Transforming Relationships for High Performance - by Jody Hoffer Gittell (Hardcover)

About the Book

Faced with performance pressures, organizations have critical choices to make. Will they turn to low-road strategies, such as cuts in pay and perks, or will they rise to the challenge of pursing positive change? As this book shows, high-road approaches rely on building human and social capital to create new value. This book shows how to cultivate the high-quality connections required to go this route by using the road-tested tools of relational coordination.

Book Synopsis

Whether from customers, supply-chain partners, policymakers, or regulators, organizations in virtually every industry are facing calls to do more with less. They are feeling compelled to provide higher-quality outcomes, more rapidly, at a lower cost.

This book offers a road-tested approach for delivering these outcomes through positive organizational change. Its message comes just in time, for too many companies have gone the way of low-road strategies, such as cutting pay and perks, and working harder not smarter. Drawing on her path-breaking research, Jody Hoffer Gittell reveals that high performance is fundamentally relational--rooted in both human and social capital.

Based on this insight, she provides a unique model that will help companies to build meaningful relationships among colleagues, develop smarter work processes, and design organizational structures fit for today's pressure test. By following four organizations on their change journeys, she illustrates how "relational coordination" unfolds in real-world settings. Tools for change guide readers as they learn how to implement this new model in their own workplaces.

Review Quotes

"Inviting and inspiring! Gittell masterfully weaves together academic insights and the voices of change agents to create a compelling guidebook. Each page of this book reveals something critical about the relational dynamics needed for our health care system to function better."--Kathryn McDonald, Senior Scholar and Executive Director "Stanford Health Policy (CHP/PCOR)"

"Jody Hoffer Gittell is one those rare individuals who has successfully translated 'what works' in industry for health care settings. Her relational coordination framework, implementation guide, and case studies provide a coherent approach for moving beyond fragmented efforts to improve teamwork. With this book, you can create organization-wide change based on shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect."--Don Goldmann, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer "Institute for Healthcare Improvement"

"Positive sustained change in firms happens through relationships. This book is an inspired and substantive account of how relational coordination enables excellence in team and organizational performance. It offers a powerful framework, useful tools, and clear examples that will help readers to create impactful change."--Jane E. Dutton "University of Michigan"

"Transforming organizations requires courage, perseverance, and vision. Anyone considering this challenge will find it easier and more doable with the evidence, cases, and tools that Jody Hoffer Gittell provides. This book is a beacon based on her pioneering work on positive relationships that drive and sustain innovation. Let's do it!"--Thomas A. Kochan "MIT Sloan School of Management and Institute for Work and Employment Research"

"We are entering the age of relationships. This book makes a good argument for how effective work relationships will enable us to manage the tough problems which complex cross-cultural interdependent work will increasingly confront us."--Edgar H. Schein "MIT Sloan School of Management and author of Humble Inquiry and Humble Consulting"

About the Author

Jody Hoffer Gittell is Professor at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She is Executive Director of the Relational Coordination Research Collaborative and author of The Southwest Airlines Way (2005) and High Performance Healthcare (2009).