Crisis & Renewal

By David K. Hurst

Book Overview

Crisis & Renewal presents a radically different view of how organizations evolve & renew themselves. The author tracks a cross-section of enterprises from their creative beginnings through the institutionalization of their success. Using a model of organizational ecocycles, he argues that managers need to create deliberate crises to preserve their organizations from destruction & to renew them with creativity & meaning. The Management of Innovation & Change Series. "Crisis & Renewal is designed to be a revelation, not a textbook. I recommend you revel in it as soon as you can.".

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0875845827
• ISBN13: 9780875845821
• Release Date: September 1995
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 229 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Some good ideas

I found this book interesting because it helps me to see ways that a crisis can benefit an organization. Hurst pulls together ideas from a number of different places to show that leadership must take on new habits when crisis hits.

Book bridges theory, history, and science to produce insight

When the Globe & Mail newspaper reviewed this book, it referred to Mr. Hurst as "a thinking manager's Tom Peters." Not bad, and based on the book not entirely unjustified. What makes this book really fascinating to me is the way it weaves insights from human history, anthropology, science, and personal business experience into a coherent picture of organizational growth, decay, and renewal. A lot of us have had a feeling that the standard bell curves and life cycles weren't really all that helpful. David Hurst has proposed an alternative solidly grounded in practice and history, one which is much better-suited to helping real managers think systemically about their companies and make decisions on the ground. Hopefully David can expand on some of his insights in a forthcoming book, and include some more business cases that show his ideas in action. Action-oriented, "give it to me in 10 bullet points" types will probably find this book a bit frustrating for that reason. But if you belong to the school of thought that says wanting everything in 10 bullet points is part of the problem, this is definitely a book worth your time.