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I making a go at reading _The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the
Management Gurus_ by Micklethwaite & Woolridge. I have about 100 pages
left and about as many post-its with notes sticking out of the pages.

So far, I have to say that there is much to be considered as they examine
the theories of Sloan, Taylor, Drucker, and Peters. It could make an
auxiliary text in a grad OD course. I wish there we had used it last
year in my courses.

At this point, the authors' are much more provocative and not so much
evocative. Perhaps that will change as they begin their summation.

______________________
Great Optimism,

Dutch Driver
Dept. of Communication
McMurry University
Abilene, TX
ddriver@cs1.mcm.edu

Dutch,

I'm a new guy to the list, although not new to Mangement Development, etc.,
as my MS in Management from Arkansas (Fayetteville) is 1973 (under Dr.
Williams).

RE: your thoughts on the management gurus. Although I have only read reviews
of the book, I look forward to taking some "spare" time and actually reading
it. While I am a *practicing* academic, I don't normally think of myself as
one. I'm really a fighter pilot who has never grown up.

My "take" on the gurus is that they are really good at telling us what we
*ought* to do, but are abysmal at telling us how to do it. For example, I
wrote my dissertation on "trust." Spent three and a half years in the
literature of about ten disciplines looking for something effective that we
could actually *do* to improve trust in organizations. Yep, you guessed it.
It's not there. So I had to design an approach myself and take that out and
research it. So much for Peters and Senge and Covey telling us to "improve
trust."

Cheers,

Duane

Duane C. Tway, Ph.D., "The Trust Doctor"
Consultants for Organization Response and Effectiveness (C.O.R.E.)
7022 E. Hacienda Reposo
Tucson, AZ 85715-4919
Ph 520 721-6642
Fx 520 721-1398
DuaneTway@aol.com

Faculty Advisor, Walden University
dtway@waldenu.edu

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings..."

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

CORE: Practicing Fighter Pilot OD -- achieving high-flying, winning
solutions.