WALKING THE TALK

BOOKS

WALKING THE TALK

Lots of people are raving about Walking the Talk - building a culture for success. It's the most detailed, practical and readable book I've come across on how to change

There are 16 comprehensive chapters in three sections: preparing for the journey; the culture development plan; and special circumstances (cultures within cultures, M&Aand small and medium businesses). The painstaking explanations about the origins and relationship of values and culture are excellent. And I loved the very detailed coverage of the beliefs, values, symbols and systems of five typical cultures you may wish to aim for: achievement, one-team, customer-centric, peoplefirst and innovative.

It won't matter what industry or country you're in, it will all make sense. There are also plenty of suggestions about communication aspects. And the 25-page case study on Lion Nathan helps (although, curiously, the measurement tools used to track culture and leaders' behavior, both from Human Synergistics, don't rate a mention.)

My one slightly negative comment is I think Random House has let this book down when it comes to editing. It deserves better. It's as though the dictation of a life's work has been typed but not edited. An editor could cut some of the plugs for the author's consulting firm at the start, fix at least one typo, rewrite the odd illogical sentence, correct the misleading information about survey sample sizes, chop many of the exclamation marks, and add an index as a quality business book of 390 pages needs an index. Nevertheless, this is an enjoyable read with loads of examples, tables and lists. There are no references, but there is a reading list of 20 excellent suggestions. This is an essential book for anyone in OD or HR, and strongly recommended to communicators who want a solid grounding in organizational culture and what it takes to change it.

Walking the Talk - building a culture for success, by Carolyn Taylor, Random House, London, 2005.