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Lessons on Change and Reform from Fifty Years of Public Service
Knopf
January 2016
On Sale: January 19, 2016
256 pages ISBN: 030795949X EAN: 9780307959492 Kindle: B00WPQ0PHU Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Inspirational | Non-Fiction Memoir
From the former secretary of defense and author of the
acclaimed #1 best-selling memoir Duty, a
characteristically direct, informed, and urgent assessment
of why big institutions are failing us and how smart,
committed leadership can effect real improvement regardless
of scale.
Across the realms of civic and private
enterprise alike, bureaucracies vitally impact our security,
freedoms, and everyday life. With so much at stake,
competence, efficiency, and fiscal prudence are essential,
yet Americans know these institutions fall short. Many
despair that they are too big and too hard to reform.
Robert Gates disagrees. Having led change
successfully at three monumental organizations—the CIA,
Texas A&M University, and the Department of Defense—he
offers us the ultimate insider’s look at how major bureaus,
organizations, and companies can be transformed, which is by
turns heartening and inspiring and always instructive.
With practical, nuanced advice on tailoring reform
to the operative culture (we see how Gates worked within the
system to increase diversity at Texas A&M); effecting
change within committees; engaging the power of compromise
(“In the real world of bureaucratic institutions, you almost
never get all you want when you want it”); and listening and
responding to your team, Gates brings the full weight of his
wisdom, candor, and devotion to civic duty to inspire others
to lead desperately needed change.
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