Book Review: Ghost Story: A Modern Business Fable
Dr. Carol Kinsey Goman is the president of a consulting company -- Kinsey Consulting Services -- specializing in change management and a well known speaker on human capital issues. She is also the author of Ghost Story: A Modern Business Fable.
As the subtitle indicates, the story is told as a business fable. I have tried elsewhere to highlight the range of formats and sub-genres within the broader concept of didactic fiction (see Didactic Fiction and Related Narrative Forms). As a business fable, it is very similar to Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson.
I enjoyed reading the book but if you are interested in getting a sense of the approach taken by the author, you can view a short video clip titled "Why People Don't Share Knowledge" on the author's website. The clip introduces one of the characters and one specific issue: knowledge is power vs. knowledge sharing is power.
The main character is a low level employee (Dot, short for Dorothy) who is suddenly given a challenging task that she doesn't feel prepared for. The story takes Dot on an adventure in a parallel world (where characters include a giant finger -- hint: finger pointing behavior) where she has to face another challenge (becoming a short-term consultant). In the process of addressing that challenge, she essentially learns key lessons that will be particularly useful in addressing her real world challenge. In addition, she gains the self-confidence she needs to take on her next challenge successfully.
Most of the characters in the parallel world have exaggerated "qualities" that illustrate the types of less than productive behaviors that can be found in any organization (knowledge hoarding, finger pointing, etc... ) and a lot of the plot revolves around miscommunication, misunderstandings, lack of trust, and internal politics. The organization's well being is in jeopardy and Dot's first task is to solve a mystery involving a ghost. To solve the mystery, Dot does a sort of organizational assessment and eventually uncovers the root causes of all the dysfunctional behaviors that were putting the organization at risk. As the story progresses, Dot also collects messages that turn out to be key rules that should guide knowledge sharing behavior. The rules are essentially the business lessons or "moral of the story".
I didn't come across any specific suggestion on how the book might be used in an organizational context, but it's a quick and easy read at just over 100 pages. It would be easy to assign it to a group as reading and to organize a group discussion around it.
When I first heard of this book a couple of weeks ago, I thought it might be the closest thing to what I am trying to write. I almost panicked thinking that perhaps what I was trying to write had already been done. After all it deals with a knowledge sharing theme and the story is told in a didactic fiction format. Now that I've read it, it's become clear that it has little to do with what I am trying to write. I'm not sure if that's good news or bad news.
As the subtitle indicates, the story is told as a business fable. I have tried elsewhere to highlight the range of formats and sub-genres within the broader concept of didactic fiction (see Didactic Fiction and Related Narrative Forms). As a business fable, it is very similar to Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson.
I enjoyed reading the book but if you are interested in getting a sense of the approach taken by the author, you can view a short video clip titled "Why People Don't Share Knowledge" on the author's website. The clip introduces one of the characters and one specific issue: knowledge is power vs. knowledge sharing is power.
The main character is a low level employee (Dot, short for Dorothy) who is suddenly given a challenging task that she doesn't feel prepared for. The story takes Dot on an adventure in a parallel world (where characters include a giant finger -- hint: finger pointing behavior) where she has to face another challenge (becoming a short-term consultant). In the process of addressing that challenge, she essentially learns key lessons that will be particularly useful in addressing her real world challenge. In addition, she gains the self-confidence she needs to take on her next challenge successfully.
Most of the characters in the parallel world have exaggerated "qualities" that illustrate the types of less than productive behaviors that can be found in any organization (knowledge hoarding, finger pointing, etc... ) and a lot of the plot revolves around miscommunication, misunderstandings, lack of trust, and internal politics. The organization's well being is in jeopardy and Dot's first task is to solve a mystery involving a ghost. To solve the mystery, Dot does a sort of organizational assessment and eventually uncovers the root causes of all the dysfunctional behaviors that were putting the organization at risk. As the story progresses, Dot also collects messages that turn out to be key rules that should guide knowledge sharing behavior. The rules are essentially the business lessons or "moral of the story".
I didn't come across any specific suggestion on how the book might be used in an organizational context, but it's a quick and easy read at just over 100 pages. It would be easy to assign it to a group as reading and to organize a group discussion around it.
When I first heard of this book a couple of weeks ago, I thought it might be the closest thing to what I am trying to write. I almost panicked thinking that perhaps what I was trying to write had already been done. After all it deals with a knowledge sharing theme and the story is told in a didactic fiction format. Now that I've read it, it's become clear that it has little to do with what I am trying to write. I'm not sure if that's good news or bad news.
Labels: books, Didactic fiction
posted by Barbara Fillip at
4:34 AM
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