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books  Hole in the Garden Wall Human Values and  Organizational Cultures

Hole in the Garden Wall

Hole in the Garden Wall is a fine art photography book showcasing author/photographer Prudence Kohl's signature "visual thought" process of marrying photographic image to original verse.  These visual and poetic statements are reinforced with powerful, thought-provoking essays. Together, they challenge readers to rediscover and reclaim their silenced voices of authentic self expression so they might begin building stronger, more dynamic human relationships out of a new critical consciousness grounded in genuine dialogue and rising above the prejudice of closed minds.

Publisher:         Cyrano Guildmaster Publishing
Photographer:   Prudence Kohl
Author:             Prudence Kohl
Copy Editors:     Prudence Kohl, Kathleen Collins, Margot Stillwell
Finish Design:    David Gibbs, The Design Group, Greensboro, NC
Printer:             Walnut Circle Press, Greensboro, NC
Distributor:       Simon & Shuster Publishing
Size:                 9 x 11; 162 pages
Pictorals:           60 bookplate master print color and b&w photographs
Production/Marketing Budget:  $100,000

Excerpt from The Last and Great Alaska chapter

I dream of a place without crowds, no pulsating throngs of people to shatter my spirit or shorten my stride.

I dream of a place where mist makes love to mountain, of serrated peaks caressed only by the wind, where I can stand on rock and behold the threshold of heaven...

I dream of a place where land and humanity are equals, where solitary wilderness will never know the crush of Man's heel nor be plundered in the name of commerical zeal.

There is such a place.  Its name is Alaska.  But if you have never seen this foreign country masquerading as a United State, it may be too late.  For discovery has put her on a collision course with the best intentions of Man's worst trivial pursuits.

Alaska is a carnivorous land, compressing time into a singular dimension, swallowing up extremes of scale like a gigantic black hole.  Geographically, she boasts 33,904 miles of shoreline, three million lakes large enough to mention, half the world's glaciers, 365,000 miles of rivers and 19 peaks higher than 14,000 feet.  Her entire population numbers approximately 420,000, fewer people than live in Cleveland, Ohio.

She has been called a carnival side show of every gargantuan and infinitesimal manifestation on the North American continent.  Indeed, P. T. Barnum would have been impressed by her invincible mountains juxtapositioned with an arctic tundra so fragile it can be scarred forever by a single footprint.

Alaska's secrets hide within her duality.  But the romantic fantasy of the last frontier springs from her outrageous size which fuels a uniquely American chauvinism.  From the past to the present, pioneers have approached her challenges with a swaggering bravado.  The game was to best nature, to conquer the land or at least bend it to fit some intellectual persuasion.  As if scaling Mount McKinley, striking gold, finding oil, or protecting the caribou was its own aphrodisiac that promised to eradicate a life of personal impotence...

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Human Values and Organizational Cultures

This book was created as a text book for Prudence Kohl's Organizational Communication course and workshop. It is a compilation of four popular theories on human behavior and leadership found within organizational environments.  Kohl integrated these four theories into a compelling statement on the conflicts and compromises existing between and among pronounced human values and prevailing management styles which ultimately create an organization's internal climate.

Publisher:   Cyrano Guildmaster Publishing
Client:         KohlQuest
Author:       Prudence Kohl
Designer:    Prudence Kohl
Printer:       Bookmaster Inc.
Size:           8 x 10
Pages:        53
Budget:      $2000

Excerpt from the Introduction

We live in a world of slogans, mottos and hype where sensationalism, embellishment, buzz words and labels transform problems into issues, and issues into ideologies.  While hype draws public attention to an issue, it more often causes more problems than it solves because it distorts, distracts, and over-simplifies.  In my opinion, that is precisely what happened to an issue that became the buzz word for the '80s -- productivity.  It wasn't enough to merely identify the problem.  It had to be a "crisis."

Crisis implies disaster, dire consequences, and extreme urgency.  It is a word that members of the leadership elite in government, industry, academia and the professions could exploit to justify expanding and asserting their own authorities and opinions.  Often a crisis is created solely for that purpose.

The alarming decline in American industrial productivity has brought forth a host of rhetorical experts offering operational gimmicks or management techniques to reverse the decline.  Very few of these self-appointed experts have directed their commentaries to the human dimension of the productivity problem, perhaps with good reason.  A study of the human variables behind the productivity decline in the United States offers no instant solution because there is no isolated thing or group upon which one can fix blame.  Such a study involves abstract perceptions and attitudes, the kinds of things that do not conform to mathematical, financial, or scientific absolutes.  Studying attitudes and perceptions make many business people uncomfortable.

I believe if we are going to successfully design and implement policies and programs to improve productivity, we first must clearly understand the human variables present in organizational environments, particularly at two levels:  1) the human values represented in any work force, and  2) the management philosophies reflected by various organizational cultures.  In my opinion, when a prevailing management style does not coincide with the predominant human value system within the organization's internal work force and external publics, the successful implementation of any policy or program is severely retarded, if not completely impossible ...