Citation
(2003), "The Cure: Enterprise Medicine at Work", Work Study, Vol. 52 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2003.07952gae.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
The Cure: Enterprise Medicine at Work
The Cure: Enterprise Medicine at Work
Jeff Cox and Dan PaulJohn Wiley & SonsISBN: 0471268305£17.50
This is a novel about transforming an organisation from an under-performing bureaucracy by building a boundary-less, fact-driven management culture – using Jack Welch's General Electric as the model. The term Enterprise Medicine is said to have been coined by Welch and represents the dismantling of dysfunctional behaviours (that afflict all organisations) and their replacement with healthy management practices. Though it is a novel, ironically the fact that people involved have "real voices" means it is often easier to understand the processes being applied in "the real world" – to organisations and people you know yourself. You become interested in how the "actors" act and react, how they approach situations and how they tackle their business problems.
The methods described in the book have been successfully applied in a number of organisations. Here it is suggested that these methods must not only be applied "properly", they must also be applied quickly. Thus, the organisation in the book has to be "turned round" to a pretty fast timescale: this makes for an entertaining and dramatic business narrative.
There is little that is genuinely new in the concepts underlying the book. However, it is all brought together and presented in such an enjoyable way that it becomes a very palatable way of taking "the medicine".