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I NDEX

Note: page number followed by n means the entry is in the notes at the end of the book.

Abram, David

humans’ caretaking place in the world, 74

the world “exceeds our grasp,” 207

accountability (peer-to-peer), 56, 120, 132, 184,

189, 197, 215

a watch-word of stewardship, 151

a way of being, 164–5

contrasted with compliance, 165–6

conversations for, serve two purposes,

167–8

replacing compliance with, 173–8

the public face of responsibility, 163

activists taking charge at work, 4, 124

business as usual is not an option, 170

conversations for aligning, what to do, 156,

169

creating a new language of work, 148–9

face three kinds of challenges, 134–5

finding partners, 193–4

following the examples of agile programmers,

137

framing the options for, 60

getting hierarchy out of the way, 180–1; not

on management’s terms, 187–8; flying

under the radar, 188–90; information

technology (IT) has a limited role, 190–2

keeping each other engaged, 196–7

knowing your purpose, 194–5

questions for, 148, 197

roles of, 151

walk a tightrope, 147

where to begin, 138

agile (approach to software programming)

113–19, 238n, 239n

agile manifesto, 113

care is secret ingredient in, 120

practices contrasted with waterfall method,

113–14, 116–17

response to limitations of management

methods, 114

role of standups and questions to ask, 118–19

“scrum” explained, 118–19

adaptive work, 93, 109, 161, 185, 237n

contrasted with technical work, 93 from the “dance floor” and “balcony,” 185,

250n

involves values, attitudes, beliefs, relationships, 109–10, 161, 185 leading, 185

aligning about negotiating meaning, 162 accountability is essential for, 167 always a temporary state, 94 can be hard work, 152–3 conversations enable, 71, 153 ending apartheid in South Africa, 95, 186–7

has to with attitudes, values, relationships

(adaptive work), 109, 153, 230n, 233n

hierarchy is an obstacle to, 180 intensely social, 137

policy issues and, 246–7n

the “bottom line” of organizing, 94, 183 alignment

and the goodness of work, 203

can be interpreted in a mechanical way, 233n

does not mean equal commitment or common goals, 96

Etienne Wenger’s view, 56 explained and contrasted with the management concept, 95–6

in the view from the top, 95

is in the eyes of participants, 95, 96

produces synergy, 76, 228n appreciative inquiry, 246n

Bennie, Jeff, author of Jeff’s journal, 26, 29 Benner, Patricia, writing about care, 123

bottom line, see efficiency

267

268 Index

boundaries in networks

are more visible from the “balcony” than on

the “dance floor,” 185

few among friends and close associates, 76

loose and flexible, never clear, 41, 42, 159

negotiating (a thread in the work of

organizing), 86–91

organizing across, 134–5, 168–9, 187

BP (oil company, aftermath of rig explosion),

210, 255n, 256n

breakdowns at work, 9–13

behind these, 22–3; missing conversations,

154, 157

differences in outlooks contribute to, 114

large scale, 9–10

smaller scale, 10–11

systemic and systematic, 12–13

when people don’t care, 127

with tragic consequences, 11–12, 219n

Brown, John Seely and Paul Duguid, knowledge

as “sticky” or” leaky,” 76

bureaucracy is bad for knowledge-work, 5, 22,

76, 170

see also hierarchy, competition at work

business books

offer simple recipes, 8

steer clear of organizing, motives, values,

25–6

tell a misleading story, 9

don’t explain good work, 200

business process reengineering (BPR), 235–6n

at Jet Propulsion labs, 104–6

processes became tools, 106

the real work of organizing is missing, 109–12

unfilled promise, 103–4

care in work

essential to good work, bridging boundaries,

sharing knowledge, 123–4

necessary for human-centered work, 120

nursing compared with data-oriented medical

practice, 122–3

practical and has to do with relationships,

moral stance, 123–4; communities of

practice, 133

secret ingredient of agile practices, 121

case studies

the work of organizing (a reorg), 78–80

why strategic initiatives fail: BPR at Jet

Propulsion Labs, 104–5; creating

Department of Homeland Security, 107–9

change happens through action, 179 shouldn’t try to win support for it on management’s terms, 187 the myth that employees always resist it, 81,

229n

change management

employees prejudiced against, 11, 249n

initiatives at Jet Propulsion Labs, 104

“whole systems change,” 179

Chaplin, Charles, Modern Times (1936), images

of industrial work, 65 Churchill, Winston, what he said about democracy applies to organizing, 44

collaboration, 76, 96, 191, 214, 219n, 220n

as a “safety net,” 142 bureaucracy, hierarchy, and competition are obstacles to, 13, 171

chemistry of 46–7 hinges on good relationships, 181 importance to agile programmers, 114, 121

IT departments don’t get it, 191–2 management favors competition over, 22, 135

communities of practice (CoP), 227n, 229n, 242n

an alternative to compliance, 127, 132

in the hands of consultants became a management tool, 129

exhibit the spirit of ubuntu, 133

few groups qualify, 128–9 photocopier repair technicians as example of, 129–32: do good work without constant oversight, 130; demonstrate caring relationships, 132; organize themselves, 131

competition at work, 132, 141, 158, 211 accounts for poor team-work, 11

an obstacle to sharing knowledge, aligning, 59 claimed to promote efficiency, 136, 141 contributes to systematic breakdowns, 13 cut-throat, the antithesis of cooperation, 134, 214

economists’ claims for it are unfounded, 243n

encourages lack of responsibility, 158 compliance

alternatives to control with, 126–9, 142 contrasted to accountability, 165–6

is central to management, 37, 59, 170, 199,

230n, 248n, 249n

management confuses it with accountability,

140, 164, 167, 247 undermines creativity, 83–5, 188

Index 269

Conklin, Jeff, on wicked problems, 92, 231n,

232n, 238n

conversations

among people in communities of practice,

129–30

and work-in-practice, 17, 20, 21,

are closely tied to action, 143

crucial to aligning, 100–2, 195, 197

that are missing at work, 109–11, 157–9

the key to changing the way we work, new,

138–44, 146–7; the irony, symmetry, and

synchronicity, 144

the substance of networking and

knowledge-work, 39, 43–50, 58–9, 71–3,

81–3, 229n

conversations for aligning, three domains of,

153–4

accountability described, 162–3

commitments described, 161–2

don’t turn them into tools, 168–9

illustrated, 155

openness described, 159–61

role in handling hierarchy, 184–5

taking on the work of organizing, 177–8

Crawford, Matthew, writing about work in Shop

Class as Soulcraft, 200–2, 209

data

can reveal a lot about factory-work, 16; has

limited relevance for knowledge-work, 92,

100, 141

is central to the manage mindset, 38, 99, 208,

234n, 246n

Davenport, Tom, an architect of business

process reengineering critical of what

happened to BPR, 103, 105, 235n, 236n

Dilbert, 8–9, 218n

domains of conversations, three, 153–4, 184

Drucker, Peter, father of modern management,

1–3, 5, 216 n, 234n, 259n

ecosystems, organizations are like, 40

efficiency

a weasel-word, 4

associated with a machine logic, 52, 54, 62,

139; is factory-talk, 149

at the heart of management, management

speak, 13, 19, 53, 56

confusing good work with, 204, 212

contrasted with caring, 121

economists claim that competition promotes

it, 136

Frederick Taylor and, 98–9, 126, 205, 233–4n

Enlightenment thinking shaped management,

influences workplaces, 14–15, 28, 220n, 224n

Facebook, LinkedIn, social networking sites on the web, 67

factory-work contrasted with knowledge-work, 5, 16, 65–7,

71, 137, 196, management is tied to, 7, 77,

nature of, 2, 226n, 230

pictures of, 66

see also industrial work Fantastic Voyage, film, 16, 220n

Fayol, Henri, early French writer on

management, 14, 243n

field service technicians (illustrating a community of practice), 129–31 financial meltdown (2008)

accident or negligence, 210 banks’ executives succumbed to hocus pocus, 208

financial data revealed as stories, 253n

revived controversy over executives’ bonuses,

216n,

Fineman, Stephen et al., on organizing, 24 fragmentation contributes to boundaries and breakdowns in networks, 88–9

god’s-eye perspective in management

contrasted with a human one, 206–9, 254n

explained, 206–7; diagram, 207 undermines the human spirit, 209

“going topless”

means restoring voices that are missing at work, 213

organizing is never flawless, 215 good work, 12, 46, 53, 84,102, 119–20, 123,

129, 132, 142, 180, 211 can we recognize it?, 199 doesn’t depend on great success, 204

executives’ bonuses unrelated to, 216–17n

no general definition of, 203 should be high on the agenda of people organizing, 198

goodness of work, what constitutes the, 202–3

“hairball” of corporate culture, 83–5, 181, 230n

Hamel, Gary, writing about the need to reinvent

management, 3, 217n

270 Index

health management organizations (HMOs),

122–3

billing practices favor tools over talk, 123

brought corporatism to health care, 235n

Heidegger, Martin, 207

Heifetz, Ron, on adaptive work and technical

work, 93, 161, 185, 237n, 250n

hierarchy

at odds with accountability, cooperation,

responsibility, flexibility,167–8, 170, 173

bad for knowledge-work and workers, 5, 13,

22, 59, 76, 108, 142, 170

extricating yourself from, 176

handling it means dealing with boundaries,

182–4, 189

robs subordinates of their voices, 173–4

there is an aversion to talking face-to-face,

183

high-control, 131, 142, 148, 174, 177, 199

keeps all eyes on the top, not the work, 215

is the reason for focusing on the organization,

150

infantilizes people, undermining

responsibility, 121, 126

mindset, 14

the word “management” breathes, 150

peer-to-peer accountability is the antithesis of,

168

why it must be eliminated, 179–80

Highsmith, Jim, on agile methods, 120

Hindle, Tim, companies have not changed while

work has, 14

Homeland Security, US Department of (DHS),

9, 108, 225n

IKEA, factory-work is and knowledge-work is

not like a box of furniture from, 19, 21

industrial work

images of, 65–6

see also factory-work

information technology (IT), role in eliminating

hierarchy, 190–2

“inside” work

contrasted to “outside,” 16–18

how to go there, 31

is matter of involvement, 16–17

see also view from practice

Jeff’s journal, a first-person account of project

work and organizing, 29–30, 31

job descriptions (as management tools), 19, 54, 109

aren’t about work, 201 role in a reorg, 78–81, 90

Kanigel, Robert, biographer of Frederick Taylor, 98

Kenney, Con, on the problems of designing software,116

knowledge

can be leaky or sticky, 76, 123, 228n changes as time passes, 94, 233n contrasted to knowing, 221n

emerges, or is “called forth” by conversations,

in work, 47, 223n tacit, 44, 222n Western perspective on, 224n knowledge management, 67, 128, 241n, 242n

knowledge-work being present, the importance of in, 193

“changes everything,” 242n

contrasted with factory-work, 5, 16, 66, 67,

71, 137, 162, 220n creative nature of, 21, 140, 230n

defined, 63–5; illustrated, 66 does not respect titles or other formal boundaries, 135

early writers on, early interest of scholars in,

216n

hampered by bureaucracy, competition, compliance, and hierarchy, 5, 170 human and highly social or collective work,

64, 65, 71, 82, 86,119, 198 incompatible with management, 2, 7, 60, 114,

166, 206, 217n

is personal, 87 looking for practices that are good for, 113 much of it is organizing, 28,

need the view from practice to understand it,

7, 16, 28 new language needed for, 149

no play book for, 140 not amenable to measurement, 63, 141 relationships and meaning making are important ingredients, 15, 134, 162 requires good conversations, 59, 144, 162

“truths of”, 52 types of, 5 virtues and vices,201–2

see also aligning, care in work, social

networks, social spaces, organizing, talk

Index 271

knowledge workers

create their own work, 81

experience work’s virtues and vices, 202

field service technicians as, 129

fill an open future, 82

frame problems, 20, 21

hampered by management practices, 12, 15,

22, 54, 128, 198

make meaning, 21–2,

multitask, 89–90

network, team, work in groups, 6, 11, 70,

organize themselves, 7, 18, 84, 137, 142, 166,

170, 178

personal connections matter, 17, 141, 189

wedged between management and organizing,

53, 140

what they do is hidden from management, 22,

114; picture of, 72

who they are, 2, 64, 77 ; almost all are, 57

work and organizing are indistinguishable

for, 65

see also work

Lang, Fritz, Metropolis (1927), dystopian vision

of industrialization, 65

language

has power to change the way we think, see,

and act, 138, 244n, 245n

management uses it loosely, 204

of organizing, don’t have a, 28, 55

of work, cultivating new, 142: challenges,

144; finding your own story, 148; like

walking a tight-rope, 146–8

words that have to be replaced, 149–51;

management, 150; organization, 150;

leadership, 150–1

Lave, Jean, 128, 196

Lavoie, Don, tools offer “returnability,” 59

leadership, a word that has to be replaced, 50–1

left-brain management, 54–6, 60, 114, 138, 251n

loose coupling, 37–8, 42, 223n

machine images in management, 28, 52, 55,

100, 121, 126–7, 149, 205, 211, 226n

making meaning, 21, 25, 71, 80, 81, 92, 143,

221n, 246n

Madoff, Bernard, Ponzi-scheme fraudster, 210

management

can’t be patched up, 60

conceived as a series of transactions, 211

confuses efficiency, performance with good

work, 201, 204

consultants, consulting, 4, 12, 60, 99, 103,

126, 179, 241n, 252n

contrasted with organizing, 54–7; difference boils down to tools and talk, 57–8

criticized from the Left, 217n

faith in, 2, 12–3, 211

gurus, 2, 236n

obsession with data, measuring, 212

skepticism about the future of, 3, 217n

steers clear of values and judgments, 200

uncertain etymology, 216n,

why this word has to go, 150

see also business books, language,

management-speak, scientific management management as point of view or mindset 6, 14–15

about control, keeping organizations in order,

32, 37, 115, 218n

can’t tell good from bad work, 209; accident

or carelessness, BP and gulf oil disaster

(2008), 210, 255n; see also financial

meltdown (2008) characterized by six Ds, 7 communication confused with collaboration, 191

dominates work life, 7, 37, 53, 148 focus on efficiency, 121

hides the nature of work, 4, 114, 205 how it has colonized life, 211

is care-less (without care), 121, 126, 209 left-brain analogy, 54–6, 138

myopic, 104 workers and managers are fed up with, 3–4

management paradigm, 14, 105, 107, 219n

Enlightenment thinking, 14, 28 has us hiding from the humanness of work,

209, 212

mechanistic worldview 14–15, 106–7, 225n

reengineering signaled a potential shift in, 105 management practices

bad for knowledge-work, 2, 7, 15, 76, 125 begin with certain assurances, 209 bottom line (money and profitability) focus,

106, 211 contribute to breakdowns, source of disorganization, 13–14 create a moral morass, 214 customers don’t feature, 35–6 decisions revolve around six Ds, 37 deeply entrenched, 2

discourage talk, 22, 48, 59, 144, 234n

don’t recognize partnership, 141 endorsed by business media, 107

272 Index

management practices – continued

evolutionary or revolutionary change in, 60–1

favor compliance and control over flexibility,

126–7

focus on tools and at the expense of talk, 98,

102, 111, 140

largely ignore work, organizing, 8, 15, 22, 25

missing conversations, 157–8

obsolete, 1–2, 3, 16, 77

reinforce hierarchy, 180

rely on individualistic view of work, 71

responsible for systematic disorganization,

12–13

separate management from work, workers,

136–7, 142

suppress creativity, 84–5

tension between teams, project groups and

management, 36–7, 47, 117, 229n

traced back to Fredrick Taylor, 126, 204

unwrapping, to see how people actually

work, 4

were devised to organize factory-work, 5

see also management tools, six Ds of

management

management-speak, 14, 143, 211

letting go of, 142, 145, 146, 149

the language, 17, 28, 54, 105, 107, 134, 140,

164, 190, 199, 207, 225n, 234n, 249n

management tools, 2, 14, 18, 28, 56–9, 84, 87,

96, 99, 101, 103, 105, 106, 109, 153, 154,

157, 190, 209, 214, 234n

interpreting, handling, 59

Martin, Bob, on agile methods, 120

MBA

a way of managing, 56, 59, 99, 121, 126,

146, 196

degree, writers question the value of, 217n

McKenzie, Gordon, on organizations and

creativity, 83–6, 181–2

network connections

boundaries, 87, 159; both bridges and

barriers, 87–8

fragile and tricky, 89–90

relationships matter, 27, 41, 86, 137, 182

see also boundaries in networks

network maps, 224n

liable to mislead, 67–9

diagram, 67

view from the top perspective, 69

networks, 226–7n, 231n

always in motion, evolving, never complete,

46, 59, 69, 82, 137

analogous to telephone switch board, 45 changing roles, varied commitments, 196 computer and social get conflated, 26–7, 68 diversity of is both light and shadow, 96 figure of speech, 26

no center, 196

of conversations, 44 organizing happens in the connections, 70–1 personal, 89

self-organizing, 46, 215 social spaces filled with energy, 137

see also social network, organizing (work of)

numbers, management’s promiscuous desire for,

13, 32, 59, 63, 205, 212

see also data Office, The (TV series), 8–9

openness, 132, 135 being committed to “groupness,” 160 conversations for and meaning of, 159- 61

“Orbiting” to remain creative, 84–6, 181 organization

“flattening” the, 105, 127, 213

informal, the, 60, 188–9, 252n

not a whole, 40 the focus of management practices, 1, 8, 36; this is a distraction, 150

“top” and “bottom” have different views of

the, 40, 111, 218n

why the word has to go, 150 organizations

abstract, inanimate, 150 exist to serve customers, 33 health management (HMOs), 122–3 knowledge, 127

like ecosystems, 40–1

no sense of humanity in business books’ descriptions of, 8

punctuated by breakdowns, 9 reengineering, 103–5

The Office, Dilbert, parodies of, 8–9

viewed as machines, 28, 100, 121; should run like clockwork, 8

organizing accountability as a principle of, 163

a deeply human story, full of life, 21, 25, 145

a meaning construction, 25–6 and work are indistinguishable for knowledge workers, 65

an important part of life, 5 collective work and a grassroots effort, 6, 17,

70, 71, 156, 173 contrasted to management, 6–7, 54–6

Index 273

demands responsibility, 140

good organizing, 12, 23, 151; depends on

cooperation, 15; productive conversations,

49, 159; takes everyone’s active

participation, 196

happens in interactions or network

connections, 71

knowledge workers spend most of their

time, 18

lives in the experience of doing it, 24–5, 29

looking for new ways of, 60–1

messiness, 94

most of it is invisible, 26, 28, 54

network maps don’t show what is most

important to, 69

new practices begin with talk, 137

no permanent structures or universal laws of,

52; a lot of it is ad hoc, 53

part magic, 42, 50, 46–7

real work of knowledge workers, 22

relationships play a big part in,18, 169

right-brain, 55–6, 140

should be center stage, 150

takes imagination, forethought, 46

see also wicked problems

organizing moves

are not “steps,” 170–1

moves from “above, ” 172–4, 184: letting go

of control, 172–3; transforming

relationships, 173; promoting

accountability, 173–4;

moves from “below,” 175–8, 184: moving up,

175–6; facilitating open discussion, 176–7;

negotiating accountability, 177–8

organizing, problems of

are collective 93

emerge in doing the work, 91–2

exist at the boundaries, 93

nearly all wicked, 91–2

the challenge is defining the problems

(“problem setting”), 90

organizing, work of, 21, 78–97, 125, 228n

aligning, 21, 94–7, 152–3

begins with new conversations, 151

building networks and negotiating boundaries,

86–9, 93–4

collective work, 6, 70, 180

commitments required, 172, 195

creating the work, 81–3

from “dance floor” and “balcony,” 185, 250n

four interwoven threads, 78

has to live in people’s hearts and heads, 148

hampered by bureaucracy, competition, and hierarchy, 76

is in “connections,” 69

meaning making is the real, 21, 28, 221n

missing conversations are the Achilles heel, 157

negotiating meaning, 80–1; give and take, 184 picking partners for, 193–4

riskiness of, 173–4, 195 social spaces are integral to, 74–6, 163 under the radar, 188–9

see also self-organizing

org (organization) chart, 76, 102, 108, 142, 180, 207

is a god’s-eye view, 206

is understood, wrongly, to show the organization and/or its structure, 44, 127 redrawing this is supposed to bring about change, 108, 109

Orr, Julian, in Talking about Machines, writes

about a community of practice among field

service technicians, 121, 129–32, 220n, 226n, 229n

paradigm, 14–15, 139, 243–4n

parallel universes (management and organizing) connected by incompatible practices, 52 explained, 51–4

performance evaluations, 62, 91

as tools of high control, 199–200

Practice of Management, The book that brought Peter Drucker fame, 1, 216n

practices, work are difficult to take apart, 78 become a grassroots movement through talk, 144

change when people have a change of heart, 138

diagram of, 101 life-long process of acquiring, 80 must combine talk and tools, 101–2, 109 under management, talk is missing, 102–3

we need ones that foster the “right” human qualities, 119

problems of knowledge-work are wicked, not technical or tame, 93–4 belong to the group, 73

project teams and management have different perspectives,

19, 32–7, 47, 51–2, 122 and social spaces, 50 are always feeling their way, 44