Samuel B. Bacharach

Organizations, like people, get stuck! They get ensnared in routines and processes, and they fall back into old habits. This is the dangerous period of inertia, the period that precedes failure, when organizations show signs of sluggishness. In Transforming the Clunky Organization Samuel B. Bacharach specifies why organizations fall into patterns of inertia and details the critical pragmatic leadership skills leaders need to regain organizational momentum. From Alfred Sloan, to Lee Iacocca, to Lou Gerstner, to Indra Nooyi, to Steve Jobs, to Jeff Bezos, Bacharach argues that their pragmatic leadership skills assured that their organization did not get trapped by the doldrums of inertia. He employs case illustrations to identify clunky tendencies and inertia within organizations across a wide range of business sectors including technology, finance, banking, home entertainment, and retail. Illustrations are drawn from organizations such as Amazon, Apple, Borders, Merrill Lynch, Nintendo, Starbucks, and Unilever, among many others. Bacharach argues that in order to achieve their potential, organizations need to be perpetually involved in two activities. The first is discovery—organizational leaders need to continuously explore new opportunities and transfer new insights into new products, processes, and directions. The second is delivery—organizational leaders need to be able to mobilize support for ideas, sustain and drive these ideas forward, and achieve results. Successful discovery and delivery allows organizations to truly thrive and continuously meet their potential. Expanding on The Agenda Mover, the first book in the BLG Pragmatic Leadership Series, this book offers a roadmap for individual leaders at all levels to create the agility and synergy needed for the continuous organized flow of information and the movement of ideas. Clunky organizations need leaders that are explorers and innovators in the discovery phase and mobilizers and sustainers to deliver solutions. Transforming the Clunky Organization provides the keys for necessary behaviors that allow leaders to successfully break inertia and foster agility. This book will appeal to leaders at all levels within organizations, change-management consultants, and business-school professors.

Organizations, like people, get stuck! They get ensnared in routines and processes, and they fall back into old habits. This is the dangerous period of inertia, the period that precedes failure, when organizations show signs of sluggishness. In Transforming the Clunky Organization Samuel B. Bacharach specifies why organizations fall into patterns of inertia and details the critical pragmatic leadership skills leaders need to regain organizational momentum. From Alfred Sloan, to Lee Iacocca, to Lou Gerstner, to Indra Nooyi, to Steve Jobs, to Jeff Bezos, Bacharach argues that their pragmatic leadership skills assured that their organization did not get trapped by the doldrums of inertia. He employs case illustrations to identify clunky tendencies and inertia within organizations across a wide range of business sectors including technology, finance, banking, home entertainment, and retail. Illustrations are drawn from organizations such as Amazon, Apple, Borders, Merrill Lynch, Nintendo, Starbucks, and Unilever, among many others. Bacharach argues that in order to achieve their potential, organizations need to be perpetually involved in two activities. The first is discovery—organizational leaders need to continuously explore new opportunities and transfer new insights into new products, processes, and directions. The second is delivery—organizational leaders need to be able to mobilize support for ideas, sustain and drive these ideas forward, and achieve results. Successful discovery and delivery allows organizations to truly thrive and continuously meet their potential. Expanding on The Agenda Mover, the first book in the BLG Pragmatic Leadership Series, this book offers a roadmap for individual leaders at all levels to create the agility and synergy needed for the continuous organized flow of information and the movement of ideas. Clunky organizations need leaders that are explorers and innovators in the discovery phase and mobilizers and sustainers to deliver solutions. Transforming the Clunky Organization provides the keys for necessary behaviors that allow leaders to successfully break inertia and foster agility. This book will appeal to leaders at all levels within organizations, change-management consultants, and business-school professors.

Organizations, institutions, and individuals get stuck in spite of their innovative ideas and ambitious agendas. Never has the timing been better for a book that cuts through the theoretical jargon and delineates the exact political and managerial skills leaders need to move agendas forward. Whether you're a team leader trying to lead change and innovation in a large corporation, an entrepreneur trying to gain support, a politician trying to expand your coalition, or an individual trying to advance your career and build networks, The Agenda Mover will give you the political and managerial leadership skills necessary to achieve results. Based on the premise that leadership competencies and skills can be learned, The Agenda Mover is the inaugural volume of the practitioner-oriented Pragmatic Leadership Series published in association with Cornell University Press. Each volume emphasizes specific skills of execution that leaders at all levels need to master. Visit pragmaticleadershipseries.com to learn more about the series.

Organizations, institutions, and individuals get stuck in spite of their innovative ideas and ambitious agendas. Never has the timing been better for a book that cuts through the theoretical jargon and delineates the exact political and managerial skills leaders need to move agendas forward. Whether you're a team leader trying to lead change and innovation in a large corporation, an entrepreneur trying to gain support, a politician trying to expand your coalition, or an individual trying to advance your career and build networks, The Agenda Mover will give you the political and managerial leadership skills necessary to achieve results. Based on the premise that leadership competencies and skills can be learned, The Agenda Mover is the inaugural volume of the practitioner-oriented Pragmatic Leadership Series published in association with Cornell University Press. Each volume emphasizes specific skills of execution that leaders at all levels need to master. Visit pragmaticleadershipseries.com to learn more about the series.

Evidence from both local and national surveys suggests that substance misuse and abuse among older adults in the United States is a "hidden epidemic" that poses a major threat to the welfare and quality of life of older drinkers and their families, and has significant public health implications. Based on their findings from a 10-year, NIH-funded study of retirement, aging, and substance misuse, Peter Bamberger and Samuel Bacharach examine the complex web of factors contributing to the precipitation and exacerbation of substance problems among older adults. They discuss the individual and public health implications of such problems, as well as some of the evidence-based steps that may be taken to prevent their emergence and help those in need of assistance for policy-makers and health practitioners. This book provides a single-source review of the latest research assessing the magnitude and costs of older-adult substance abuse, as well as detailed analysis of the epidemiology of older-adult substance abuse. The authors provide an analysis of the efficacy of alternative prevention and treatment strategies, and present scientific evidence in a user-friendly format, highlighting extensive interview data to accompany their statistical results. The illustrations offered by these real life cases not only provide a sense of richness and understanding to a complex issue, but also offer a fitting reminder to the reader that this is an issue affecting people we know and families like our own.

"Shedd and Bacharach provide new insights, practical perspectives, and a scholarly justification for changing the archaic structure of our schools and the management of the professionals working in them... This unusually significant book will remain important for a long time to come." --James W. Guthrie, director of Policy Analysis for California Education, School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

The ongoing decline in union membership is generally attributed to an increasingly hostile economic, legal, and managerial environment. Samuel B. Bacharach, Peter A. Bamberger, and William J. Sonnenstuhl argue that the decline may have more to do with a crisis of union legitimacy and member commitment. They further suggest that both problems could be addressed if the unions return to their nineteenth-century, mutual aid-based roots. The authors contend that the labor movement is characterized by two models of union-member relations: the mutual aid logic and the servicing logic. The first predominated in the early days and encouraged a sense of community among members who worked to support one another. In the twentieth century, it was largely replaced by the servicing model, which asks little of members, who remain loyal only if their leaders deliver increasing wages and benefits. Regaining legitimacy and strengthening member commitment can only happen, the authors claim, if mutual aid logic is allowed to return. They examine three unions in the transportation industry to judge the effectiveness of new programs created after the old model.

The ongoing decline in union membership is generally attributed to an increasingly hostile economic, legal, and managerial environment. Samuel B. Bacharach, Peter A. Bamberger, and William J. Sonnenstuhl argue that the decline may have more to do with a crisis of union legitimacy and member commitment. They further suggest that both problems could be addressed if the unions return to their nineteenth-century, mutual aid-based roots. The authors contend that the labor movement is characterized by two models of union-member relations: the mutual aid logic and the servicing logic. The first predominated in the early days and encouraged a sense of community among members who worked to support one another. In the twentieth century, it was largely replaced by the servicing model, which asks little of members, who remain loyal only if their leaders deliver increasing wages and benefits. Regaining legitimacy and strengthening member commitment can only happen, the authors claim, if mutual aid logic is allowed to return. They examine three unions in the transportation industry to judge the effectiveness of new programs created after the old model.