Read:- Executive Summary / Reviews
The Age of Heretics is a history of the social movement to change large mainstream corporations for the better. Based on six years of research and interviews, it tells the stories of pioneers of the "organizational change" movements and the effects that they have had upon the world. It covers the years between 1950 and 1980, and includes in-depth biographies of:
• Eric Trist (founder of sociotechnical theory);
• Robert Blake (iconoclastic developer of modern consulting
practice);
• Pierre Wack (Royal Dutch/Shell's scenario planning wizard);
• Herman Kahn (300-lb. "neo-stoic" futurist who
coined the expression "thinking the unthinkable");
• Willis Harman (who popularized the idea of "paradigm
shift")
• Edie Seashore (who broke into the "mens' club"
of OD consulting);
• Warren Bennis (golden boy of organizational change, who
actually got to run a mainstream organization);
• Tom Peters (who based In Search of Excellence on what he
learned by escaping McKinsey's ordinary way of doing things);
• Chris Argyris (who told his clients they could fire him
with 30 seconds' notice, and he'd only demand four hours in which they
explained their decision to him);
• Jay Forrester (whose understanding of computer and hydraulic
systems, translated into efforts to help GE sell toasters, led to the
systems theory underlying the MIT Beer Game);
• Saul Alinsky (who invented the shareholder resolution as
a method of changing corporate conduct);
...and many more significant influencers of organizational change and
learning.
But The Age of Heretics is not just meant to be a history. It is an inquiry
into the precise way in which corporations have changed our world, and
what it means to be a hero or heroine in a world bounded by immense institutions.
Age of Heretics Executive Summary:
An overview of the book's basic ideas about the "numbers culture" that pervades business, and the ways that people can be more effective heretics within the system.