Profitably Healthy Companies

This book is organizational development for the person charged with developing the organization and initiating change. Organized to enable executives to focus on what the organization needs to do well in order to build and sustain success, it nonetheless provides a strong technical explanation for the actions being taken to implement change. By providing such perspective, Profitably Healthy Companies avoids faddism while equipping the reader to drive change with a good understanding of the principles underpinning the process. It belongs on the executive’s bookshelf. Further, it is an excellent tool for bridging the gap between academic education in organization development and the challenges of applying the subject matter in the field, and thus an excellent book to digest before diving into the business of organizational change. Burke and O’Malley have made great strides in bridging the gap between academic texts and organization/leadership self-help books. -- David Swinford, president and CEO, Pearl Meyer
Whether you’re looking for practical guidance for addressing key challenges facing organizations today or a modern primer on the theory behind the practice of OD, Burke and O’Malley offer a fresh and actionable perspective. As we embrace the new realities of what it takes to lead successful organizations, having a clear understanding of which interventions work and why they work is critical. Whether you are a leader, manager or organization development and change practitioner Burke and O’Malley provide the practical guidance you need to make a difference. -- Allan Church, Senior Vice President, Global Talent Management, PepsiCo
In composing Profitably Healthy Companies, Warner Burke and Michael O’Malley have done the impossible—they’ve produced a textbook on Organization Development that is genuinely interesting to read and useful to practitioners to boot! These authors, proven giants in the field of organization development, have brought their best interpretive work into this book. Burke and O’Malley’s love for teaching is evident in the pages of this book, heart and soul. As I read the book, I found myself learning so much new content that I kept texting my colleagues, “did you know this?” I predict that Profitably Healthy Companies will be a modern OD classic, on all our shelves going forward. Aside from being well organized and useful, Profitably Healthy Companies is perhaps the most well-written textbook I’ve seen. Brilliant piece of work. -- Thomas A. Kolditz, founding director, Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University, and former head of Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, West Point
No one knows the contemporary management literature better than Michael O’Malley and no one has been on the frontiers of scholarship and practice in organizational development longer than Warner Burke. Thus it was impossible that when these two united, they would create anything but a masterpiece of fresh, practical thought anchored in smart analysis. However, they went far further than providing a “new & improved’ OD book. They knew what was missing and filled the gap. The existing best practice in OD was heavily anchored in outside interventions parachuting into the firm to catalyze change – and then leave. Alas, too many great innovations ran their course and then fizzled often amidst a leadership succession. Profitably Healthy Companies shows how the capacity to learn, grow, change, and evolve must be in the DNA of enterprise. Through examples, research citations, and clear steps, this book provides the blueprint for internalization of continual leading through structures and processes. Thus, instead of hit & run engagements, skill at OD become a vital capacity of the enterprise to read and respond to its changing strategic context regardless whom is the boss. -- Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for leadership studies and Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management, Yale School of Management
What makes this book a gem is the easily accessible way in which theory is presented, the extensive examples from a variety of companies, and the clarity of the writing. This book will be a valuable resource to scholars, practitioners, and students. -- John L. Bennett, Professor, Director of Graduate Programs, and Wayland H. Cato, Jr. Chair of Leadership, Queens University of Charlotte