Douglas Klein
David Sirota has two abiding professional interests: organization behavior and survey research. Both of these interests took hold at the University of Michigan, where he received his doctorate, and where he worked at that university’s Institute for Social Research, a leading center for applying survey methods to the study of organizations. Upon receiving his doctorate, David was recruited by International Business Machines (IBM) to help initiate behavioral science research there. He stayed at IBM for 12 years in a variety of research and executive positions, leaving in 1972 to set up his own firm, Sirota Consulting, now simply Sirota. The firm specializes in the diagnosis and improvement of the relationships of organizations with all of their key constituencies: employees, customers, suppliers, investors, and communities. In 1996, David became chairman emeritus of the firm, after completing his own succession plan with key employees. He continues to consult with selected clients, primarily on matters of leadership, and collaboration and conflict within and between organizations.
Parallel to his career as a consultant, David has had an academic career, having taught at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations of Cornell University, the School of Industrial Administration of Yale University, the Sloan School of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
David is married with two children and lives in New York City.
Douglas Klein is, likewise, steeped in survey research, with 25 years of experience in the field. Prior to joining Sirota, he worked for AT&T, building leadership assessment centers and conducting employee research, and then at Time Warner, where he conducted employee and customer satisfaction research. Doug brought his insights into employee and customer research to Sirota and helped launch its “linkage” efforts, statistically relating employee attitudes, customer attitudes, and “hard” business metrics. He managed the normative database for the firm for more than a decade (on which so much in the book’s first and second editions is based) and is seen by many as a real historian of employee attitudes. His current role as the firm’s chief leadership advisor allows him to apply his strong analytical skills and decades of client experience to issues of organizational values and culture and to the day-to-day problems faced by senior executives in the management of their companies.
Doug is an active advisor, speaker, and writer. (See his blog on www.sirota.com and search for the many articles he has authored or to which he has contributed.) He holds a master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology from New York University.
Doug lives in Merrick, New York, with his wife Ilene and their two children.
David Russo is Principal and CEO of Eno River Associates, Inc., a consulting practice that helps executives build high-performing organizations by developing win-win relationships with the workforce. Mr. Russo has consulted with many global companies and organizations, including American Express, Johnson & Johnson, Minitab, Inc., American Eagle Outfitters, and the CIA. Before his retirement in 1999, he was the senior human resources executive for SAS Institute, the world’s largest privately held software company, known as a perennial Fortune “Best Place to Work” for its quality work environment and focus on its people.