Rating: 
Summary: Fraud
Review: Anyone else notice that Amazon.com deleted all of the negative reviews and only kept the positive ones? This is complete fraud and discounts the entire structure of online reviewing.(...)
Rating: 
Summary: no pain, much gain
Review: As someone who has worked in both the public and private sectors (for a number of years heading my own business), I found Abrahamson's book to be a breath of fresh air. He provides a clear, non-dogmatic approach to management that is rooted in real-life situations and behavior. His clear and accessible writing style helped to give this reader the insights needed to effectively analyze management situations and envision their solution. This is a useful and accessible piece of work.
Rating: 
Summary: Clarity and Common Sense
Review: As someone who has worked in both the public and private sectors (for a number of years heading my own business), I found Abrahamson's book to be a breath of fresh air. He provides a clear, non-dogmatic approach to management that is rooted in real-life situations and behavior. His clear and accessible writing style helped to give this reader the insights needed to effectively analyze management situations and envision their solution. This is a useful and accessible piece of work.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, something we can use
Review: Finally some good old common sense about how to manage change - but common sense is so bloody uncommon. The approach in this book is so compelling because it is how most of us manage change successfully day to day. Not by bringing in expensive consultants to rip everything apart and start over. But rather, by finding what we are good at and leveraging our strength to make things happen. We were doing it all along, we just did not have a name for it, a way to think about it, and a set of techniques to systematize it.
Rating:
Summary: Injects some common sense into corporate change strategies
Review: Having been a consultant with a large consulting firm for many years, I have seen many "transformational" fads come and go. Consultants and change management gurus, of course, have a certain vested interest in pushing the "new, new thing." And usually there is at least some kernel of truth or insight in these pronouncements. But marketing puffery aside, it is interesting to see how many corporations feel compelled to jump on these bandwagons. It strikes me as an example of what C.S. Lewis referred to as "chronological snobbery," that is, assuming something is no longer good simply because it is old. Abrahamson's book tackles this notion in a very thought-provoking way. His idea of recombining things from the corporate basement, so to speak, is a nice metaphor for thinking critically and discerningly about what it is you need to accomplish and what resources you already have at your disposal to make it so. I think he provides an excellent counterbalance to the advice of many who advocate constant, dramatic change.
Rating:
Summary: A good eye opener
Review: Having been a consultant with a large consulting firm for many years, I have seen many "transformational" fads come and go. Consultants and change management gurus, of course, have a certain vested interest in pushing the "new, new thing." And usually there is at least some kernel of truth or insight in these pronouncements. But marketing puffery aside, it is interesting to see how many corporations feel compelled to jump on these bandwagons. It strikes me as an example of what C.S. Lewis referred to as "chronological snobbery," that is, assuming something is no longer good simply because it is old. Abrahamson's book tackles this notion in a very thought-provoking way. His idea of recombining things from the corporate basement, so to speak, is a nice metaphor for thinking critically and discerningly about what it is you need to accomplish and what resources you already have at your disposal to make it so. I think he provides an excellent counterbalance to the advice of many who advocate constant, dramatic change.
Rating:
Summary: Injects some common sense into corporate change strategies
Review: Having been a consultant with a large consulting firm for many years, I have seen many "transformational" fads come and go. Consultants and change management gurus, of course, have a certain vested interest in pushing the "new, new thing." And usually there is at least some kernel of truth or insight in these pronouncements. But marketing puffery aside, it is interesting to see how many corporations feel compelled to jump on these bandwagons. It strikes me as an example of what C.S. Lewis referred to as "chronological snobbery," that is, assuming something is no longer good simply because it is old. Abrahamson's book tackles this notion in a very thought-provoking way. His idea of recombining things from the corporate basement, so to speak, is a nice metaphor for thinking critically and discerningly about what it is you need to accomplish and what resources you already have at your disposal to make it so. I think he provides an excellent counterbalance to the advice of many who advocate constant, dramatic change.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing to See Here (Expecially the Schumpeter Redux...)
Review: Having taught courses like Eric's, I must say, this is perhaps one of the weakest excuses for tenure-able work I've ever seen. And I've published in some of the same circles as he. But I've also been "in charge" before...something Professor Abrahamson falls short on in this case. A "decade of research" and examples from "a dozen" companies should result in something more substantive--and less commercial--than this. This is clearly yet another example of an academic--with little real-world experience to back up his claims--trying to espouse ideas that simply don't work, can't work, and only exist to support future consulting and speaking efforts. Whilst Professor Abrahamson may be a bright researcher, I doubt he's managed a P&L, and as such, has little clue--other than anecdotes from others--as to how change really happens (or doesn't). He's likely never hired or fired anyone...and this is one of the most basic changes an organization goes through. Even his dismissal of Schumpeter's work--which is basically nothing more than Schumpeter's work across several chapters--is based largely on anecdote and "gut feel". Like past concepts that looked great in theory--but were disasters in practice--such as matrix management, centres of excellence, and "shared services", Professor Abrahamson's study falls quickly to the wayside as the light of profitability shines upon it. When using excepts from this text recently in an executive training retreat in Europe, I was shocked at how much emotion participants used when they quite directly shot down many of these ideas as "academic", "unstudied", and, at best, as "management by anecdote". Professor Abrahamson's ideas, while interesting to contemplate, simply are not justified with any sort of metric or measurement and could not quantitatively proven if an organizations real future--its productivity--depended on it. Sadly, this is yet another idea and postulation that best belongs in a commercial "business book" and/or in the Harvard Business Review....up on the shelf to impress others but far away from the troops to bother their day-to-day missions. Perhaps in the future, Professor Abrahamson can try his hand at day-to-day management--even in his own department at Columbia--for this will be the true test of his "recombinant" theory. Until then, it may be best to let this one die on the vine.
Rating:
Summary: no pain, much gain
Review: I've only read part of this book but wish to share that it offers some fresh ideas that all managers should be able to relate to, regardless of their field. Many of the titles in this field are vague, idealistic rantings from academics. On the contrary, I've found this book to be cognizant of the real-world pressures and challenges that managers face. Too add to what a previous reviewer said, the negative reviews seem more like personal attacks on the author than anything else. They are not substantiated and in my mind, fall short of being useful. My initial impression upon reading them was that the author must have done something right to elicit such impassioned responses. In that sense, maybe an academic's perspective is not so distant as some might think...
Rating:
Summary: Fresh perspective
Review: It's my job to be familiar with change methodologies. So I approached this book with the thought of "not another change model". But I was quickly drawn into Eric Abrahamson fresh perspective on change. Like him, I have experiences in which a recombinant method would have produced long-term organisational improvement. This book is a good read for every practioner who has to have several ideas up his or her sleeve at all times.
| 
