"Most subsidiaries of multinational organizations in developing countries
are managed like modern-day saladeros, beef-jerking companies where,
in the process of salting beef, workers salted themselves out of life.
In Gaucho Dialogues on Leadership and Management Alfredo Behrens illustrates the
Latin American organizational how-to through a dialogue attributed to two iconic
literary characters, Martín Fierro and Don Segundo Sombra. Fierro—passionate,
nonpragmatic, xenophobic—and Sombra—with a more nuanced affection toward old
ways—comment on the militia-led insurrections from Argentina and Uruguay through
Brazil, Venezuela, Central America and Mexico, and draw lessons about leadership,
strategy and people management in Latin America. While the book’s argument
covers the ethos prevailing in the Americas, Behrens believes it may be relevant
elsewhere among similar societies where people prefer to act as members of clans
than as autonomous individuals. If so, the book’s argument may be relevant for the
vast majority of humankind at work."
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