The Human Side of High-Tech: Lessons from the Technology Frontier

By Carol Kinsey Goman

"If you want to create an enthusiastic, committed, high-performance workforce today, think democratic. Think equal. Think ''everyone''s as important as I am. ''Think ping-pong tables,company picnics, and bagels for everybody. And don''t keep secrets!" -from The Human Side of High-Tech Imagine being at a company where the workforce actually views work and fun as synonymous. A company that resembles a playground for gifted children and creates an atmosphere to generate free-flowing ideas. One that provides instant backrubs for overstressed workers and gourmet food for lunch in the office cafeteria. Welcome to the billion-dollar high-tech industry! Silicon Valley forever changed the way the high-tech industry is structured. These companies challenged conventional wisdom to find new and innovative ways to attract and retain talented employees. From the fitness center, on-site car wash, and cleaning services of Cisco Systems to an entire company vacation in Tahoe with PeopleSoft, the focus is placed on making the worker feel like a valuable member of a team. To uncover how the technology sector maximizes human potential, Carol Kinsey Goman combines extensive field research and interviews with her fifteen years of experience as a corporate consultant on change-management and leadership. Gathering information from today''s leading high-tech CEOs, corporate communicators, human resource professionals, managers, and employees, this book offers a valuable look at the people practices that are effective even in this volatile industry. These leaders have developed highly successful strategies that keep gifted employees happy so the ideas and dollars keep flowing! The Human Side of High-Tech also reveals how the culture behind Silicon Valley''s astonishing success can be applied to any business. These lessons will help organizations develop the policies necessary to hire the best talent available, lower the turnover rate, and find new ways to sustain cutting-edge competitiveness in the worldwide infotech arena. Ranging from the methodical to the quirky, these approaches will lead to increased employee satisfaction and productivity. The organizations featured in this book realize that corporate success and the care for the total individual are inextricable in the high-tech corporate philosophy. Their innovative practices can be applied to any business in the areas of recruitment, retention, communication, motivation, and leadership of talented employees. Presenting a whole new idea about people, life, and work, The Human Side of High-Tech provides the tools to create an extremely effective management model for businesses all over the world. Carol Kinsey Goman, PhD, (Berkeley, CA), is an internationally recognized expert on the human side of organizational change. As President of Kinsey Consulting Services, Goman designs organizational transformation strategies, coaches senior managers on ways to increase their effectiveness as leaders of change, and delivers over 100 speeches a year at international and corporate conferences. She has been cited as an authority in media such as Industry Week, Investor''s Business Daily, CNN, and NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. Praise for The Human Side of High-Tech "The Human Side of High-Tech focuses on the single most critical issue for high-tech organizations today: attracting and retaining the talent that is at the core of a company''s competitive advantage. Quantum''s pursuit of ''extraordinary environment'' has made us the first and only data storage company to appear on Fortune''s ''100 Best Places to Work'' list and, even more importantly, has helped us cultivate the talent that has positioned Quantum as the leader in four of the six storage markets we serve." -Michael Brown, Chairman and CEO, Quantum Corp. "The Human Side of High-Tech isn''t just for leaders of technology companies. This is a book for all managers looking to attract and retain the best and brightest in a new generation of workers." -Robert L. Dilenschneider, CEO, The Dilenschneider Group

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471344222
• ISBN13: 9780471344223
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The Early Stages of an Experiment

There are several reasons why I rate this book so highly. Here are three: Goman provides an in-depth analysis of HOW various high-tech companies are creating a decisive competitive advantage for themselves by attracting and keeping superior talent; she explains HOW virtually all other organizations (including companies) can do so also; finally, she explains why companies such as Lotus, Cisco Systems, Autodesk, i2 Technologies, and PeopleSoft are "still in the process of evolving." Their individual efforts merely comprise a "beginning." She concludes that "...each company, with each experiment it undertakes, adds another building block lesson learned to the collective evolutionary process." It is commendable for Goman to provide so much valuable information and commentary. It is also commendable that she includes a caution that, in the immortal words of Paul Williams, "We've only just begun."Various "lessons" to be learned from "the technology frontier" are carefully organized and then developed. In Chapter 1, for example, Goman lists what she calls "The Eight Commandments of High-Tech Culture": 1. Egalitarianism, 2. Freedom, 3. Informality, 4. Trust, 5. Responsibility, 6. Teamwork, 7. High Performance, and 8. Fun. The challenge is to optimize all eight in the most appropriate balance. She concludes the chapter with the first of several lists of Lessons" which will inform efforts to meet that challenge. For me, one of the most valuable chapters is Chapter 6: "Thriving on Change, Complexity, and Chaos." In it, Goman analyzes how and why several companies have succeeded amidst the "extreme volatility" of continuous restructuring by accepting "constant adaptation to new situations as a fundamental of survival and prosperity." At the end of this chapter, Goman provides another series of "Lessons" which are eminently sensible. Goman agrees with Debra Engel (former head of HR at 3Com) that it took four hundred years for business organizations to operate successfully in the Industrial Age. "We are only beginning to understand how to operate in the "Information Age." In essence, that is the challenge which Goman's brilliant book addresses with eloquence as well as insight. I agree with her that "organizations don't change. People do -- or they don't." If all this seems relevant to you, I urge you to buy this book, read it carefully, and then review (at least every month or two) the various lists of "Lessons." If you are determined to be a change agent in your own organization and it refuses to support your efforts, I presume to suggest that you find another which will.