I'm Sorry I Broke Your Company by Karen Phelan - Book review

I'm Sorry I Broke Your Company

When Management Consultants Are the Problem, Not the Solution

By: Karen Phelan

Published: January 7, 2013
Format: Paperback, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1609947398
ISBN-13: 978-1609947392
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers










"I would like to be very clear about my purpose. The point of this book is to debunk the conventional business wisdom and not add to it", writes consultant and co-founder of Operating Principals, Karen Phelan, in her straight talking and provocative book I'm Sorry I Broke Your Company: When Management Consultants Are the Problem, Not the Solution. The author describes how the most popular and widely applied management practices are ineffective as they ignore the crucial human element within the organization.

Karen Phelan recognizes that the most frequently used and highly regarded management practices, and the consultants who recommend them, are often treated as if they were laws of nature. Instead, the author provides strong evidence that the most common management practices are not only ineffective, but do severe harm to the organization as a whole. Karen Phelan compares these standard recommendations as being the equivalent of a fad diet.

The methodologies solve one problem but will create another, causing a vicious cycle of one partial remedy after another. For Karen Phelan, the common denominator of these failed solutions is at their core is an attempt to dehumanize the workplace and the employees within it. Without consideration for the human factor, and real human emotions and behaviors, the latest management practice will be doomed to failure.



Karen Phelan (photo left) understands that the foundation of every organization is its people. Without taking into consideration the emotions of the employees, as well as their actions and behavior, a consultant's recommendation is not likely to succeed. Not only does Karen Phelan consider the most popular management theories to be flawed, but their lack of consideration for the human element makes them wrongheaded as well.

Karen Phelan addresses and deconstructs the best known management practices, and exposes their obvious fatal flaws:

* Strategic planning can't predict the future
* Make sure you re-engineer the people too
* Metrics are the means, not the ends
* Standardized human asset management is a SHAM
* I am a managers, and so can you
* Stop perpetuating talent management on people
* Great leaders don't fit the models
* Out of the boxes, charts, and spreadsheets

For me, the power of the book is how Karen Phelan combines a rigorous analysis of the fatal flaws inherent in the standard management models, with an alternative human based approach to operating a company. The author places the emphasis on the organization's people, and establishes a much more effective alternative to the traditional consultant model. Karen Phelan takes what should be the most effective way of managing, through talking with the people and asking for their input, and transforms it into a viable management alternative. The usual management theories are systematically debunked by the author, and exposed for the ineffective panaceas they are in the real world.

Instead of dehumanizing the employees, as is the not so subtle message of the standard systems, Karen Phelan transfers the focus directly to the organization's people. Instead of the top down approach, with its built in mistrust of the human element of the firm, the author proposes the sensible and more effective idea of actually talking to the people and asking for their input and help. Helping the people work together more effectively, achieve their goals more productively, and engaging them in the planning and execution of the ideas is a superior model in every way.

I highly recommend the iconoclastic and people oriented book
I'm Sorry I Broke Your Company: When Management Consultants Are the Problem, Not the Solution by Karen Phelan, to any organizational leaders, decision makers, managers, and consultants, who are seeking an approach to finding workable, realistic, and lasting solutions to the most pressing problems within the firm. The author shares timeless and empowering ideas that will engage and inspire the employees, and avoid the latest fads and acronyms at the same time.