Customer Reviews

How Organizations Work: Taking a Holistic Approach to Enterprise Health

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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Using a model of an enterprise, this book is a guide for exploring key aspects of organization, revealing how they are interrelated, and assessing them. The work focuses on: the external environment; leadership; strategy; business processes; goals and measurement; human capabilities; knowledge management; organizational structure; and culture. There are self-assessment questions throughout the book and numerous guidelines for diagnosing and designing a healthy organizational. Illustrations are used to flesh-out the diagnostic process. The work is a how-to guide; it is well organized, comprehensive, and highly useful. As a management consultant in organization analysis and design, as well as editor of Stern's Management Review, I seldom have encountered a book on this subject that is as straight-forward in its delivery of value as this work. Highly recommended.

Reading "How Organizations Work" was not only an "easy read" [as was promised in the foreward] - but provided far more meaty content than one might expect.

In the game of golf there is an expression called "sneaky long". This is often used in reference to a golfer who seems to effortlessly swing at the ball and drives it much further than one might expect.

I would call Brache's book "sneaky profound". It makes a series of key points in such an easy way that if the reader is not careful - one might miss the nuggets of intellectual gold.

The book is full of valuable self assessment questions - which are easy to tailor to any given organization - given the investment of a little thought.

The repeated references to the central role of business processes have substance and meaning in the context of the "Enterprise Model".

This book is really worthwhile reading not just once - but two and maybe threee times to get full value.

How many times have we been disappointed in the content of a book after having been impressed by the slick words on the jacket? Well, prepare yourself! Sometimes things really are the way they are stated. No illusions. And this is just such the case with Alan Brache's new book "How Organizations Work."

From his opening quotation of holistic unity from Chief Seattle on the jacket to his final inspiring words at the conclusion of the book, Brache ties all the elements of improving organization performance together in a scholarly, yet easy to read creation. His "Enterprise Model" for organizations, provides an impressive blueprint or x-ray for understanding the "complex network of interlocking factors" which contribute to How Organizations Work.

Using a model analogous to human biology, Brache has provided a framework within which we might better understand our organizations and the various factors that influence performance.

It is a great, easy read -- just in time for our serious summer reading list. Enjoy!

It is refreshing to run across a business book that goes beyond generalizations. In How Organizations Work, Alan Brache deconstructs the business organization to reveal all the elements of which it is made up. He then examines each, methodically, raising questions that really enable an executive to take stock and stock planning for improvement.
I worked with Alan many years ago, and I'm pleased to say that he is as lucid and logical as ever--and remains just as witty. His writing is crisp and to the point, and the real-life case studies that he intersperses ensure that the reader is never bored.
Alan has done a fine job with a subject that, in other hands, could have been not only dull but also purely theoreti-cal. Instead, this is a book you can read once to get the big picture, then go back to again and again for practical day-to-day advice.

Dale Corey, Business Writer & Researcher

This is an excellent book for anyone trying to apply a systems or hollistic approach to their organization to remain sustainable in today's market.

Strategy is the framework of choices that determine
the nature and direction of an organization. Top management
must take the time to develop strategy to position
the organization in its external environment and
focus decisions such as whom to hire, priority of product
development projects, capabilities to build into business
processes, the structure of the organization, as well
as daily decisions.