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(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)
(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)
(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)
(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)
(1979). Organizational Psychology.
"The main conclusion will be that there is no one answer, no 'perfect' way to organize or to design work. Instead, one must become diagnostic and flexible, sensitive to events and their subjective interpretation by the participants in a given situation, so that one can choose a course of action appropriate to that situation."
(1998). Othello (Signet Classic Shakespeare).
"Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something; nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed." (III, iii)
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something; nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed." (III, iii)
(2009). Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography.
"Corporate bodies do not look for their strength in ideas and in the values of the people for whom they are responsible. They try to achieve the greatest possible uniformity. They believe that in this way they hold the greatest power, offensive as well as defensive." (p. 224)
(2013). Overcoming Mobbing: A Recovery Guide for Workplace Aggression and Bullying.
"For better or for worse, job, career, and personal identity are tightly interconnected and a rupture in one causes ruptures in the others."
(1999). The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits.
"The recent book Finding Time: How Corporations, Individuals, and Families Can Benefit from New Work Practices describes work stress among software engineers, thus highlighting issues important throughout many occupations. 'Knowledge workers, like senior executives, experience immense pressure to . . . put work above all else,' observes University of Michigan business professor Leslie A. Perlow, who studied a Fortune 500 company to write the book. 'Engineers believe that they must be perceived as always willing to "accommodate the demands of the work." . . .They should be willing to do whatever is asked, not just in terms of producing output but also in terms of working whatever hours are deemed necessary to get the job done.' As long as nobody's getting hurt, what's the big deal? The big deal is—somebody's getting hurt." (p. 179)
(2007). The paranoia switch.
One instructive example is the Office of Financial Management at the University of Washington, which reports that those who are willing to admit mistakes belong to a category of leaders who have a genuine 'work process focus,' a quality that involves recognizing and supporting the team, and an interest in how the job gets done. In contrast, those who lead by using our fears focus solely on achieving and maintaining personal influence—regardless of how this is accomplished—and characteristically such leaders are unwilling to acknowledge their mistakes." (p. 182)
(1976). Play : Its Role in Development and Evolution.
"There is a well-known rule in the psychology of learning, the Yerkes-Dodson law, that states that the more complex a skill to be learned, the lower the optimum motivational level required for fastest learning." (p. 15)
(2007). The Power of Experience : Great Writers Over 50 on the Quest for a Lifetime of Meaning.
"Crossing into second adulthood pushes us beyond the preoccupation with self. We are compelled to reexamine the made-to-order persona that gained us points and protection in our earlier, striving years. As we become more certain of the values we stand for—as we hunger to find more significance in the actions we take in the world—we may permit a 'little death' of that 'false self'. If so, we make room for the birth of a new self, one with the 'roundedness' of personality that Jung describes as possible only in the afternoon of life.
That is the power of experience." (p. xvii)
(1979). Power plays: How to deal like a lawyer in person-to-person confrontations and get your rights.
"Remember, an employer who won't give you your rights when you ask for them must be convinced that it is in his interest to give you your rights." (p. 105)
(1993). The Psychodynamics of Organizations.
(, Ed.).
"A wide variety of approaches that guide investigation of organizational life have openly and strongly challenged the assumption that organizations behave as rational systems." (p. xiv)
(1993). Quality connections: transforming schools through Total Quality Management.
"In common practice, managers believe that employees are motivated by merit ratings and performance evaluations—that people have to be enticed into high performance with rewards or punished for low productivity by probations, demotions, layoffs, and so forth. In the transformed setting, we believe that people intrinsically want to do a good job. They take a great deal of pride in workmanship. According to Deming, goals, slogans, performance pay, and incentives actually destroy motivation for doing good work." (p. 10)
(2002). Red Hat Linux Internet Server.
(1999). A Safe Place for Dangerous Truths: Using Dialogue to Overcome Fear & Distrust at Work.
"In a strict hierarchy, when someone in power has the reputation for retribution, it would be irresponsible to encourage the discussion of dangerous truths. One time I believed a manager's self-description as 'open-minded and empowering.' Introducing dialogue into her group was a mistake. She was not open-minded and had a reputation for shooting the messenger. The result was agony—two hours of people squirming in their seats, eyes darting longingly toward the door, and no one daring to tell the truth." (p. 194)
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