Crisis & renewal

About this book

Crisis & Renewal presents a radical view of how successful organizations evolve and renew themselves and what managers must do to lead the revival. Contrary to traditional organizational theory, which emphasizes rationality and control in the management of change, this book argues that there are times when managers must deliberately create crises by committing acts of "ethical anarchy" in order to break the constraints of success and renew their organizations. Hurst develops a model of change - the organizational ecocycle - to explain how even successful organizations become systematically vulnerable to catastrophe. He brings the model to life with stories of crisis and renewal from both his own management and consulting experiences and a cross-section of enterprises - from the hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari and the Quakers of the Industrial Revolution to contemporary organizations such as 3M and Nike.