BOOK REVIEWS
1998;15:95-106
all. Special attention here is given to enlisting partic-
ipation and commitment, symbolic actions, rewards
and recognition, and finally some advice on how to go
about building a comprehensive cultural system for
soc?al control.
The middle three chapters, on the congruence of
organization with strategy, basically talk about build-
ing a decent fit between the two when strategic direc-
tion changes. While a one-on-one fit is essential for
short-term operational effectiveness and efficiency,
what is missing here, and what is explored in the final
third of the book, is the organization’s need to em-
brace, if not generate, multiple and often inconsistent
cultures within the same paradigm when longer-term
ada;?tations to changing strategic realities are taken
into account. This brings us back to the proactive
stance to be taken by the ideal enterprise, with respect
to organizational renewal which is addressed in the
last three chapters of this book.
Chapter 7, “Managing Innovation Streams in Am-
bidextrous Organizations,” opens by repeating that
“internal congruence can trap an organization in its
past and lead to catastrophic failure as technologies
and markets shift.” The ideal firm, in consequence,
must pursue different streams of innovation simulta-
neously. These streams center on incremental innova-
tion (small extensions of existing technology), archi-
tectural innovation (reconfiguration or combinations
of existing technologies), and discontinuous innova-
tion (new operating principles in core subsystems
and/or discontinuous process innovation). As might be
expected, directing each of these innovation streams is
subject to different planning horizons and entails dif-
ferent types as well as degrees of managerial risk and
uncertainty. The authors conceptualize the issues in-
volved here in terms of both technology and product-
life cycles. (While these concepts are certainly not
new, the clear, managerially-oriented charts and fig-
ures of this section are worthy of special note.) Build-
ing and managing such an ambidextrous organization
takes up the balance of this chapter, with special
emphasis given to the coordination or harmonization
of these discrete innovation streams at the senior ex-
ecutive level of the enterprise. Senior executives
please take note of the above: What is rightfully their
responsibility to balance these streams is all too often
abdicated to more junior, but more articulate, advo-
cates of short-term relatively certain incremental in-
novation only. The paradox here, of course, is that
when the longer term is considered, preoccupation
with incremental innovation is the most uncertain and
J PROD INNOV MANAG 99
risky course or action of all. This is the authors’
“success trap.”
The last two chapters of the book, chapters 8 and 9,
“Implementing Strategic Change,” and “Winning
Through Innovation” respectively, are basically re-
prises or summaries for the policy-level executive of
the detailed guidelines provided earlier. Thus, Chapter
8 reviews the mechanics of reorganization in terms of
critical tasks, people, culture, and the formal organi-
zation. Special attention here is devoted to the real
nature of leadership in such situations, political con-
siderations and implementations, benchmarks for
planning purposes. The last chapter is a straight-for-
ward summary from the same perspective of the var-
ious points made throughout the book. This isn’t nec-
essarily bad. As the old advice in Rhetoric phrases it,
“When you’ve got a strong argument to make, One,
tell’em what you’re going to say. Two, say it. Three,
tell’em what you’ve said-and leave!”
Overall, this book can be recommended unreserv-
edly to anyone concerned with reconciling new stra-
tegic imperatives with established but inappropriate
organizational modes reflecting past successes and
obsolete realities. While senior business executives are
its intended audience, middle-level managers, service
providers, and academics could also profit by its clear
articulation of concepts and issues such as the success
trap, innovation streams, organizational congruence,
and the responsibilities of top management for the
survival and growth of the enterprise over the long
term.
Robert R. Rothberg
Rutgers Graduate School of Management
Human Resource Skills for the Project Manager: The
Human Aspects of Project Management, Volume Two,
by Vijay K. Verma. Upper Darby, PA: Project Man-
agement Institute, 1996. 268 pages. $24.95.
The Project Management Institute has published three
volumes in a series on The Human Aspects qf Project
Management. Their purpose is to go beyond a tradi-
tional, linear approach to project management and
show how to unleash higher levels of creativity, pro-
ductivity, quality, and commitment from the project
team by considering the human aspects. This volume
offers a conceptual framework that can serve as a
reference for managing projects successfully through
managing human resources effectively.
The target audience for this book is anyone who
100 J PROD INNOV MANAG
1998:15:95-106
believes in management by projects, regards that as a
competitive way to manage organizations, and wants
to learn the human skills needed to interface with
people and achieve synergy. Because the book draws
so heavily on material from other sources with mini-
mal supporting examples or personal experiences,
however, I believe it can best be used by newcomers to
the field or by project management educators and
academics who want to cover a broad spectrum of
concepts and skills. Experienced practitioners will find
little new about how to implement the concepts but
will get a complete refresher course. The ideas pre-
sented apply to projects in any industry.
Each chapter in the book covers a basic aspect of
people skills: communication; motivation; understand-
ing conflict; managing and resolving conflict; negoti-
ation; stress; leadership, power, influence and politics.
The Appendix provides six self-assessment exercises
to help diagnose a person’s style, personality, and
power orientation. The references are extensive and
point to major works on people management. Quite a
few graphs and charts help to illustrate the concepts.
The book synthesizes research from many disciplines
and is well organized. Verma is a registered profes-
sional engineer and is a group leader for a planning
department at the University of British Columbia. He
teaches courses, provides project management ser-
vices, and speaks at professional conferences.
I found myself skimming the early chapters because
I was familiar with the concepts, such as Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs, active listening, and guidelines for
negotiating. Every so often he adds a specific gem for
an application to project management such as varying
communication or leadership styles during stages of a
project life cycle. Many of the key concepts are pre-
sented in bulleted form; the points are important and
come from a wealth of validated experience, but the
reader gets little in the way of background informa-
tion, persuasive argument, or example. It was not until
the final chapter that I started highlighting specific
statements.
Chapter 7 on Leadership, Power, Influence, and
Politics in Project Management came closest to help-
ing me get new learnings or reinforce forgotten ones.
The author’s treatment of this subject was useful for
me when debating with colleagues about the role of
leadership in projects. He reminds the reader of
sources of power and the patience required to persuade
others. Verma defines and applies the concepts di-
rectly to the field of project management: “project
leaders do the right things and project managers
BOOK REVIEWS
are those who do things right” (p. 221). He offers
several bold statements: “Management activities such
as planning, organizing and decision making are inef-
fective in a project until a project leader inspires and
motivates the project participants and directs them
towards goals” (p. 222). When prescribing tolerance
for ambiguity and change, he even manages to step out
of character-“Sometimes it seems that project leaders
are expected to read minds, operate a Ouija board and
read a crystal ball” (p. 229). One of the best elements
of this book is the profuse use of pithy quotations in
subheadings throughout the chapters, such as “Politics
is the science of who gets what, when, and why”
(Sidney Hillman, p. 239).
If you are mentoring a new project manager, hand
him or her this book to read and then take the time to
discuss why or what in your experience makes certain
concepts so important. The book in itself is not com-
pelling but the concepts in action certainly are.
Randy Englund
Hewlett-Packard Company
And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared: TRIZ, the The-
ory of Inventive Problem Solving (Second Edition), by
Genrich Altshuller, translated by Lev Shulyak. Au-
burn, MA: Technical Innovation Center, 1996. 171
pages. $46.00.
The Science of Innovation: A Managerial Overview of
the TRIZ Methodology, by Victor R. Fey and Eugene
I. Rivin. Southfield, MI: The TRIZ Group, 1997. 81 +
vi pages. $27.00.
The value of these books is that they provide for the
first time a somewhat accessible explanation of TRIZ
(the Russian acronym for the Theory of Inventive
Problem Solving). TRIZ has been highly touted as an
innovative panacea but only explained briefly in arti-
cles [e.g., 21 and some conference presentations to
Product Development & Management Association
(PDMA) audiences in recent years. For those who are
completely unfamiliar with TRIZ, an advocate ex-
plains: “TRIZ offers . . . a very systematic way of
defining problems or discontinuities within any engi-
neered system . . . (providing) analogies that have
solved similar situations as depicted in the worldwide
database of . . . two million inventions” [3]. If you
want to learn a bit more about this technique, either of
these thin books may be a place to start.
The Altshuller book is a readable account by the