Making Competent Organizations

About the Book

Travel where you will in today’s America, and you’re likely to be drawn into a conversation about mistreatment by one or more of today’s organizations. Someone ordered something. But when the order came it wasn’t what they ordered. That was two years ago and still ongoing. Or “Your call is very important to us. That’s why you’re number 19 in the queue.” Doctors and hospitals make “mistakes.” Only a few are really fatal. But they have insurance for that. Will you get what you want from an organization? It may depend upon whom in the organization’s you’re talking to. An organization’s marketing is not an organization’s performance. It’s just talk. Organizations live and die by their deeds. This book tells you how. Malfunctions in organizations are ubiquitous. They occur in every kind of organization of every size. Why is that? How do you avoid falling victim to the conventional, to mediocrity? This book can be your guide. Add to that the fact that highly paid CEOs are often frustrated by the performance of their own organizations. That’s one reason for their ever-shortening tenure in that role. They are often disgruntled by the performance of their own executives and managers. And those employees are often openly dissatisfied with the organizations where they work. Even after thousands of books and many thousands of conferences since the 1970s, our organizations don’t seem to be doing much better. Here is that rare book that tells you how to perform in the real world. This book addresses those problems head-on. It addresses the sources (not the symptoms) of organizational dysfunctions. Regardless of title, you won’t find elsewhere a better guide to making competent organizations, which is where the problems lie. This book is about how you, the CEO or CEO aspirant, need to think about what needs thinking about, for how you think about what needs thinking about will determine who you are. And who you are determines what you can and cannot do about making yours a fully functioning, competent organization. Just reading about it is not of much help. Aristotle said many years ago, “What you must learn, you must learn by doing.” This book is unique; it tells you how to do just that.

About the Author

If you have read this book thoughtfully, or intend to do so for your own benefit, you will have met our author. His aim is to help people with the process and quality of their life-making. Since most people spend more time in organizations than in any other single activity, the life they have there bears mightily on the life they can have. So it seemed natural to Dr. Thayer to make better lives for everyone by starting there. Thus this book. He began his professional life as a problem-solver. That was 65+ years ago. His unique approach is that dysfunctional people can’t get well in a dysfunctional organization. Nor can you make competent organizations out of dysfunctional people. Problems are typically dealt with by dealing with their symptoms. He goes deeper. Dr. Thayer thinks that permanently getting rid of problems at their source is the way to go, whether for a individual or an organization. His work with organizations has bettered the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people worldwide. This book, he reckons, could make you one of those. Clue: This book can lead you and the others who belong to your organization to a more competent and therefore more meaningful life.