Slow Leadership: Civilizing The Organization (Hardcover)

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Product Description

Described as "a breakthrough book," "Slow Leadership" demolishes the myths that support an adrenaline-fueled view of business, showing instead why we must move away from our obsession with short-term results, towards a better long-term understanding of what makes working life worthwhile. As corporations become ever more obsessed with short-term goals and "meeting the numbers," people are being sacrificed to build profit, a long-hours culture is steadily taking over, and restless, macho-style management is becoming the norm. After a career spent in management on both sides of the Atlantic, Adrian W. Savage sees this situation for what it is: the natural response of leaders who believe they must boost profits by the quickest possible means, however unpleasant the consequences, because relying on innovation and creative thinking is too slow and uncertain for a world of global competition. "Slow Leadership" recognizes that good leadership takes time, thought, intelligence, attention, and wisdom. By rejecting instant answers, outdated management dogma, and the trappings of macho-style, "grab-n-go" management, this book offers a practical alternative to today's brute force approaches to increasing productivity that produce short-term wins at the cost of long-term exhaustion and collapse. The style of management that most often results from this pressure for speed and quick fixes, "Hamburger Management," is like the menu in a typical fast-food outlet: simple, plain, repetitive, and based on whatever is fastest and cheapest. "Slow Leadership" offers effective ways for returning civilization and humanity to organizations, without lowering productivity. This fascinating and provocative book will open managers' mind to organizational truths that are seldom acknowledged - and even less often acted upon.

About the Author

Adrian Savage is a writer, an Englishman, and a retired corporate executive--more or less in that order. He took a Master's degree at Cambridge, worked in a range of organizations ranging from central and local government to giant multinationals, taught in a British business school, founded two successful consulting companies, and ended his career as CEO of a corporation based in California. He now lives in Arizona, where he enjoys the desert and its amazing wildlife--not to mention a very different climate from the land where he was born.

Adrian is the founder of Slow Leadership, a worldwide movement to produce more civilized and humane workplaces. His first book, A Spark from Heaven? The Place of Potential in Organizational and Individual Development, was published in 2002.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Pusch Ridge Publishing (September 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0978846702
• ISBN-13: 978-0978846701
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,637,239 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)