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The Age of Participation
Book

The Age of Participation

New Governance for the Workplace and The World

Patricia McLagan and Christo Nel
Berrett-Koehler, 1997
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Editorial Rating

6

Qualities

  • Well Structured
  • Visionary
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

Companies like to say that they encourage their employees to participate thoroughly in the business, but when it comes to actually handing over power to their subordinates, many executives balk. Patricia McLagan and Christo Nel say that companies and bosses that refuse to take the participatory plunge are doomed to extinction. In The Age of Participation, they present the concept of participation – the active involvement of all employees or citizens in every aspect of running an organization – as a worldview, not just a business method. Sure the book contains more than its share of platitudes, but it is never dry. It balances its more utopian pronouncements with some practical observations about the performance of companies that have implemented participatory strategies and some insightful points on the role of common sense in business decision making. getAbstract recommends this book to executives and mid-level managers, particularly change managers and human resource professionals.

Summary

Understanding Participation

Plenty of people advocate participation and call the idea empowerment, self-management, employee involvement or participative management, but business still has a very difficult time putting the idea of participation into practice. Convincing authoritarian institutions that power shouldn’t be in the hands of a few select people is never easy.

Participation is closely aligned with the spirit of a democratic society. For example, the U.S. Constitution, with its system of law and precedent, emphasizes widespread citizen participation. As models of participatory systems, the U.S. and other democratic societies still have elements of non-participatory structures in most areas of their institutions. The idea of participation has been widely embraced by the business community; 70% of the Fortune 1000 companies have a formal employee involvement strategy. Yet the practice of participation actually occurs only in a few business, education, health care, and government organizations. This same study of Fortune 1000 companies found that "despite their popularity, participative strategies had affected only 13% of the people working for the companies ...

About the Authors

Patricia McLagan, founder of McLagan International, has been a consultant to public and private sector institutions in the United States, England, and South Africa for more than 25 years. She is a professor at RAU University in Johannesburg. Christo Nel  has been assisting change in the public and private sectors in South Africa for more than 15 years. He is managing director of ITISA, a consulting firm specializing in workplace democracy. This husband-and-wife team co-founded the Democracy and Work Institute, a research and application center dedicated to assisting public and private organizations become more participatory.

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