“In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.”
— John Ruskin, 19th century philosopher, art critic, and Oxford professor
A major thrust of my consulting practice has emphasized working with corporate executives to create new organizational models. While I’ve tended to help them generate greater organizational efficiency and effectiveness, I have also sought to counsel individual managers in terms of their interpersonal skills, management styles, etc. Over the years, some of my clients have said things like: “Warner, you’re the organizational repairman;” “You’re the corporate revolutionary;” and, “You seem to advocate, ‘if it ain’t broke, break it.'” These kinds of feedback are pretty typical.
I have consulted with Fortune 500 companies, international labor unions, local governments and nonprofit institutions such as hospitals, universities, and service agencies. Much of my work has focused on top-level corporate governance and long-term strategic planning, stakeholder analysis, and culture change. I’ve also done considerable work in new plant start-ups, factory redesign of the socio-technical system, shop floor job enrichment, team building, TQM, and other tools for enabling workers to build faster, better products while at the same time building community in the workplace. From management consulting to union-company conflict resolution, from personal growth to organizational transformation, from customer service to greater productivity/quality, my consulting has served to help firms acquire new capabilities, and integrate HR, finance, and marketing systems to produce greater impacts and long-term economic returns on investment.
“Disruptive Innovation from the Base of the Pyramid: Cases in Peru, the Philippines, and Honduras,” International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences Research Series, Prague, Czech Republic, 2019, pp. 53-56.
An Action Research Approach to Poverty Reduction/From Academic Idea to Working NGO. Published by the Norwegian Action Research Conference; then at the Socio-Technical Systems Roundtable, Dallas, TX, October 10, 2009 (26 pp).
“Consulting for 2nd Order Change”. Chapter in The State, Trade Unions, and Self-Management by G. Szell (ed.). New York: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1988.
Industrial Democracy: Strategies for Community Revitalization. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications 1985. (Book, 308 pp.)
“Consultants, Conspirators, and Colonizers”. Group and Organization Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1981, pp. 57 64.
“Capitalism without compassion leaves too many on the outside looking in.”
— Jacob Holdt
Consulting Links
American Society for Training and Development
Arthur D. Little, Management Consulting
Institute of Management Consultants USA
Association of Management Consulting Firms
Holland & Davis, Leaders in Change Management
“Don’t just do things differently, do different things.”
— Warner Woodworth (1980s)