# Rob Goffee

Robert (Rob) Goffee (born 1952) is a British organizational theorist and Emeritus Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the London Business School. He was listed among the Forbes.com list of Most Influential Management Gurus (2009).

## Quotes

* A company's culture is often buried so deeply inside rituals, assumptions, attitudes, and values that it becomes transparent to an organization's members only when, for some reason, it changes.
** Rob Goffee, cited in: Jürgen Rothlauf (2015), A Global View on Intercultural Management. p. 85
* Small businessmen and entrepreneurs came firmly back in fashion when this book was first published in 1980. As the Western economies moved into recession, many governments, particularly Mrs Thatcher’s administration, looked to the entrepreneurial spirit of the small businessman to rejuvenate and revitalise Western society.
    Stripping away the political rhetoric, this book provides a serious social portrait of the small businessman in the economy at the time in which this book was written. Based upon extensive original research, the detailed analyses focus on the key issues in the small businessmen’s life. At a time when there was much argument about the motivation and will to work of Western society, this study of the traditional custodians of capitalism is particularly relevant. Above all it shows how the historical values of the small businessman have survived in the changed circumstances of the advanced economies.
   * R. Scase and R. Goffee, The real world of the small business owner, Croom Helm, London, 1981/2015: General introduction of 2015 edition.
* For us, an authentic organization is one in which you can be your best self, you can identify with the organizational purpose, you can understand and trust it. These are the qualities that came through from interviews with individuals working in organizations around the world.
** Rob Goffee in: David Slocum, "5 Questions With Creativity Gurus Rob Goffee And Gareth Jones On What Makes A Dream Job," at Forbes.com, March 28, 2016
* Our work on leadership encouraged people to “be themselves, more, with skill.” This message has resonated well. But one response has been that people will act authentically when they find themselves in authentic organizations. So our new book answers the question, “what would an authentic organization look like?” We have identified six DREAMS dimensions here:
       - Difference beyond diversity – let me be myself at work
       - Radical honesty – tell me the truth before someone else does
       - Extra value – add value to me, don’t exploit me
       - Authenticity – stand for something more than shareholder value
       - Meaning – give me a meaningful job in an organization which itself has meaning
       - Simple rules – give me clear and agreed rules, not a fog of bureaucracy
   * Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, in: David Slocum, "5 Questions With Creativity Gurus Rob Goffee And Gareth Jones On What Makes A Dream Job," at Forbes.com, March 28, 2016

### "Creating the Best Workplace on Earth," 2013

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, (2013). "Creating the best workplace on the earth." Harvard Business Review, 99-106.
* Suppose you want to design the best company on earth to work for. What would it be like? For three years we’ve been investigating this question by asking hundreds of executives in surveys and in seminars all over the world to describe their ideal organization. This mission arose from our research into the relationship between authenticity and effective leadership. Simply put, people will not follow a leader they feel is inauthentic. But the executives we questioned made it clear that to be authentic, they needed to work for an authentic organization.
** p. 99; Lead paragraph
* Highly engaged employees are, on average, 50% more likely to exceed expectations that the least-engaged workers. And companies with highly engaged people outperform firms with the most disengaged folks- by 54% in employee retention, by 89% in customer satisfaction, and by fourfold in revenue growth.
** p. 100

## External links

* Rob Goffee, at London Business School
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