Organization 2000: The Essential Guide for Companies and Teams in the New Economy

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Leslie Bendaly is establishing a reputation as the Canadian guru of
teamwork. She is the author of Games Teams Play, a training manual used
to strengthen team effectiveness.

In Organization 2000, she explores the transition from an
industry-based to a knowledge-based economy, from managing to leading.
The “organization 2000,” she says, results from bringing higher
values into the organization, from balancing an emphasis on task with an
obsession for process, from reaching a mid-point between horizontal and
vertical structures. The values of being informed and strengthening
intuition, and an integration of task and process behaviors, will yield
an organization positioned to use teams to respond to the challenges of
the new economy.

Bendaly sees an organization as a system and suggests that, as in any
system, power lies in the invisible relationship among the parts. The
individual contributes in the context of this intercon- nectedness. She
describes a new kind of teamwork, requiring skills in building
partnerships and creating energy.

To managers and change-makers who have experienced the frustrations of
too much process for too little result, Bendaly’s theories will come
as a refreshing return to common sense. To the “just-do-it”
task-focused folks, the work offers a bridge to the borders of the
kingdom of process, along with permission to stop at the borders.

Although the style is a bit flat and at times seems to lose its
direction, the book is, overall, an easy read and an interesting
addition to the growing body of made-in-Canada management manuals with
North American-wide application.