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AN EVERYONE CULTURE: BECOMING A DELIBERATELY DEVELOPMENTAL ORGANIZATION by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, with Matthew L. Miller, Andy Fleming, and Deborah Heising Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2016. 308 pp. $32.00 (hardcover).
In An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization, authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey explore the potential of the workplace to promote adult development-the amalgam of phenomena that increase intellectual and psychological complexity over the lifespan. Examining the experiences of three exemplar companies, Next Jump, Decurión, and Bridgewater, this book distills the unique characteristics of "deliberately developmental organizations" (DDOs) and the practices necessary to sustain them. While the authors concede that intentionally designing and managing organizational culture to promote employee growth is deeply challenging and unlikely to fit every workplace, they conclude that with principled implementation, the DDO approach is good for people as well as profit.
An Everyone Culture is organized into seven chapters and an epilogue that examine Next Jump, Decurión, and Bridgewater from a number of perspectives, including those of founders, top managers working to evolve DDO practices, and employees focused on their own developmental goals. Recognizing that readers may be challenged by the principles of the DDO, the processes of personal growth that these DDOs deploy, and/or the companies' approach to the bottom line, the authors advise readers to "choose the best sequence through the book" (p. 6), offering a number of alternative sequences tailored to readers' learning goals and characteristics. For example, "If you prefer to see the big picture before you look at living instances . . . you may prefer a more deductive sequence, beginning with chapters 2 and 3 and then moving to chapter 1" (p. 7).
Chapter 1, "Meet the DDOs," introduces the reader to each company, its core business, and a few of its signature DDO strategies. Next Jump is an e-commerce marketplace. Its DDO slogan, "Better Me + Better You = Better Us" (p. 20), reflects the company's belief that each employee must be committed not only to continuous individual growth but also to supporting others in learning from risk and failure. Decurión Corporation is a privately held corporation with real estate and entertainment interests that strives to connect all work-from taking cinema tickets and making popcorn-to powerful values such...