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In a career spanning forty years, Roger Harrison, consultant,
trainer, and theorist, has influenced every phase of the birth
and growth of the discipline of organization development (OD) -
from its beginnings within the sensitivity training seminars of
the fifties to its current role in shaping the way organizations
respond to the present chaotic times. His work with such top
multinationals as Shell International, Imperial Chemical
Industries, and Xerox has brought him recognition worldwide as
an expert in the real-world practice of OD, while his
challenging vision has strongly shaped the way two generations
think about the nature of organizations and the potential of the
OD profession. Candid, sometimes funny, often surprising,
Harrison's autobiography places his professional success in a
life context, telling the story of his growth from a young
academic with an "authority problem" into a seasoned consultant
and an influential figure in the international business
community. At the same time, Harrison reveals the shadow side of
his life and his profession. He deals frankly with the ambition,
greed, and hunger for power that often lurked behind his
greatest professional achievements - and impoverished his
personal life. He shares his experience of the loneliness of a
consultant's vocation, the danger of burnout, and the constant
risk of failure when you practice at the cutting edge of your
profession. Finally, he relates his struggle to free himself of
the "warrior mentality" and pursue a course toward the human
values of love and healing, a spiritual quest that leads him to
change his life - and his vision of OD - on the deepest levels.
"How great is it when we are not afraid to look at the past with
honesty! The Consultants Journey is filled with warmth and
realism, it reminds us that we are human and we are often at our
best when we remind ourselves of this all too often forgotten
fact."
Cathleen A
Bardon, Huntington Beach, California
"Harrison, a prominent management consultant and well-known
trainer in the field of organization development, here sets out
to tell the story of his personal development and the growth of
his profession, which was uncharted before he launched his
40-year career. A strikingly courageous and honest work..."
-- Ali D. Abdulla, Library Journal
"A Consultant's Journey, A Dance of Work and Sprit" is a
tapestry of a life woven together in theories, tables, graphs,
reflections and values that depict Harrison’s personal and
professional journey.
It's
Harrison's
"holistic" approach to life that makes this work so engaging. He
shares how he has, over time, reoriented his life from being
compartmentalized into work, family and spirituality, to one
that is more integrated with these aspects increasingly flowing
together. He speaks of his successes, failures and growing
pains to share the deep lessons he has learned from the projects
that did not work, and he invites others to do the same.
"Consultant's Journey" will be an enlightening and enjoyable
read for men and women who are struggling in the uncharted OD
landscape and for any person who must dance between the
individual and the collective.
Sharon Almerigi, freelance writer
and
ICA
mentor trainer living in
Barbados,
West Indies.
“Roger Harrison's work on Organization Development, on the
Cultures of Organizations and on Learning, has been hugely
influential over the past three decades in both
Europe and America… Consultant's Journey is a brave unveiling of
his own failures, doubts and personal griefs, to accompany his
growing understanding of the strange convoluted organizations we
construct for ourselves and his hopes for a better future for
some of them. The honesty with which he looks back on all this,
and has learnt from it, has to be envied. In this instance, the
truth really has set him free.
“Professional consultants, educators, managers or just ordinary
people, we all can learn a lot from the personal tale set out in
Consultant's Journey. "Read for an hour, write for two,
meditate for three" is Roger's own advice. We would do well to
follow it.
Charles Handy,
UK management consultant, educator, and author of The Empty
Raincoat, The Future of Work, and many other books and
articles. |
