Written by leadership, change and management academics, Organizational Jazz promotes itself as a practical business guide within an evolving organisational landscape. The authors claim to use jazz as a metaphor to conjure up images of stability in the tune and uncertainty in the improvisations.
By K Johnsen, D Napoli & A Whiteley
eContent Management, 2005
$38.50
Written by leadership, change and management academics, Organizational Jazz promotes itself as a practical business guide within an evolving organisational landscape. The authors claim to use jazz as a metaphor to conjure up images of stability in the tune and uncertainty in the improvisations.
On a more coherent level, this is a manager-as-leader practitioner guide. The authors also claim that their title is a storybook rather than an academic undertaking; however, Organizational Jazz is dense and abstract in parts. On a positive note (pun intended) the authors are highly experienced in the subjects of change and extraordinary performance and they blend examples – both theoretical and practical –fairly well. They employ illustrative Australian examples of how to create a work environment for innovation and performance.
However, as the authors point out, Albert Einstein said no problem can be solved by using the same thinking that created it. We need to search with new eyes and new ways of thinking, but this book might send you cross-eyed in parts. The workshops are muddling and messy, but the summary section of the central concepts is probably the best bit.
