We live in a curious time, a time when the nature of relationships and communities is increasingly morphing into something never seen before. Throughout human history, people defined themselves fundamentally with respect to place and rooted community. But, now we live in a world of purposes, not a world of places, a world of economic relationships, not community relationships. Increasingly, we now live in markets, organizations and networks. Economic and technological values, therefore, replace traditional values and that's what this book is all about.
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Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
"OnValue and Values by Doug Smith is a radiant, intelligent, wonderfullyreadable book. It is part adventure story in the spirit of RobertPirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, part guidebook forAmerican leaders like In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and RobertWaterman. This impressive book will challenge everyone who reads it andgive them a blueprint for changing their lives. Virtually every part ofAmerican life has become a marketplace, with the pursuit of prosperitydriving out an appreciation of principle. Smith explains how ourunderstanding about the relationship between these elementary conceptshas been turned inside out. As a compelling alternative, he shows howthe pursuit of personal values we hold dear allows us to increase allkinds of value in our lives."
--Lincoln Caplan, Editor and President, Legal Affairs magazine
"In the grand tradition of Aristotle's Politics, Alexis deTocqueville's Democracy in America, and Robert Putman's Bowling Alone,Doug Smith's book On Value and Values is a passionately written,ethically informed, and carefully researched social commentary. Like hisillustrious predecessors, Smith demands that we think differently aboutwhat community means in our own times. Yet unlike most writers concernedwith building community, Smith is unburdened by nostalgia orsentimentality--this book looks forward to a challenging tomorrow, notbackwards at a lost yesterday. Based on deep thought and on an equallydeep practical knowledge of how modern organizations really work, DougSmith teaches us why we may hope for a bright future and what we need todo in order to get there. I will recommend this book to my students--as Irecommend it to everyone seeking to conjoin material success and ethicalvalues in the 21st century."
--Professor Josiah Ober, Department ofClassics and Center for Human Values, Princeton University
"Talking heads on both the Right and the Left toss around the word'community' these days without bothering to explain what they mean. NowDoug Smith has really worked through what respect, trust and opencommunication within non-hierarchical settings can deliver in terms ofproductivity, institutional responsiveness, and recovered vitality forthe polis. This is a profoundly democratic essay, written withimagination and verve, from someone who clearly cares about goodmanagement but who cares even more about the democratic promise."Meaning, not just money: Living better lives in a better world
--Rev. Peter Laarman, Senior Minister, Judson Memorial Church, NewYork City, and founder of The Accountability Campaign
Have we become half human, half dollar?
Our grandparents lived their lives in families, neighborhoods,towns, and nations. We live ours in organizations, markets, networks . .. sharing life with millions of people we know less well, yet dependupon every day. We build value . . . and worry about values.
What is the meaning and direction of our lives in this differentworld? What do we owe each other now? How do we share responsibility fora future that will not shame our children? Writing with courage, andwithout illusion, Doug Smith helps us answer questions like these . . .and offers us a clear path forward.
This book is about bringing value and values back together in ourorganizations, our markets, our networks, our entire lives. It's aboutreinvigorating old values that can still work for us . . . withoutimposing ideologies from a mythical past. It's about leading good,honorable, and fulfilling lives where we are now . . . and building abetter world out of the one we actually live in.
- Values that work for the 21st century--Personal and organizational ethics for an age of markets in which we act as employees, consumers,investors, and networkers
- Shared values, paths, roles, status, and fates--What we share, what we don't, and what it means to take responsibility for the fate of our planet
- Reintegrating our fragmentary lives--How markets and organizations divide value from values--and how we can put them back together
- Rebuilding democracy: beyond anger, apathy, and proceduralism-- Healing democracy and extending it to where we really live together
- Revitalizing old values for the radically different world we actually live in
- How money and ethics were driven so far apart--and what we can do about it
- Living a good life in our organizations, markets, networks, and friends and families
- Beyond individualism only: reinvigorating both the "we" and the "I" in our societies, institutions, and politics
- Taking shared responsibility for making our world safer and saner
Our values and our realities have come apart at the seams. It's timeto put them back together. We were taught 19th century values for a lifeof neighborhoods and extended families, but we're living in 21st centuryorganizations, networks, and global markets in a world that measureseverything in money. That's why we struggle to find meaning . . . tolive a good life . . . to make our societies work. This book is aboutrevitalizing our values for our world. It's about building good andhonorable lives, stronger and more courageous relationships where we are. . . not fantasizing a return to some lost golden age. It's aboutfinding a new vision for ourselves and our institutions, so we can goforward, not back . . . and succeed morally, not just financially.
About the Author
Doug Smith has drawn the lessons for On Value and Values from hiswork across more than 40 industries and professions as a teacher,lawyer, writer, historian, consultant, and thinker. Named in The GuruGuide as one of the worldÕs leading management thinkers, he is author orcoauthor of five books, including Make Success Measurable, TheDiscipline of Teams, Taking Charge of Change, and the internationalbestsellers The Wisdom of Teams and Fumbling the Future: How XeroxInvented Then Ignored Personal Computing. His work has been featured inBusiness Week, The Wall Street Journal, The Harvard Business Review, TheNew York Times, and The McKinsey Quarterly, and has been cited forinnovation and impact by experts ranging from Tom Peters to WarrenBennis. Smith holds a B.A. from Yale and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.He lives in LaGrangeville, New York
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
On Value and Value,
By Jonathan J. Prinz (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Value and Values: Thinking Differently About We in an Age of Me (Hardcover)
Most books give us something, but land on the shelf never to be read again. Doug Smith's On Value and Values is one that I expect to be returning to regularly. Beautifully written, this provocative and thoughtful book cracks the code of what makes things different in the world in which we live. Finally I understand the profound difference between living in a world of place and one of purpose. It answers the question of whatever happened to WE and provides some direction for how the ME can function in this environment. It's a must read, and a keeper.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Us Them,
By "wayofgo" (Washington DC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Value and Values: Thinking Differently About We in an Age of Me (Hardcover)
On Value and Values is a great book on how to actionably get out of the mindset of Us versus Them; Value to the negation of Values. It's akin to the Lakota "All My Relations" in that it asks us to rethink how we think of ourselves. We are not one citizen/employee of one country/company, but part of an enormous web of relationships. Our actions affect and are affected by everything that we do, even if it seems insignificantly local, place-based, or otherwise. Using real-life examples and with some real prescriptions for how to escape dangerous myopic perspectives, Smith weaves a path out of Us versus Them. Terrific!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More important than just a good read,
By ach (tulsa, ok) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Value and Values: Thinking Differently About We in an Age of Me (Hardcover)
On Value and Values took me by surprise-it's so much more than I expected. I was introduced to the book at the outset of an extensive strategic planning project, and I was prepared for another temporarily interesting management book. Instead, I found a persistently thought provoking work of social and moral philosophy that compelled me to introduce it to others in one of the organizations in which I participate.
The arresting image of "the twin towers of market democracies-political liberty and self-interested economics" introduces Doug Smith's thesis that we today suffer from an extremism that has apotheosized economic value and self-gratification, and which imperils our ability to bring to fruition the "best in our natures." The importance of On Value and Values is that it diagnoses our situation, grounds it in a reality that is true for millions of us, and proposes solutions that in part draw on Smith's exceptional organizational and management expertise. This is important because central to Smith's viewpoint is the idea that organizations have supplanted the "world of places" as the venues where people actually are bound together by shared values and fates. And it is thus through organizations that individuals acting together can bring about the change that will reunite value and values.
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