Organizational Culture and Leadership

The Jossey-Bass Business & Management Series

By: Edgar H. Schein

Narrated by: Milton Bagby

Regarded as one of the most influential management books of all time, this fourth edition of Leadership and Organizational Culture transforms the abstract concept of culture into a tool that can be used to better shape the dynamics of organization and change. This updated edition focuses on today's business realities. Edgar Schein draws on a wide range of contemporary research to redefine culture and demonstrate the crucial role leaders play in successfully applying the principles of culture to achieve their organizational goals.

©2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (P)2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Probably skip the audiobook for a text copy

While this book is the classic on organizational culture, it's also incredibly verbose and tedious. There's value here, but a 100 page version with another 300+ pages of examples linked to it would be a lot more useful. There were also a huge number of really dated examples (pre technology, companies were mainly dead dinosaurs like DEC), which is because the book is in 4th edition and only lightly revised.

I also listened on audible, rather than reading, which made it extra-tedious. (Textbook pricing for the printed or e-book, single credit for the audiobook, so...). I'd recommend reading this as an e-book instead. I generally really like audiobooks, but there are some books for which they're not particularly suited.

I'd probably give it 5 stars as the canonical book on an important topic, except for being vastly too long and pretty tedious.

Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast!

Edgar Schein is the leading theorist on organizational culture and process consultation, and this book is the standard bearer for understanding organizational culture and how to change it. The book is divided into five parts: defining organizational culture and leadership, discussing dimensions of organizational culture, outlining the leadership role in building and developing culture, outlining how leaders can manage culture change, and discussing new leadership roles that are evolving into today's organizations. He makes a critical point that if leaders are not proactive about managing their organizations' culture, that culture will ultimately manage them. As is often quoted in organization development circles, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast!" He also outlines the steps leaders can take to conduct their own cultural analysis. While the book is intended to be academic and is fairly dense, the organizational stories Schein uses throughout the book as illustrative examples add life to the book. A great resource for any organizational leader!

Great insights to leaders

Really learned a lot from this book. The content, though often containing suggestions for practitioners was nevertheless easy to understand and useful to the layman leader (my own position). I highly recommend this book to practicing or aspiring leaders.

Great tool!

Where does Organizational Culture and Leadership rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It is in the top five.

Who was your favorite character and why?

N/a

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No it did not, nor would I as you need time to apply and process the concepts.

Any additional comments?

It would have been nice to have access to the book in an ebook format that reads the text.

The only book you need to read to lead

No BS no hype just solid research and wisdom. Based on real experience and expertise

The foundational book on Organizational Culture

If you could sum up Organizational Culture and Leadership in three words, what would they be?

Although it is lacking a bit more of intercultural awareness and a less step by step and more holographic approach, that are needed for nowadays business environment it is a still an outstanding introduction to the complex world of organizational culture.I would say that any organizational culture practitioner must read it!

I need the abridged version

I listen to a lot of leadership and management books and so was looking forward to this based on the strong reviews. However, as one who reads in order to use the insights and practices in my work, I need books that get to the point a little faster. In addition, I listen while on my bike commute, so if things are dragging, I find myself thinking about other things.

This book was just too slow and as I am about 5 hours in, I think I will pass this back and maybe read it when I am retired.

The order of the chapters makes no sense

Either I missed something or he began to define his term "culture islands" near the end of the book after he'd been using it all along. Loved his other book "Humble Inquiry" though.