8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Spiritual Health and the Emplowered Workplace, January 21, 2003
This review is from: The Soul of an Organization: Understanding the Values That Drive Successful Corporate Cultures (Paperback)
Up front, Gallagher informs his reader that the one purpose of this book is "to show how your values, and not your business practices, are what drive your success...[and] knowing this secret is perhaps the most strategic competitive factor in today's marketplace." I agree completely with him that there are certain keys "to empower workplaces of any size to succeed at a level far beyond what most people imagine." He carefully organizes his material within 11 chapters which, if rigorously examined in sequence and then their key ideas are carefully coordinated (indeed integrated) by decision-makers, a culture in literally any organization (regardless of size or nature) can become and remain a source of nutrition and (yes) nutrition for everyone involved. Gallagher focuses his reader's attention on several quite different companies which include The Vanguard Group, Wendy's, AutoNation, Dell Computer, Cirque du Soleil, and the St. Paul Saints. The same core values and non-negotiable principles which these companies not only illustrate but indeed celebrate can also be found in other exemplary companies such as Edward Jones, Container Store, Alston & Bird, Xilinx, and Adobe Systems.
Gallagher helps his reader to understand her or his own business culture, how "strategists" drive operational excellence, how "motivators" create a positive working environment, how "team builders" maximize the ROI of human capital, how the "nimble" help to establish and strengthen an infrastructure for change, how "customer champions" build an enduring service culture, how the "passionate" help to create a sense of business as a way of life, and how "visionaries" provide their organization with an awareness of a higher purpose. He also explains why so many corporate cultures fail and why rigorous and comprehensive "cultural due diligence" must be completed prior to mergers, acquisitions, and other growth strategies.
He concludes this brilliant book with some timely observations: "While corporate culture has become a fashionable term to describe the core values that drive an organization, it is also very misleading, because corporate implies that corporate culture is purely the domain of large corporations and high-flying CEOs. It also implies a certain powerlessness on the part of the individual. In reality, neither could be further from the truth." He goes on to reiterate that every organization of any size "has its own culture, and its leaders exert tremendous influence over the values that drive that culture." However, each individual within any culture has the power to define the values within her or his own working environment. At least to some extent, each individual also has the power to change the current values of the organization. Of course, there are some situations which become intolerable, situations which lack both meaning and purpose for certain people.
Gallagher insists (and again, I agree with him completely) that, ultimately, the soul of any organization is no more and no less than the shared values of that organization as revealed in the behavior of those involved. When lists of the most admired companies are formulated, it is no coincidence that those on the list are also the most profitable within their respective industries. For each of them, culture IS strategy. Decision-makers who challenge that are among those in greatest need of what Gallagher offers -- with eloquence as well as precision -- in this book.
Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read Daniel Goleman's Primal Leadership, David Maister's Practice What You Preach, and Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba's Creating Customer Evangelists.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Less than I hoped for, December 7, 2007
This review is from: The Soul of an Organization: Understanding the Values That Drive Successful Corporate Cultures (Paperback)
While not a badly written book, it somehow completely failed to deliver on it's title as far as I was concerned. The book is primarily stories about the specific practices of named companies but for whatever reason I found little in it that was useful in terms of extending it to the real world. Definitely not the content I was looking for.
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