Customer Reviews

The Age of Heretics: Heroes, Outlaws, and the Forerunners of Corporate Change

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Never judge a book by its cover - particularly its blurb. On first glance, The Age of Heretics seems askew, a tract on business revolution for "corporate leaders" interested in anything but. It purportedly chronicles the "recreation" of institutions, an eccentric term when left unhyphenated. It's described in alarming code words, such as "magisterial" (read, "long"). Why would anyone bother with a book like this?

Because it's terrific. And because the bland façade is disguising a remarkable reality. The Age of Heretics offers one of the few compelling, intelligent, thoroughly researched histories of the field of organizational development. Focusing largely on the 1960s and 1970s, Art Kleiner details the origins of T-Groups, Theory X and Theory Y, scenario planning, systems thinking, and much more. He proves particularly adept at summarizing an approach or technique succinctly, as if in passing, and all the while in the context of corporate change movements. Perhaps Kleiner errs on the side of the Great Man Theory of History ("there was one man who could do it, and his name was ..."), but he does demonstrate how OD can prove revolutionary to the modern corporation. And we all know what fate befalls the revolutionary.

For that is part of Kleiner's history: how the OD early adopters so often sowed the seeds of their own downfall. Perhaps they evolved from enthusiastic to monomaniacal. Perhaps they exacerbated their cultish image by experimenting with LSD. Perhaps they merely stepped on the wrong toes. Whatever the reason, the drugs or the shoes, they blew their own trumpets, then whimpered the blues.

As the title suggests, Kleiner dubs these forerunners "heretics," and even adopts a framework of comparisons to medieval knights, millenarians, Pelagians, and the like. The comparisons don't do any harm, and may even add a soupcon of panache, although a few are a stretch. Likening twelfth-century intellectual Peter Abelard to pharmaceutically enhanced 1960s visionaries does the great philosopher a disservice, not least because he's not an ideal model of universalism and holistic thinking. One might also argue that Kleiner misrepresents Parzival's dilemma when he writes of the plight of the OD consultant who fears to lose his job. Parzival encounters an obviously suffering king and must decide whether to ask "what afflicts thee?"; the consultant encounters an organization and must first recognize that there is any affliction in the first place.

Such criticisms are minor and admiring. The Age of Heretics is what the English like to call "a rollicking good read": fast-paced, persuasive, and written for adults, not sixth-graders. (Rare is the business author who would think to describe In Search of Excellence, accurately, as Manichaean.) This is not a book for generic "corporate leaders." It's for OD professionals and agents of change. If you pitch your tent in either camp, bring this book along for companionship.

This book should remind anyone of an age to be in a position of significant and high-level corporate change responsibility of opportunity lost. In a societal post-culture where it's stylish to be outlandish, different, revolutionary and heretical, Kleiner illustrates for us the substantive difficulties faced by substantive revolutionary thinkers (and doers!) in developing the plans for socially responsible corporate transformation.

The Age of Heretics is almost unfairly engrossing (I read it in a single sitting). Its superb and nuanced documentation at times reads almost like an additional narrative. And Kleiner's wonderfully accessible writing makes this intellectual history of organizational development speak to those otherwise put off by the cerebral work.

Oddly, those most in need of a recovery of revolutionary spirit or heretical passion - contemporary OD/MD/HR executives- won't read it. After all, even though interesting history, it is still history and those folks are now too busy figuring out what happy face button everyone can wear for the fiscal quarter. On my read, this is the lesson of Kleiner's history; that is, abandoning the revolutionary, hopeful,Pelagian spirit and resignation to work within the system enables the system to eat you.

Also oddly, Kleiner's history will likely be dismissed by socially conscious and critically-minded business/organization/management Marxist academics, as just not explicitly critical enough of the "one-dimensionality," technocracy and precipitous consumerism of the capitalist system, which is of course what identifies the work of McGregor, Lewin and the early NTL'ers as heresy. The lesson from Kleiner's work here is that even small scale revolutionary efforts establish precedents for larger ones, and that it's better to try something than simply continue to pontificate - as academics devoted to studying the corporate organization critically are prone to do.

Consequently, both groups miss a valuable history of the connection between the serious committed efforts to change society through corporate transformation by these early renegades and the larger macro socio-philosiohical pronouncements of counterculture theorists. Indeed, Kleiner's book is voraciously consumed by an audience with a particular spirit. Unfortunately, that is few of us. I suspect I speak for all of us in that audience in suggesting that the sequel - The Hour of Reconstruction - is eagerly awaited.

The heroes of Kleiner's book are concerned with reducing the psychic costs of work by better aligning the personal hopes and dreams of employees and the corporations they work for through organizational development (OD). Kleiner's subject matter ties in well with those, such as Margaret Blair, who emphasize the contribution to wealth creation of firm specific human capital. While Blair appears primarily concerned with enhancing the ability of corporations to create wealth, Kleiner acknowledges they are already good at that task; the issues he raises are in some way more fundamental...how can we reorganize corporate systems so that they reinforce democracy and other cherished human values? For students of OD, or anyone who has been a process facilitator, the book is full of fascinating insights into the people we have tried to emulate...people like Douglas McGregor, Kurt Lewin, Chris Argyris, Saul Alinsky and Warren Bennis. I learned, for example that Charlie Krone's leaks to David Jenkins for the book Job Power resulted in Charlie's virtual "house arrest" at Procter and Gamble and I learned the semi-autonomous work groups didn't really have as much authority as Jenkins reported. Kleiner's heroes recognized that institutions, such as corporations, are social constructs. They became masters in group dynamics and building trust so that more effective communication took place, especially around team building. These heroic figures helped many corporations go through a process of fundamental reexamination... leading to a shift away from the bureaucratic military model to the more dynamic matrix, self-managed, and participatory models of today. Most of the book chronicles the history of the National Training Laboratories (NTL) and Stanford Research Institute with the primary business examples being Shell Oil, General Foods and Procter & Gamble. Kleiner is at his best in explaining the history of NTL and how the youth culture of the 1960's impacted OD consultants. He focuses on the psychological changes, which often resulted from group self-examination, rather than on shifts in actual power which have resulted from the growth of employee ownership and the rise of fiduciary capitalism. One of my primary concerns (see http://www.wp.com/corpgov) has been to show how these movements converge and are complimentary. Perhaps Kleiner will steer his considerable talent a little further in that direction by including an examination of these other movements in his next book, The Hour of Reconstruction. However, The Age of Heretics stands well on its own; anyone interested in changing workplace cultures will find a fascinating read.

Just for the record--I've worked with Art in the past. But that has nothing to do with my admiration for this book, which provides a brilliant and passionate intellectual trip through the history of corporate vitality today. This book gives the social, historical, and cultural background to the emergence of most of today's wildest corporate excursions. Above all, this book explores how business (that domain so many of us care deeply about) can regain it's "vernacular" roots--reaching back to recognize and re-form some of the meaningful "community" ties it once had. I urge anyone who cares about business as a place where personal growth takes place, where work is more than a mere job, and where groups of people achieve great things, to read this book.

Anyone who works in the area of organizational design or development should read this book. Art puts the history into context and let's us know the people who shaped the ideas. I loved learning about Kurt Lewin, Ron Lippet, Tom Peters...and so many others. The stories Art tells help me understand the events that shaped their lives and their thinking.

I was truly sorry when I arrived at the last chapter. I wanted to hear more.

It's important for fans of Kleiner's other work (his extremely useful "Who Really Matters" and his many periodical articles) to note that this is a HISTORY - valuable to those who want the story behind many organizational development trends (some lasting, some not), but less interesting perhaps to those looking for more immediate advice on how to tackle corporate management issues. If you are a real "student" of corporate management and change theory (or 20th century business and American cultural history), this is for you; if not, you'll probably find the extensive personal history of the various figures behind such movements as "activity based costing" and "reengineering" less than compelling reading.

As a history of the various individuals behind the scenes of each wave of "heretical" management theory, this is a really valuable work - it is well-researched (the bibliography alone makes it worth the price) and fairly well-written (though the religious history framework for the book gets in the way more often than not and the text lacks competent editing). And in the final chapter, Kleiner does begin to get a bit more forward-thinking (for example, as he discusses how reengineering might have evolved to be more successful). My guess, however, is that most people who come to this book in the "Management" section of their bookstore (which is where the book jacket lists it to be stocked) will arrive at the end feeling not much closer to a solution for what ails them (if they finish it at all) and in need of other books to get them on their way.

With specific regard to this new edition, the foreword and the preface don't add much, and the text changes seem comparatively modest (and are as often for the bad as for the good). My sense is either edition would probably serve you equally well.

I picked the book up by chance in Nashville TN. The title caught my eye and I knew the author's name (He is the editor at the magazine Strategy+Business published by Booz&Co.).

It is definitely NOT like most business books. It is not a how- to book. It's a book that gives you a sense of the people who really tried introducing new business theories into companies. It is not about the CEO's. It is about the consultants and managers who took the immense risks of trying to implement new ideas in management theory. They were definitely heretics.

This is the kind of book you want to recommend to your friends who think about business. I would catagorize it as business anthropology. I am not sure there is such a catagory, but there should be.

Reviewing the basically 1970's ingenuity in the business world, Art Kleiner teaches us that many of the lessons and interpretations of that era are amazingly more profound today than then.

Corporations, explained as to their purpose in the beginning, flourished in postwar America They had sense of duty and power. They were inclined not only to make money, but to make societal declarations. And, amid those developmental periods, many of the leaders are referred to as heretics - leaders who change the corporation or the industry of the corporation (usually for the better).

One General Foods leader said, "Don't get stuck (in the changes) on changing General Foods." Instead, the change was to be made on the industry - the greater good.

Among the many experiments in industry was how to use LSD to greaten perspective. "Engineers were particularly good candidates for LSD research. They were often emotionally sensitive men with painful early lives. . . this resulted in the choice of a vocation that dealt with inanimate objects, sparing further emotional pain. LSD was a marvelous tool for discovering and releasing buried feelings." Hmmm.

Many of the factories of the 1960's were run or managed by the engineers. "In the early 1960's. . . you wanted to become an engineer or physicist. In the early 1970's, there were only two appropriate choices: to be an artist or to save the world. . . In the early 1980's, you would set your sights on becoming an investment banker or corporate magnate . . .In the early 1990's, you would be preparing for a career launching some new Internet-driven entrepreneurial enterprise." Interestingly, in these times, the 1970's calling may be returning - and that may well be why this book was edited and republished as the greener world demands "changes" or concepts to "save" the world.

And, as the book focused mostly on the 1970's, the majority of the research was artistic or about saving the world. The intelligentsia created future predicting programs - we would run out of oil, but would change our dependence by 2025. This was made in 1970! These were impressive minds.

Other predictions were created out of sheer genius or happenstance luck. But, the methodology and expertise hint that the former as opposed to the latter is true.

This book's thorough review of the detailed observations made by brilliant people of that generation is both enlightening and refreshing. Businessmen are more than pencil-pushing bottom liners. They show heretical actions by being motivated by things other than corporate profit. Corporations, as displayed here, are good so long as they adapt. And, adaptation usually arises from the heretics who lead the corporate enterprise to do something not previously encouraged by the mainstream.

One similar book on this need for corporate America to adapt and morph to newer and bigger domains is outlined in William Taylor's "Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win." Heretic or maverick, each is what is adored by the respective author for forging business forward.

As a last note, this author is talented. The research is thorough. The development is well organized. This is not a quickly delivered thesis. And, those points alone make this worthwhile reading.

The world is changing at an ever increasing pace - and inevitably that means organizations have to evolve too. More and more of us are getting drawn into organizational change issues, even if that is not the primary focus of our role. The pace of change is increasing, so organizational change matters to more people and more organizations that it ever has before.

For newcomers to the field of organizational change, "The Age of Heretics" provides a well-written and easy-to-read history of many of the concepts and individuals that emerged during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. But Art Kleiner is no mere historian. His other books (The Dance of Change, Who Really Matters) and his role as editor of Strategy + Business magazine readily demonstrate his expertise and long-time involvement in the organizational change arena. What Kleiner offers is an expert practitioner's perspective on this period in the history of organizational change.

George Santayana originally said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," and more recently John A. N. Lee wrote, "We are reaching the stage of development where each new generation of participants is unaware both of their overall technological ancestry and the history of the development of their specialty, and have no past to build upon. We need to know enough about our history to protect ourselves from it and not be condemned to repeat it, but also to use it to our advantage."

For those of us who are on-the-job students of organizational change, "The Age of Heretics" is an important contribution in helping us gain a deeper and more mature insight into the history of our discipline - hopefully to avoid some of the mistakes and to more effectively use some of those concepts to our advantage.

The Age of Heretics, by Art Kleiner challenges the very fibers that compose modern management and its favour for bureaucracy. We have much to learn from the history, and this book uncovers some inspirational tales and lessons from past successes and failures in management. Read this book and it will change your perspective forever, this has been the most inspirational book I've read this year.