BOOK REVIEWS

FIRST TRAIN, Issue 2, Vol 1

Pleasingly for practitioners, only the first third of O’Donovan’s book explores the theory behind corporate culture and cultural change. The rest of the book lives up to the billing of her sub-title: “How to Plan, Implement and Measure a Successful Culture Change Programme”. The tome is avowedly a handbook,rather than an extensive or elaborate academic analysis. In the section entitled ‘Theory into Practice’ suggests that “for a workforce to rediscover their core purpose and vision, the leadership must go back to the drawing board to discover why the workforce exists in the first place and… where they are going.”

O’Donovan takes us from the drawing board to creating the vision to designing a programme for change, using a stepped series of incisive tasks, chunked down into usable units that could have a significant impact on managing change.
 
A significant contribution to the portfolio of skills available to HR practitioners in organisations of all sizes.

To read more, visit http://corporatetrainers.co.uk/corporate-culture-handbook.html

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The Leadership and Organizational Development Journal, Judy Bullock PhD, (University of Atlanta Georgia, USA), Vol 28, Issue 7, Oct 2007 - Excerpt

O'Donovan's approach makes the reader comfortable that they, too, can successfully navigate the challenges that lie ahead.  Striking a healthy balance between technique and best practices, "The Corporate Culture Handbook" is a valuable guide to success...

The "Corporate Culture Handbook" is recommended for anyone interested in change management, organizational culture, organizational learning, programme management and organization transformation initiatives (e.g. globalization, mergers & acquisitions, globalization, restructuring etc).  Readers will appreciate its easy-to-understand format that is supplanted with representative checklists, charts, tools and observations from the author's experience in addition to valuable supporting materials contained in the appendices, making the book equally suitable for the boardroom and classroom.

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The Journal of the Labour Relations Commission, Issue 1, Newsletter No. 7, March 2007 - Excerpt

 

The book provides a useful introduction to the wider writings on the power of culture in organizational change.  Early on, O'Donovan maps the big picture; the major challenge facing corporations is keeping the internal environment apace with the external environment to meet market challenges.  In addition she notes that many organizations are moving away from piecemeal change programmes which target inert structures alone, such as policies, technology etc. and managing organization-wide programmes which centre on the human landscape.  Chapter 11 entitled 'Manage the Human Landscape' provides some interesting insights on how change impacts organisations and more specifically how it is received.  She also warns against what she called 'career politicians' may well be drafted in to act as "antibodies and undermine change initiatives".  In the end, O'Donovan believes that the bulk of staff will find ways of accepting change if given the right encouragement.  In this context, a broad metaphor to understand the change going on within the organization is important.

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LONG RANGE PLANNING

The International Journal of Strategic Planning Vol 39, No 6, December 2006 - Excerpt

Emphasises the importance of building organizational credibility and reputation on a history of ethical conduct.  Based on the author's extensive practical experience.

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KNOWLEDGE IRELAND Issue 20: September 2006

Bi-monthly strategic change publication

EDITORIAL

"It's a truism that we learn more from mistakes than from our successes.  It took some pretty spectacular - and high profile - foul-ups to bring the issue of corporate culture to many people's minds.  Not surprisingly much of the coverage has looked negatively on those cultures and rightly so, but it's tempting and easy to make the general assumption that the larger the organization, the more likely it is to be up to no good at some level.  However, in these pages (p. 20 - 25) Gabrielle O'Donovan makes the case for fostering a positive corporate culture.  The article published here is an edited extract from her excellent book which looks at the wider issues involved in starting and seeing through a successful culture change programme.  The book also includes first-hand experience of a change management programme at HSBC in Hong Kong and is well worth a further read"

Gordon Smith - Editor

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AUGUST 2006

"The Corporate Culture Handbook is in the top 1% of best business books for 2006" . 

                John Fayed - CEO, Business Book Review, USA

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