"The Quagmire Ahead"

"The Quagmire Ahead" by David Brooks, The NY Times, June 2, 2009

"On Jan. 21, 1988, a General Motors executive named Elmer Johnson wrote a brave and prophetic memo. It's main point was contained in this sentence: We have vastly underestimated how deeply ingrained are the organizational and cultural rigidities that hamper our ability to execute.

"GM's core problem is its corporate and workplace culture--the unquantifiable but essential attitudes, mind-sets and relationship patterns that are passed down, year after year." (Sounds very similar to most academic institutions these days, too.)