Tempered Radicals: How People Use Difference to Inspire Change at Work
Author: Debra E. Meyerson
List Price: $24.95
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ISBN: 0875849059
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press (15 August, 2001)
Sales Rank: 32,733
Average Customer Rating: 4.78 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Yes, you can actually change the system
This is an important book for you to read if your gender, ethnicity, or lifestyle makes you an outsider in your workplace. Debra Meyerson gives examples of how employees have successfully taken small steps to change their companies so they are accepted and their voices are heard.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Good on politics, slight on deeper issues
First, let me start by saying that I liked this book and have been recommending it to others. As a "tempered radical" I wish that I had read this book early in my career. I had the wrong impression that hard work and results were enough as long as there were no bodies along the way. Young, naïve, and idealistic. Consequently, I am recommending this book to people starting their careers so that they get the reality of work as well as to others who just do not get that their approach is a major irritant to the powers that be. I also liked this book because the author used her premise to package her ideas so that her tempered radicalism around race, gender, and other legally protected groups could be better heard by others. I came from academia too (and even received my PhD from Michigan where she had an early appointment in her career) but left that environment because of the oppression of free thinking and any kind of difference. This background added to my wish that this book had been around 10 years ago. I might have better succeeded in that environment if I had had this framework from which to work.
Although I like this book, I did not give the book 4 or 5 stars because the best of her book and the most important aspect of her premise was saved until last - the downside of the "tempered" approach. I do believe that revolutionary results can be achieved by evolutionary steps - small steps can achieve great things as they add up without the major heartburn or resistance that a revolution can cause. However, maybe evolution is not the best means to the ends and that cannot be decided until one decides whom they are and what they are about and decide whether tempered or full scale radicalism is what they want to do. This is a choice and is worthy of exposing at the beginning of the book. So although I may have succeeded in academia if I had had her premise from which to work, I would not have been happy because I would not have been true to me and the essence of who I was or am.
Evolution vs. revolution. To choose one must first know what one is willing to give up.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Inspiration and hope
Many of us work in places where we have a vision for how things could be better -- how we could work differently, treat people more respectfully, act on our values. If only, we think -- we could do something different--then we would really feel good about ourselves and proud about the places we work. This book inspires you to lead that change, to act on your vision. In these times when the impulse is to hunker down and just do our jobs, Meyerson gives us role models of people who have been everyday heroes, leading change that made their organizations better for everybody. Similar Products
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Tempered Radicals: How Everyday Leaders Inspire Change at Work
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