The implementation of new ideas in organizations is often hampered by the political dynamics of lateral relationships. The authors of this book offer a balance of theory and cases designed to give managers and executives strategies for dealing with power relationships in an effective way. This book highlights common mistakes people make in managing lateral relationships. Most problems concern misunderstandings about the political realities that arise from underlying power distribution inherent in any organization. The authors offer a roadmap based on real-life dilemmas faced by both new...

Organizations pour billions of dollars into programs that in the end prove to be nothing but fads--short lived enthusiasms with little purpose other than to make those who initiate and promote them rich. Brindle and Stearns take a look at these vogues and fashions, and find that over a history of at least a century, there is continuity to, and similarities among them. Fads are both product and process, they find, tied to tensions in the workplace and to those who too quickly profess solutions to problems these tensions cause. The authors shed new light on such fads, examining how they...