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(2001). Nothing personal, just business: a guided journey into organizational darkness.
"Witnessing, bearing witness, and writing for others to see and hear—these are the beginning of hope for genuine change. If I cannot alter what I see, I can at least attest to the fact that it happened and is still happening." (p. xvi)
(2002). New International Bible.
"A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." (Proverbs 22:1)
(1978). Negative criticism: Its swath of destruction and what to do about it.
"It is a little after midnight. You have just come out of the last show at the movie. To save a block you cut through a dark alley. Halfway through it—just as you are beginning to relax—two men step out of the shadows. You hear a nasty metallic snick and suddenly there is the glint of knife blades in the feeble light.
What would you do?
I know what I would do.
Quickly I'd turn and throw a fearful look back up the alley. It is clear and free. A surge of adrenalin sends the blood pumping to my legs. Getting out of that alley I set a new indoor Olympic sprint record. The jogger in me has never seen such speed. Nothing seems sweeter than the glare of street lights and the chatter of people making their way to their cars. I look for a police officer and tell my story.
That is what everybody would do in such a situation, right?
But let me play you another version. The scene is the same. The two hulking men are coming at you with knives. But you keep strolling casually on to meet them. You throw up your arms and say, 'I'm all yours. Let me feel the steel. I know it will help me in the long run.'
They oblige by savagely thrusting the knives deep into your defenseless belly. You fall to the pavement writhing with pain. The men stand over you. You roll onto your stomach and gasp, 'You'd better give me a couple in the back, too.'
Ridiculous?
Of course, but it is exactly what thousands upon thousands of us do each and every day by failing to recognize that the knives of negative criticism which people stick in us are just as sharp and deadly as those made of steel and borne by assassins." (p. 9)
What would you do?
I know what I would do.
Quickly I'd turn and throw a fearful look back up the alley. It is clear and free. A surge of adrenalin sends the blood pumping to my legs. Getting out of that alley I set a new indoor Olympic sprint record. The jogger in me has never seen such speed. Nothing seems sweeter than the glare of street lights and the chatter of people making their way to their cars. I look for a police officer and tell my story.
That is what everybody would do in such a situation, right?
But let me play you another version. The scene is the same. The two hulking men are coming at you with knives. But you keep strolling casually on to meet them. You throw up your arms and say, 'I'm all yours. Let me feel the steel. I know it will help me in the long run.'
They oblige by savagely thrusting the knives deep into your defenseless belly. You fall to the pavement writhing with pain. The men stand over you. You roll onto your stomach and gasp, 'You'd better give me a couple in the back, too.'
Ridiculous?
Of course, but it is exactly what thousands upon thousands of us do each and every day by failing to recognize that the knives of negative criticism which people stick in us are just as sharp and deadly as those made of steel and borne by assassins." (p. 9)
(1990). Narcissistic Process and Corporate Decay: The Theory of the Organizational Ideal.
"When work, the productive process, becomes display, its meaning becomes lost. Its performance as part of the organizational drama becomes the only meaning it has. Accordingly, the parts it plays in the organization's transactions with the world become irrelevant. When this happens, work loses its adaptive function and becomes mere ritual. At the same time, the rituals that serve to express the individual's identification with the organization ideal, especially those connected with rank, come to be infused with significance for the individual. They become sacred. Thus, reality and appearance trade places. The energy that once went into the production of goods and services of value to others is channelled into the dramatization of a narcissistic fantasy in which the organization's environment is merely a stage setting." (p. 61)
(2005). Monsters, Gods, and Heroes: The Epic in Literature.
"So it's a strife here, in a way, between position—between the CEO and the top salesman; between the principal and the best teacher; between Miller Huggins, the manager, and Babe Ruth, the best baseball player who ever lived; between the person who can really do it, and the person who is in charge. Those are incommensurable excellences, and then and now they often come into conflict. So here—that is the rage within the rage, the conflict within the conflict, that Homer is interested in chronicling."1
(1981). Models for Management : The Structure of Competence.
"Chain of command looks good on paper, but in practice it falls far short as an effective system for arousing cooperation when basic economic conditions have resulted in men being released from industrial servitude." (p. 122)
(1999). Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace.
"But employees who are committed to their work are often very loyal. They believe in the goals of the organization. They care about the organization's reputation. They keep quiet, are ambivalent about taking action and may not readily seek assistance, inside or outside the organization. They suffer for a longer period. Rarely do such individuals reveal their personal agony. And often they do not understand the complex reality of their situation."
(1998). The Mentor's Spirit : Life Lessons on Leadership and the Art of Encouragement.
"There is a clear link between mentoring and the unleashing of leadership power. New managers frequently experience self-doubts when needing to control their work team's outcomes. Yet early in a career nothing is more natural than wanting control over results. Mentors can help proteges notice their cultural programming: Have they learned to be excessively docile? Are they able to say no or do they get pushed around? Or are they bullies? The young, unaware that creativity needs autonomy in the sphere of expertise, may thwart their finest impulses. The desire to retain creative control over work is often a sign that one is tending toward self-actualization. Shaping outcomes, carving out privacy, or protecting independence are elementary aims of inventive sorts." (p. 122)
(1986). Management for Productivity.
"Structure should accommodate the people within the system. People vary in their skills, interests, needs, personalities. These individual differences must be accommodated by organization structures to maximize support for individual work efforts." (p. 167)
(1989). Management.
"Rosabeth Kanter has argued that power can easily become institutionalized. Those whom others believe to possess power seem to find it easier to influence other people around them—and thus to garner even more genuine power. By the same token, 'powerlessness' is a difficult condition to overcome." (p. 306)
(1998). LINUX Network Toolkit.
(2001). Learning Perl, Third Edition.
(1992). Learned Optimism.
"It's a disturbing idea, that depressed people see reality correctly while nondepressed people distort reality in a self-serving way. As a therapist I was trained to believe that it was my job to help depressed patients both to feel happier and to see the world more clearly. I was supposed to be the agent of happiness and of truth. But maybe truth and happiness antagonize each other. Perhaps what we have considered good therapy for a depressed patient merely nurtures benign illusions, making the patient think his world is better than it actually is." (p. 108)
(2000). JMP Start Statistics.
(1999). Jini? Specifications, The.
(1999). Java 1.2 Class Libraries Unleashed.
(1998). Is It Too Late to Run Away and Join the Circus?: Finding the Life You Really Want.
"'I get myself up in the morning. I shave my face. I dress in my clothes. I go to my office. I do my work. I come back to my house. But I feel like I'm only doing an imitation of myself, and it's not a terrific impersonation.'"
(1996). Inside the As/400.
(2005). Innovation at the Speed of Laughter: 8 Secrets to World Class Idea Generation.
"Unfortunately some individuals who are full of wonderful and innovative ideas may be viewed as sullen, non-participating appendages, disconnected or, worse yet, lazy. Perhaps the real truth is that they are being asked to create ideas (already an emotional risk) in a way that is not suited for their style or comfort with focus. A drastic example of this sort of misclassification is Albert Einstein, who was labelled by many as lazy and arrogant by traditional academic standards of the time because he preferred a process of discovery and innovation that was isolated and introspective."
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