New book by Don Young: Enterprise Rules!
Re-discovering the foundations of high achievement - and building on them.
Published by Profile Books, London, February 2013.
This is very much a book for today. It is hard to think of a time when people have been so disenchanted with commercial enterprises, so distrustful of politicians, so put upon by those who are ripping them off and so unhopeful about their own futures.
The messages of Enterprise Rules are hugely important. Organisations that manage to provide meaning to employees, satisfaction to customers and a net contribution to society can expect to prosper in the long term. This has been known for a long time, ever since the great Quaker entrepreneurs of the nineteenth century; and contemporary research indicates that the underlying values of sustainably high achieving enterprises have remained constant over time. Unfortunately, the focus of much contemporary enterprise has become distorted by over-emphasis on short-term financial gains. The result is that many value creating enterprises are undermined, customers are short changed, people are exploited and the community impoverished.
It is time to rediscover an ethical, healthy approach to creating sustainable value through well-founded organisations, motivated and educated staff and consistent investment in people and innovation. Understanding how to blend these ingredients together is a prime leadership need for our times.
Rediscovering how to create sustainable value for all stakeholders is a critical building block in securing healthy societies.
In Enterprise Rules, Don Young draws both on the best research on what builds high performance and also on a lifetime of his and colleagues' hard and sometimes comical experience of success and failure. In a very readable way, he has blended experience with a rich understanding of the economic, financial, organisational, psychological contributions to building high achievement. This is topped by a profound examination of the positive and negative aspects of organisational politics and drawn together in practical guidance of how to plan and implement sustainable performance improvement.
Enterprise Rules is published by Profile Books
Paperback ISBN: 9781781251164
eBook ISBN: 9781847659620
Available from Amazon
and Waterstones
Endorsements
Margareta Hult-Gardmo
“The best integrated book on management that I have ever seen! The economic, social and political aspects of management are very well woven into the book in an interesting and often amusing way.
Margareta Hult-Gardmo
To be recommended to managers and students of management alike.
It is an interesting notion that many of the traits of the highly achieving company presented in the book relate very closely to the main characteristics of the Scandinavian culture. Happy Coincidence?”
Former head of Organization & Management department
Linnaeus University Business School, Sweden
Organisation & Management consultant
Prof Gareth Morgan
“The book presents an important and timely message. A must read for anyone concerned with effective, high achievement organization and management with positive implications for the future of work and society”
Prof Gareth Morgan
Distinguished Research Professor, Schulich School of Business,York
University, Toronto
Alistair Wilson
“As the chief executive of a social enterprise business, I was very pleased to see a book that considers the wider roles of all kinds of enterprise in society and emphasises the ethical and human aspects of business as critical ingredients in fostering high achievement.
Alistair Wilson Chief Executive, School for Social Entrepreneurs, an international organisation for developing social entrepreneurs and their enterprises in UK, Canada and Australia.
This book is very readable, sometimes profound, amusing at times but above all it is hugely educational. It places learning at the centre of strategy and must be valuable for people who are interested in business, the economy and the health of our society.”
Professor Karel Williams
“Most of the books offering recipes for business success should be left on the shelf. Don Young's very accessible new book is the exception and is well worth reading because Enterprise Rules combines a broad view of business in society, scepticism about possibilities of transformation and a concern for specifics. All in a practical guide which will be of equal interest to managers facing problems and to others like journalists or politicians thinking about what management can do”
Professor of Accounting and Political Economy, University of Manchester
Karel Williams is director of the Economic and Social Research Council funded Centre for Research on Socio Cultural Change (CRESC) where he leads research by a Manchester Business School team into financialization and financial innovation
