The Reengineering Alternative: A Plan for Making Your Current Culture Work

by William E. Schneider

In The Reengineering Alternative, William Schneider challenges organizations to look within for their competitive weapons: at their inherent strengths, objectives, and most important, the corporate culture. Specifically, he defines the four basic types of cultures and the corporate behaviors, the traditions, and the leadership and management approaches characteristic of them. These models serve as guidelines for understanding any organization - including those of your business partners and your competition. You'll also find a questionnaire for determining the nature of your organization: which corporate culture it mirrors and which change and management techniques will likely succeed within it. This thoroughly researched, pioneering book will prove invaluable before, during, and after any type of organizational change - corporate mergers / acquisitions, global expansion, quality initiatives, and more.

Genres: Nonfiction

216 pages, Hardcover

First published March 28, 1994

Reviews

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled on this book while reading the "An Agile Adoption and Transformation Survival Guide" minibook by Michael Sahota (see http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/agile-...).

After a brief introduction to meaning and importance of organizational culture, William E. Schneider presents a questionnaire helping to identify your core corporate culture. In the following four chapters the four core cultures

- Control Culture
- Collaboration Culture
- Competence Culture
- Cultivation Culture

are described in detail. The book ends with two chapters elaborating on the genesis of organizational culture and on a framework for developing your organization.

I read this book during this years summer vacation and it helped me a lot in thinking about my current employment, my current customer and past experiences. I plan to use everything I've learned from this book and the minibook cited above in consulting teams wether or not they are ready to go the agile way.

[Pavleras · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting if you want to have a clear model of organizational cultures and a framework. from my point of view, the assessment is the weakest part nevertheless the book is worth reading. I'm currently investigating other frameworks so I can't compare at the moment

[Paul Boos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book following a recommendation from Michael Sahota (thanks!). I found this extremely helpful. I'm not convinced that all cultures are good (regardless of industry - I haven't bought into control and competence cultures necessarily being a good thing for society), but this book is great at helping you understanding how to leverage current cultural strengths as leverage points for changing it.

[Josh Whitmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great book to help you understand how and why your company behaves the way it does. This book helped me make sense of some of the interesting decisions my company has made and it's helped me grasp how to better approach change initiatives within the organization.

[Carole Skees · Rating 4 out of 5]

A personality-test-like tool to describe business cultures that will leave readers inspired to apply to their own workplace.