago. Nevertheless, from Adam Smith to Frederick Winslow Taylor, the emphasis on recent management theories virtually singularly extolled the mission of optimization or maximization in exploiting resources, or conversely the minimization of costs and expenses, with little regard to understanding both the socio-political-economic external dynamics that frame the real economic ballpark for sustainable business outcomes, and the internal strengths that grant ultimate success. Unfortunately, with the profit levels reported today for those highly publicized business players, while losses are argued as the natural outcome for those incapable of adapting to an ever dynamic and changing world within the destructive nature of capitalism, the equally evident need to establish more sustainable policy mechanisms and business practices are dwarfed in our recent environment of over-exuberance run amuck. But as history teaches that too is unsustainable, while the real asset of most organizations -- their Human Assets -- are underutilized by bad management practices and the consequent stresses added to peoples lives unnecessarily. It is with his usually refreshing writing style that Jonathan Ledwidge, brings to our attention the underlying reasons why people are mostly unhappy in their jobs, the reasons why organizations continue to underachieve from employee disengagement with the daily efforts that consumes the larger part of their time awake, while eruditely proffering sensible solutions for successful future experiences. If you've never read a business book, you ought make this your first! If you are like me, who've probably read too many of them, I invite you nonetheless to read the Human Asset Manifesto too, for it finally brings together the missing pieces between what you were exposed to and what you ought to have been exposed to in gaining a truly balanced appreciation for the value of organizations in our lives. One thing is sure, after reading this easy to read book, you shall place business in its proper perspective, having been easily mentally engaged in a remarkable analysis of people, history, and business, their interconnectedness, and why we go to work, and how to make it truly a place of accomplishing personal challenges to the advantage of

A Refreshing Change

Prior to its publication, Jonathan Ledwidge asked me to read his new book called "The Human Asset Manifesto". I agreed to do it out as a courtesy but was quite apprehensive when I learned that it was about 200 pages in length and thereby much longer than Marx and Engels' similarly titled opus "The Communist Manifesto". Because I also do not like books on business as a rule, I was doubly apprehensive but when I started to read it, I was delighted to find that Jonathan has a light touch and the ability to make complex issues both simple and interesting. The book provides an excellent history of management styles and practices which are amusingly related to the feudal societies of yesteryear. The author also reviews and rates the quality movement including its successes, failures and massive boondoggles. The author persuades us that today human assets are more important than the engineered processes that are designed to manage the un-enlightened masses. He also touches on feminism and other political hot topics in a way that is respectful and yet entertaining. As an introduction to business history and as a new way to think about management, I would recommend this book highly.