The authors build upon a foundation of evolving stakeholder requirements to manifest increasingly boundary-less globalized workplaces. Case studies from companies such as Netflix, HP, Capital One, and Google provide snapshots of organizations that have set aside management paradigms, choosing more agile and strategically applicable models that surround a new definition of work.
Innovation, efficiency, balance, and sustainability are required for organizations to respond differently when considering how to develop and reward their people. The authors herald cultivating a "future focus" in the short, medium, and long range as critical to transforming organizations from building-bound operations to virtualized, strategically adept entities.
According to the book, sustainable management organizations (SMOs) will rely on multiple stakeholders and capitalize on collaboration and networking. Work will be controlled by employee and customer input. SMOs will be highly transparent internally while maintaining an opaque exterior. Leadership of SMOs will guide employees in a flexible and goal-oriented manner. Shared leadership and transformational learning will provide new opportunities for value creation that honor diversity and facilitate new brand identities.
Additionally, environmental and social trends will become increasingly important. The SMO work system norm will be focused on reducing the size of an organization's carbon footprint through multiple stakeholder teams in distributed environments, thanks to technological solutions.
Change and adaptability represent the lifeblood of SMO organization design, which revolves around strategic, iterative project activities in place of rigid job descriptions. Performance management will no longer be a once-a-year process owned solely by HR, but rather driven by well-trained appraisers who use technology to regularly guide and motivate behavior. In this way, the authors argue, SMOs will be positioned to quickly respond to complex and cross-functional challenges that cohesively drive sustainable effectiveness.
While not all organizations can become entirely virtualized, there are valuable lessons in Management Reset that would be well-applied when attracting, retaining, and motivating quality employees to meet rapidly changing stakeholder needs. I give this book three cups.