Transforming the Way We Work: The Power of the Collaborative Workplace

We DID implement Edward Marshall's principles and saw a dramatic improvement. Our productivity rose significantly and the employees were significantly happier. It CAN and DOES work. We've been practicing his approach for nearly 5 years and would never return to the old obsolete practices of yesterday. It is obvious that some can only criticize but are clueless as to the implementation of proven ideas! Read it! Practice it! Benefit from it!


A Collaborative Workplace=Worker Ownership=Business Success   July 4, 2000
In today's business environment, with outstanding information systems, and unlimited information available in which to make decisions-two things are critical-predicting the future and how to affect continuous change, through people, simultaneously. As Peter Drucker put it "The best way to predict the future is to create it." This book Marshall is an outstanding read. As identified in this book-70% of all our problems in business are people-related or culturally based-in my opinion-I don't believe you can separate the two. However, Marshall tells us our job is to engage that culture (people) so that its best values emerge and flourish. In order to accomplish these tasks "the collaborative environment must be established". Two of my favorite business leaders are Jack Welch and Sam Walton. They predicted their future by creating it-the company culture-feedback-focus on the vision-and betting their organizations future and success on allowing their employees to participate and take ownership of their key processes. A great read!


Those who cant teach   May 26, 2000
 1 out of 6 found this review helpful

That is an understatement, This book is the worst excuse for book I have ever seen. This book isent even worthy for kindling. "Ed Marshel" Must know knothing about Management let alone 1st Grade grammer. My younger brother has written more decisive pices on doodle-paper


Great in concept; implausible in application   November 16, 1999
 4 out of 7 found this review helpful

Ed Marshall takes off on the valuable insights of Deming and others, espousing that managers give more credence to and respect their staff. No one can argue with that. Unfortunately, the book goes overboard. While the concepts are indeed worthy, the book falls short in implementation. If you try to transform corporate culture a la Marshall, you'll spend all your time in committees and find it impossible to make the hard decisions that management alone must make. Having attempted to implement Marshall's doctrines, I found his approach unrealistic. This is great conceptual reading, but leave it on the bookshelf where it belongs. This book is a good example of the dictum: "those who can't teach."