Towards Organizational Fitness

Work organizations can lose their fitness and become sick just as people can. Just like people they may become both physically and behaviourally sick; physically sick when plant and equipment breaks down or the money runs out; behaviourally sick when the resources are badly managed or the staff become alienated. Gerry Randell and John Toplis' Towards Organizational Fitness addresses two main issues: firstly how to investigate and manage problems involving people at work - a task analogous to that of a medical doctor working with a sick patient; secondly how to assess and develop the capability and fitness of an organization - like a medical doctor who wishes to improve a patient's health. The message of this book is clear that organizations should not proceed to change any of their policies procedures processes or practices until a systematic thorough diagnosis of the root cause underpinning the need to change has taken place. The process of diagnosis that leads to a technically sound administratively convenient politically defensible and socially acceptable decision to change an organization in some way is fraught with difficulty. Towards Organizational Fitness provides managers with a conceptual and practical path through this complex and difficult arena.