Customer Reviews

Reinvent Your Enterprise

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Fire up your highlighter because not only do you need to read every line, you will want to refer to many of them again. Whether you are a business executive or management consultant, reading this book will be a `tent revival' of personal investment in your work.

The introduction to Reinvent Your Enterprise is just as informative as the body of the book. As a carefully selected reading list, the bibliography alone may be worth the price of admission. Between these `bookends', Jack Bergstrand builds a conceptual foundation followed by a practical approach for effective management of knowledge work. He also makes a compelling case for a sense of social, as well as economic, urgency for that transformation. The book dedication is to Peter Drucker. More than honorific, Jack Bergstrand upholds the same high standards of research, insight and vision that Peter Drucker provided. Reinvent Your Enterprise continues the crusade to transform how knowledge work is managed.

I achieved a greater understanding of my work and its true value potential through reading this book. Knowledge workers, and more importantly their work products, are being constrained by scientific (e.g. factory) management techniques. If we look at knowledge as the new natural resource then we, as a nation, are again blessed with abundance. Converting that abundance into wealth seems obvious. Jack Bergstrand is telling us who, what, when, where, how and why; we need only supply the will to change.

The Good: A proven framework, complete with guiding principles on how to reinvent your Enterprise for future success and competitive advantage.

The Bad: At times, too academic, but it's a theory that's been prototyped and proven.

Action Item: Knowledge workers, managers, and leaders should read this book to understand how companies could be structured, operated, and perform to achieve desired results.

Reinvent Your Enterprise: Through Better Knowledge Work by Jack Bergstrand: What are the most conducive organizational structure, processes, and principles that allows a company or Enterprise to be productive? Bergstrand answers this question with his book, Reinvent Your Enterprise: Through Better Knowledge Work. Building on Peter Drucker's approach to management and knowledge workers, Reinvent Your Enterprise is Bergstrand's doctoral work at The George Washington University, combined with his firm's consulting clients. The result is a practical, research-based knowledge work productivity framework and process for the Knowledge Age.

Bergstrand also developed an online survey, The Strategic Profiling® assessment, an instrument to help people apply the system, accelerating their knowledge work. He prototyped an actual company, based on the system and productivity principles, testing and refining a holistic set of Knowledge Age ideas with real employees, customers, and competitors. Bergstrand proposes and proves that a "Knowledge Work Productivity Management System" is the ideal approach for a productive company using his four-area framework, consisting of the following areas:

* Envision
* Design
* Build
* Operate

Explaining the Foundation of his Assumptions: Bergstrand explains the transition from manual work to knowledge work, using Peter Drucker's approach to management. "Knowledge workers acquire knowledge through a combination of education, experience, and personal interaction, and then use that knowledge to achieve organizational goals in changing environments." The challenge in managing knowledge workers is the invisible nature of their work, at times; these workers are not held to results-oriented standards like manual workers. Unproductive knowledge worker issues include:

* Too many meetings that produce few results
* Competing internal priorities with no mechanism for resolution
* Studies that are completed and put on the shelf
* Projects that get started but are not finished on time
* Projects that never get started but get talked about every year
* High executive turnover that causes frequent changes in direction

Bergstrand created the Knowledge Work Productivity System using a four-part framework in four steps. The four-part framework is a 2 x 2 matrix, with continuums from work (a physical output) to knowledge (mental output) and subjective (an intuitive output) to objective (a structure output), forming the four knowledge worker productivity work behavior areas. Each box/area is defined as Envision, Design, Build, and Operate:

* Envision is the need to focus on Where you intend to go and Why.
* Design is necessary to concentrate on What you need to do and When.
* Build is needed to focus on How to best implement the design.
* Operate is required to concentrate on Who needs to be responsible for which tasks.

"Managed in a holistic way and in the right order, these four steps are essential to improve knowledge work productivity and reinvent Enterprise." He offers principles to reconsider and reinvent the following foundational areas to improve faster and become more sustainable:

* Corporate hierarchy and vertical productivity
* Functionitis and horizontal productivity
* Company meetings and project productivity
* Socialized costs and free riders
* Enterprise property rights
* Asset redeployment

Proving and Prototype a Knowledge Work Productivity Enterprise: Bergstrand took his doctoral project from theory to the real world by creating a working model from a "clean sheet of paper with real customers and employees," integrating theory and practice. After he developed the company based on the Envision, Design, Build, and Operate framework, Bergstrand applied his principles:

* Work to increasingly help your customers be more productive
* Work to increasingly turn your Enterprise into an economic pass through, such as no caps to compensation with very few socialized costs, linked to personalize benefits. Surplus profits were redistributed based on employee contribution tracked by points, related to the company's top three business drivers: (1) selling great work; (2) delivering great work; and (3) recruiting and developing a diverse group of great people.
* Work to increasingly decouple status and rank from total compensation that helped the company continually improve its knowledge work productivity. Also directly rewarding those who generate the firm's profits.
* Work to increasingly redesign your corporate and personal infrastructure by allowing flexibility in the choice of personal tools to get their job done, but within corporate data security requirements.
* Work to increasingly reduce Enterprise transactions an moving parts
* Work to increasingly replace judging with coaching

The Strategic Profiling Tool: Bergstrand created a new survey, unlike the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, David Keirsey Temperament Sorter, and the John Lopker Pictures of Personality. This tool was designed in conjunction with the principles of the book. The opposing forces of knowledge, work, subjective, objective described in his framework, produce fifteen different knowledge worker Strategic Profiles. Each profile is unique with respect to productivity-related strengths and weaknesses. The key to using this tool is having the insight to use the profiles results to better manage projects, so you can reinvent your Enterprise better and faster. Below is a summary view of a sample Strategic Profile.

Bergstrand is an expert in Enterprise reinvention and knowledge work productivity management. Bergstrand is the founder of Brand Velocity, Inc., described by The Drucker Institute as the smartest company you have never heard of. He is also the creator of the Strategic Profiling instrument, a companion tool to help organization accelerate their large Enterprise projects. Bergstrand earned his Master of Science degree in management from Stanford University, a Master of Arts degree in advertising from Michigan State University, and is a doctoral candidate in the Executive Leadership Program at The George Washington University.

Conclusion: With his book, Bergstrand answers the question, "What is the most conducive organizational structure, processes, and principles that allows a company to be productive?" Knowledge work productivity requires turning inputs into outputs, converting knowledge into action. By rapidly doing so, the Enterprise creates sustainable competitive advantage in the Knowledge Age. To reinvent your Enterprise, a better structure is needed to produce better results. Bergstrand's Reinvent Your Enterprise is roadmap for managers and leaders adapt their company to the Knowledge Age.

While Reinvent Your Enterprise is targeted at managers and leaders who are hoping to improve their company's results, this book is also invaluable for the knowledge worker in the trenches who aspires to become a manager or leader in an organization. Reinvent Your Enterprise teaches the fundamentals of knowledge work, knowledge work management, and how to build a better knowledge work productivity system to achieve corporate goals and create a sustainable competitive advantage.

Jack Bergstrand lucidly and succinctly offers a bridge to negotiate the transition today's businesses must make in order to survive and prosper in the rapidly changing world of knowledge work productivity, light years away from the 20th century manual work productivity standard. Solidly grounded on Peter Drucker's axiom that knowledge work productivity is the greatest challenge to management in the 21st century and using his own personal business experiences as examples, Mr. Bergstrand delivers an analytic framework that will enable any business to harness untapped potential and talent within its workforce to efficiently and profitably confront challenges and achieve strategic goals. Unlike many books of this type which are primarily theoretical, Mr. Bergstrand's book leaves the reader with a specific tool kit that could be life-changing for any business enterprise. The underlying principles are geared not only to achieve success for the enterprise, but importantly, to promote self-fulfillment and enterprise identification for an increasingly diverse workforce, a win-win for all concerned. I am recommending this book as must reading to all of my business clients and their executive management team members.

In his book, Jack Bergstrand distills many years of business knowledge, consulting experience, and relevant literature into a clear and compelling framework that provides anyone who wants to increase a group's or organization's knowledge work productivity the means to do so. At a time in history, where the traditional methods of motivating workers and measuring their productivity - largely grounded in the assumptions of the Industrial Age - are presenting challenges to managers who have to steer their organizations through the rapidly changing business climate that is driven by the Information Age, this book provides a refreshing perspective for organizing and executing work that mainly relies on knowledge workers. Bergstrand's approach is simple, yet scalable, and holds the promise to unlock the true potential of collaborative team work.

Inspired by Peter Drucker, Bergstrand sets off on a course - and invites all others who are willing to pursue Drucker's vision of conquering the next frontier of management science - to embark on a journey to transform organizations through knowledge work. This book is very easy to follow and will allow managers to develop a unique lens through which they can see brand new opportunities for improving the overall productivity in their organizations. New and seasoned managers alike should find this book illuminating.

This is a terrific read for everyone from business school students to CEOs on improving productivity and effectiveness of people who work with their brains instead of their hands. Jack Bergstrand brings Peter Drucker's concepts and ideas to life and shows everyone "how" to do the things Drucker thought should be done years ago. A terrific book!!

As Companines look to be competitive there is a need to "run" and "change" their business simultaneously. As the "change" component is designed (especially if an ERP program is the change approach), looking at "manual" work and "knowledge" work differently, can be the difference between real strategic advantage and tactical operational improvement. The results can be better returns, better competitive capabilities and an increased appititite for change. Jack Bergstrand picks up on Peter Druckers belief that "Knowledge Work Productivity" is critical to our enterprises and how they get reinvented in the next century. He then delivers a very well laid out approach on how to address knowledge work. It is an important read for any Executive undergoing or contemplating enterprise change projects.

Bergstrand draws on two decades in a major corporation (Coca Cola, U.S. and Canada), his experience launching a consulting business, and education (up to the doctoral level) as well as a solid background in the thinking of management guru Peter Drucker to formulate a model that can be used to implement Enterprise (i.e., large) initiatives involving knowledge workers.

I read this book as part of an ongoing effort to understand how businesses can utilize knowledge workers efficiently, having been a knowledge worker (project manager, manager, now university professor) who spends a huge amount of time burdened with clerical tasks that formerly would have been assigned to support personnel, which I have seen create a massive, costly drain of time and energy.

Bergstrand offers innovative suggestions that he's test-driven for compensating knowledge workers, and for resource allocation to reward productivity. He recognizes that personality, as well as skills, fits into the equation of matching a person to a job. His free assessment tool (at [...]) identifies strengths people have across the four stages of project implementation (envision, design, build, operate).

This very readable book has a bibliography of 250 sources and a wealth of real-life experiences to ground the theories it offers. Read it!

Reinvent Your Enterprise holds some familiar and valuable concepts for me. As a facilitator of high performance cultures, I completely agree with Bergstrand's stages and staged approach to change, although my experiences have surfaced some challenges to the change management/reinvention process.

21st century environments are unique, as Bergstrand so well describes. Knowledge work is so different from manual work, and yet performance and people's behaviors are often still rewarded and reinforced with traditional, manual work incentives. Pursuing long term versus short term results is a perfect example of this dilemma. Often I find that people can articulate and espouse understanding of the stages, but have difficulty changing the behaviors that will really make a difference to their performance. Leaders need to understand what actually rewards and reinforces knowledge work and follow through on those behaviors.

Bergstrand's work is ground-breaking in the balance of enablement, planning, and execution that he suggests. His chapter, Prototyping a Productive Knowledge Work Company, effectively addresses the need and ability to change a culture to understand and promote high performance and productivity. His suggestions for reinforcing and building new behaviors into the fiber of an organization are a solid step towards ensuring success.

Berstrand is a Peter Drucker student and continues on Druckers path. Drucker is one of the greatest management thinkers of all times.

Jack Bergstand proposes a 4 step circular framework:

1 - Envision (This is the key to most things in life. Start with the vision)
2 - Design
3 - Operate
4 - Build -

Then back to 1

Things I liked about the book:

It takes a holistic systems approach recognizing that it is the whole system that needs to work and everything is interwoven. A change in one part affects all others.

Bergstand preaches simplification.

He re-emphasizes the need for speed and responsiveness. He points out how a small lack of responsiveness can mushroom quickly to create high inefficiencies.

Identify bottlenecks (obvious but needed)

He talked about the formal and the informal organization. Often it is the informal one that needs to be managed.

Good lines from the book:

"We must do more than improve our enterprises incrementally". I like this concept. One reason to ask a big how question like how do I sell 50% more is it challenges us to do things differently. If we just asked how could we increase sales by 6%, we would think - just do more of the same - work a bit harder, make one more call etc.

"Increasing from 2 people to 3 people on a project does not increase the complexity by 50% but it increases it by 200%". So true.

"Knowledge work is less visible and difficult to manage because it resides in people's heads"

It is a good book. Lots of annotation. Simple enough to understand (not overly academic which might make it more useful) It inspired thought which made it good.

Great ideas in the Book. I am referring this book to all my clients and friends who own a business or are aspiring to own a business someday. Makes a lot of good business sense.