Under New Management: How Leading Organizations Are Upending Business as Usual Hardcover – March 15, 2016

David Burkus's new offering is a great read that puts much of the "new" thoughts about workplace culture into one book. It's not so much that he advocates for any of these ideas (some sensible, others controversial), but that he provides multiple perspectives on each of them and allow you to draw your own conclusions. I would be a HUGE fan of several of them, and have been saying so for years, but many managers live in a vacuum and have no idea the world has changed!!

For instance, eliminating the annual employee review is an idea that should be implemented immediately. The "open office" concept is a train wreck. But what would you think about paying people to quit? Or outlawing email? Or making salaries transparent (YEOW!)? Burkus puts 13 ideas into the book that have made their way into parts of the corporate universe; you'll enjoy reading them because most are probably ideas you haven't considered.

Grab a copy; I highly recommend that you do. If nothing else, you need to know what's happening out there, but I suspect that you will enjoy the easy-reading style AND the information the book contains.

I've been on both sides of the management coin. I've been in management, and I've been managed. I have an idea of what works for me and what doesn't. In this book, David Burkus shows that many of the management practices that were developed in the early 20th century to manage line workers don't work today. Even some that have evolved over time need to change. He identifies 13 items that need to change. They are:
1. Outlaw Email
2. Put Customers Second
3. Lose the Standard Vacation Policy
4. Pay People to Quit
5. Make Salaries Transparent
6. Ban Noncompetes
7. Ditch Performance Appraisals
8. Hire as a Team
9. Write the Org Chart in Pencil
10. Close Open Offices
11. Take Sabbaticals
12. Fire the Managers
13. Celebrate Departures.

Some of these sound counterintuitive at first glance, but he makes the case, with examples of companies that have tried them, that they can actually work. Some of this is not new. For example, the idea of scrapping the standard vacation policy was explored in Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson. They argued, as does David Burkus, that as long as the work is done accurately and on time, it shouldn't matter if you're at your desk for a certain time each day. There is some freshness to this book, though, from the use of real world examples. Some of them are modified from what he thinks. For example, the chapter on outlaw e-mail could be retitled outlaw internal e-mail. If a client is emailing you something important, you'd better be ready to take it. Space alone prohibits me from going into detail about every chapter.

One thing I wish the book had done more of is to show instances where the item in the chapter title was tried, and it didn't work. There is some of this, but there could be more. In the chapter on salaries, he discusses a company called SumAll, which has fixed, but transparent, salaries. You're assigned to a salary level, and there is apparently no negotiation. When I saw that, I thought of Ellen Pao, former CEO at Reddit. Ms Pao came to Reddit after losing a discrimination suit against her former employer, an investment firm. The jury returned the verdict in favor of the firm. Ms Pao then instituted a no negotiation policy for salaries at Reddit. This was your salary, take it or leave it. It was supposed to take the pressure off people who didn't feel comfortable negotiating, which some studies have shown many women are. Ms Pao may still have been reeling from her loss in court. At any rate, the policy was universally panned, not just at Reddit, but on other social media and the regular media. It probably led to her exit from Reddit. I believe the policy has since been rescinded. I'm not sure if salaries at Reddit were disclosed within the company or not. This would have been a good example for the book.

The author does emphasize flexibility. There is no one size fits all solution. For example, I'm a CPA who does taxes. The policy on vacations would have to be modified. January 1-April 15, no extended vacations other than medical or death in the family. The rest of the year, the schedule is much more flexible. That's what I like about this book. It doesn't attempt to impose a solution. it suggests a solution, and leaves it to the individual companies to implement it, realizing that it may not work for everyone. All in all, a good book.

I like that this one book has really brought out some of the most striking and different ideas in business. The author does a very good job of combining them in one book and makes it feel fresh. Some of the ideas have been around for some time, like Amazon and Zappos, but nonetheless, they are great ideas to help your evaluate your own company and whether it is keeping up with the times.

The books that engage me most, are the ones that question preconceived and widely accepted notions. David has done a masterful job of blending storytelling, cutting edge research, and action steps for how to improve management strategies and techniques in the 21st century.

My favorite chapter is "Outlawing Email". David makes a compelling case as to why email is killing employee engagement and productivity, and how we can remove this daily activity to retain more employees, help them become more productive, and improve your business.

Thank you for putting this out into the world, David.

David Burkus has laid out research based ideas that can seem radical, and even impossible, at first glance, but he has drawn on the success of businesses small and large, polling, and research to lay out the beginning steps to real change for the good. The book asks its readers to think about a business world where trust and transparency top the values list of management. With the proven success of organizations around the world to back him up, David Burkus convincingly presents ways to put employee success first, to increase employee engagement and wellbeing, so that employees, the business, and its customers all win big. With chapters that discuss radical ideas like banning email and unlimited vacation, the book certainly has its shock value, but the way these and other ideas are explained and backed up with real-world examples, it all stops seeming so extreme and begins feeling like exactly the way business should be. Burkus openly admits that not every idea he presents will be right for every business and that there is much more to consider than one book can present, but even if all this book does is get you thinking about change in a more positive light, it will have been well worth your time to read.

As someone who heads an organization and reads quite a bit about leadership, I really enjoyed this book because it operated on two levels for me. It gave me plenty of affirmation for some of the things I'm trying, but at the same time it introduced me to some new ideas and examples. Now I can make my cases more strongly. So while it didn't stretch/challenge me the way I like for books to, it still provided great fodder for thought. And if someone is not well versed in current thinking on new leadership models, it's a great, thorough and thoughtful introduction.