Organizational Assessment: A Step by Step Guide to Effective Consulting

A comprehensive, step-by-step guide to assessing the health of an organization. Drawing on his experience, Harry Levinson shows consultants and business owners what symptoms of the ailing organization to look for and how to analyze the resulting data. Using an "open systems" approach to diagnosis, Levinson teaches his readers how to apply this technique to the problems of any malfunctioning organization - be it a business, hospital, school or church. In the process, he seeks to communicate not only the basics of his craft, but also the challenges, rewards and subtleties of it. The volume is an updated and distilled version of the author's "Organizational Diagnosis". It covers getting started and drawing up an agreement with an organization, as well as data gathering, classification, interpretation and presentation. A case summary provides a real-life example of the author's approach in practice. The work also presents a complete outline of the assessment process, which consultants can refer to. Appendices include a sample final report and other material that should help the reader use the outline more effectively.