The Self-Defeating Organization

Frustrated managers watch their teams work hard, know their colleagues are smart, yet see the same problem over and over. Customers complain the company no longer lives up to its reputation for quality. Good employees leave; bad employees cut each other down. Revenues slip, even if profits remain steady. Those are signs of a self-defeating organization.

Self-defeating organization aren't stupid, lazy, or lacking in vision. In fact, they have usually enjoyed a history of success. But in that success lie roots of self-defeating behaviors that trip them up when they face stronger competition, a tougher economy, and the need for change. Like people, organizations are guided by their core beliefs and fears. If those core beliefs aren't healthy, companies defeat themselves.

In this insightful boo, consultants Hardy and Schwartz reveal how organizations fall into "low-performance loops," repeating typical self-defeating behaviors. Instead of taking an honest look at them,selves and taking chances, they take a safe, familiar path to failure. Rather than dissect a company's unique problems, executives grab onto the latest management gad. They waste time reminiscing about past success or planning a distant future. Other organizations create a culture of such chaos that no one feels accountable. Then, when things go wrong, the group looks around for someone else to blame. The authors map these patterns in a broad range oif case studies, from department stores to brokerage houses, factories to software firms.

In The Self-Defeating Organization managers master how to stop their companies' quirks from stopping them. The path to high performance starts with your organization's core beliefs about itself. Define your company positively — by what it does well, not by what it can't do. Tell the truth about its strengths, its situation, and its secret fears. Be open to new ways of doing things. Spread costs and benefits equitable. And make the success that follows part of your new core beliefs. Throughout this book are real stories of individual managers who boldly led their organizations back up that path from self-defeating behavior to success.

Based on their wide experience, Hardy and Schwartz close their book by analyzing which consulting approaches are most useful for the five common types of self-defeating organizations.

• Part One: The Self-Defeating Organizational Patterns
1. The Self-Defeating Organization in Action
2. The Elements of Self-Defeat
3. Self-Defeating Organizational Character
• Part Two: The Low-Performance Loop
4. Core Beliefs and Organizational Fears
5. Reaction and Replication
6. Absorbing Costs
7. Minimizing and Blaming
• Part Three: The High-Performance Loop
8. A Model for Improved Performance
9. Telling the Truth
10. The Open-Minded Organization
11. Sharing Costs and Benefits
12. Maximizing Benefits and Owning Success
13. Shaping Core Beliefs Through Success
• Appendix 1: Summary
• Appendix 2: Counseling the Self-Defeating Organization.

Interesting subject, but hard to get enthusiatic about this book. Mostly old theories.