This is not a conventional book on lean, quality, culture or sustainability. It and the accompanying website (compression dot org) take on the hurdle of rethinking growth through expansion (hence the title) in a detailed, matter-of-fact way.

Economic and ecological conditions may require businesses, governments and other organizations to adopt a new organizational model. That is the goal of Compression: "To learn how to continue improving human quality of life while greatly reducing our consumption of energy and virgin raw material, while releasing no toxic chemicals into either air or water." Dr. Hall views work organizations as a key to human survival and quality of life, but with some adjustments:

- Mission, not wealth maximization, is an enterprise's main purpose.

- People are the enterprise, rather than just assets working to benefit the owners.

- Enterprises that develop the capability to rapidly learn and responsively execute changes can cope with challenges.

Questioning the belief that every entity maximizing its return leads to the greater good could collide with some of our innate human programming (such as: females choose, males try to get chosen), but, as the systems-thinking community has been pointing out, it is probably time for this conversation. Compression is packed with observations, ideas and steps that reveal the wide and deep experience of the author. Read it and join the conversation.