Navigating the Badlands: Thriving in a Decade of Radical Transformation.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Book Review

Navigating the Badlands: Thriving in a Decade of Radical Transformation. By Mary O'Hara-Devereaux. Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 332 pages. $27.95

The perils of today's economy--global competition, fast-changing technologies, dwindling energy supplies and yes, terrorism--make up a landscape that author Mary O'Hara-Devereaux likens to the Dakota Badlands that pioneers had to traverse in the 19th Century. In effect, she writes, companies and their employees are being forced to journey between the end of the Industrial Era and the "full promise of the Information Age."

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The author, a futurist, builds the book around four themes: globalization, "the new leadership crucible," organizational metamorphosis and social choices. Especially important, she writes, are the second and third themes, "our journey as leaders of organizations and the transformation organizations must achieve."

Along the journey, she writes, companies can expect to face pains that may be more or less chronic--and organizations and leaders dealing with them "will need to engage in a constant dance of moving forward and backtracking, recalibrating and moving...