Chapter | Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster | 2005

The Price of Progress: Structually Induced Inaction

by Scott Snook and Jeffrey C. Connor

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Outcome or Result;

Format: Print

Citation:

Snook, Scott, and Jeffrey C. Connor. "The Price of Progress: Structually Induced Inaction." Chap. 10 in Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster, edited by M. Farjoun, and W. Starbuck, 178–201. Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

Coach Bob Hurley of St. Anthony High School is one of the winningest coaches in the history of high school basketball. At age 65, he has won more than 1,000 games and 25 New Jersey State Championships. His players come from the toughest streets in the country and yet all but 3 have gone on to college. As head coach, he earns less than $10,000 a year; his circa 1917 school building doesn't even have a gym. And yet, for almost 40 years he has turned down all offers to leave a small, aging, Catholic school in Jersey City, NJ. This is a biographical case about a tough-love leader who epitomizes what it means to be authentic. It was written for a course on authentic leadership development to highlight the origins and potential of deep self-knowledge and passion. Class discussion focuses on the tensions between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations and the role that this plays in our lives.

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The Price of Progress: Structually Induced Inaction

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