Industry Reviews
"This book is a must read for anyone responsible for driving the performance and culture of an organization, whether CEO or HR practitioner. Grounded in theory and practice, it takes the reader on a journey of how to evolve their people strategy, with rich, illustrative case studies from a variety of industry sectors." * James Cullens, Executive Director, Group HR & Marcomms, W S Atkins plc *
"This is the book that was missing to social enterprise practitioners of any function - HR, IT, Operations or... Quality. Bringing together input from multiple disciplines, Jon's book provides compelling insights about "how to make an organization greater than the sum of its parts". A must read." * Celine Schillinger, Head, Quality Innovation & Engagement, Sanofi Pasteur *
"This is a fantastic book for all strategic organization development practitioners. It provides best practice guidance supported by robust underlying principles and excellent case studies. The reader will be challenged to reconsider their own assumptions and attitudes towards organization development" * David Frost, Organizational Development Director, Total Produce *
"If you are going to take networks seriously - and after reading this book you would understand why you must - then you need to learn how to better manage them. Taking an organization development perspective, The Social Organization shows how social capital helps organizations create value, compete and collaborate." * Paul Sparrow, Emeritus Professor of International HRM, Lancaster University Management School *
"Jon provides an important contribution to ensuring that in future we develop more successful organizations, which make the most of people, not only individually but in how they work effectively together through teams, networks and communities. A must read for helping to ensure the future of Good Work for many and not just a privileged few." * Lesley Giles, Director, The Work Foundation *
"Jon Ingham draws on his rich experience as both HR Director and consultant, providing key insights from academia matched with great case stories. He extracts the essentials of what must be addressed for an organization to perform to its full potential. Highly readable and highly recommendable." * Bjarte Bogsnes, Vice President Performance Management Development, Statoil and Chairman, Beyond Budgeting Roundtable *
"Jon brings his years of experience and offers a treasure trove of useful insights to build social capital within organizations and weave an ecosystem of high performance." * Tanmay Vora, Country Head and Director (R&D), Basware, Author and Blogger *
"Organization Design, as a discipline, is frequently dominated by strategy, structure, and fitting people into roles. In this book, Jon takes the discipline beyond that to recognize designers should think more completely about how processes and technology tools enable an organization to leverage employee knowledge through collaboration." * Tim Gardner, Director, Organizational Effectiveness, Kimberly-Clark *
"Jon Ingham's book The Social Organization is a well supported study of examining human capital and the activities necessary to increase business performance. His Chapter on 'Designing the Workplace' is spot on as an enabler for increasing employee satisfaction and productivity." * Gene Carr, Global Workplace Strategy Lead, The Kellogg Company *
"I would love to see our HR decision makers reading Jon Ingham's great food for thought - rooted in many very relevant case studies and references... The author's analytic approach, staying close to the facts and studies, makes this book a sound base for his conclusions - it is mind-opening on the basis of great observations. After reading it, I felt empowered and engaged to drive my own social/digital/organizational transformation." * Harald Schirmer, Manager, Digital Transformation and Change, Continental *
"This book is a compendium of concepts and thoughts enabling understanding of the evolution and functioning of organizations. It combines a theoretical background with practical examples from leading companies. What makes it particularly interesting is the combination of different viewpoints, through the lens of many different disciplines. I enjoyed reading and learning." * Dr Hans-Juergen Sturm, Head of Collaboration, Content and Portals, Amadeus IT Group *
"In The Social Organization, Jon Ingham takes an insightful look at organizations from a social perspective. He reminds us what we already know but tend to forget - that organizations are social communities of people and that to understand and manage them well we need to pay attention to human disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology and neuroscience." * David Gurteen, Director, Gurteen Knowledge *
"This book is the guide to understanding the social organization, with a cross-disciplinary point of view focusing on how it creates value. Ingham presents a model to make this happen. He provides readers with new and relevant perspectives on people and organization development approaches and on how these create important outcomes." * Nicolas Rolland, Head of Engie University, Engie *
"Through a very complete and engaging journey in the "The Social Organization" dimension, Jon Ingham is shifting our focus out of the traditional boundaries and usual management approaches. He is helping us to discover, to design and to manage what will be the future and how to get the best from our people capabilities by creating a unique, successful organizational and social system dynamic." * Philippe Bonnet, Vice President, Human Resources, Global Head, Learning and Development, Essilor International SA *
"This book is a must for public sector HR professionals. It captures the essence of good practice, is full of creative but sensible thinking and opens up the mind to what is possible. Our people are not just assets, they are a precious resource and implementing even a fraction of what is in here will make a difference to them and to your business." * Sue Evans, former Head of HR and Organizational Development, Warwickshire County Council and President 2016-2017, Public Sector People Managers Association *
"I define good organization as "capable people working well together". Jon Ingham takes the idea of relationships much further. Social capital, he argues, is enhanced by good organization design and by other design choices, such as the use of technology. While Jon likes to position people management as the most important activity of all (his organization value chain), he takes a business rather than an HR view." * Andrew Campbell, Ashridge Executive Education and author of "Designing Effective Organizations" and "Operating Model Canvas" *
"I found the concepts that Jon Ingham outlines extremely helpful in bridging the gap between traditional HR models and new ways of thinking about how sustainable value can be created through organization. The ideas he takes the reader through are both stimulating and challenging, which in turn makes them invaluable to anyone grappling with some of the most pressing issues that confront organizations today." * Geoff Lloyd, Group Human Resource Director, Serco *
"It is indisputable that we are better as a team than as a collection of individuals. Collaboration is at the heart of most successes. Yet traditional HR has often led to organizations which suppress, or at best ignore, rather than nurture this key asset. Work and the workplace today are dramatically different from how they were at the turn of the millennium, and in a competitive knowledge-based economy being successful requires an agile HR with a new focus. This book offers precisely that." * James Purvis, HR Department Head, CERN *
