Biblio
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(2009). Primal Management: Unraveling the Secrets of Human Nature to Drive High Performance.
"Leaders who help employees master their professions provide a vital mental-health service because the penalty for being deemed incompetent is chronic, unremitting pain. As I said before, incompetency is not an option for skill-based creatures such as ourselves. Human beings are not designed to be lazy malingerers. Rather, we are designed to struggle, strive, and master the survival skills of the group." (p. 142)
(1977). Management of Organizational Behavior : Utilizing Human Resources.
"In our society today, there is almost a built-in expectation in people that physiological and safety needs will be fulfilled. In fact, most people do not generally have to worry about where their next meal will come from or whether they will be protected from the elements or physical danger. They are now more susceptible to motivation from other needs: People want to belong, be recognized as 'somebody', and have a chance to develop to their fullest potential. As William H. Haney has said:
'The managerial practice, therefore, should be geared to the subordinate's current level of maturity with the overall goal of helping him to develop, to require progressively less external control, and to gain more and more self-control. And why would a man want this? Because under these conditions he achieves satisfaction on the job at all levels, primarily the ego and self-fulfillment levels, at which he is the most motivatable.' " (p. 182)
'The managerial practice, therefore, should be geared to the subordinate's current level of maturity with the overall goal of helping him to develop, to require progressively less external control, and to gain more and more self-control. And why would a man want this? Because under these conditions he achieves satisfaction on the job at all levels, primarily the ego and self-fulfillment levels, at which he is the most motivatable.' " (p. 182)
(2000). Stalking the Soul.
"Abuse of power has always existed but today it is often disguised. Executives talk about autonomy and initiative but still demand submissiveness and obedience. Employees march to their company's drummer because they are haunted by management's bottom line, the threat of unemployment, and the constant reminder of their responsibility and therefore possible blame." (p. 68)
(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)
(1990). The Workplace Within: Psychodynamics of Organizational Life.
"Irrational processes highlight the limits of classical organization theory. Theorists such as Simon, Thompson, and Galbraith* have argued that all organizations face continuing uncertainties and have suggested that organizational routines and structures, such as maintaining inventory to meet unpredictable demands for products, are mechanisms for reducing uncertainty. But because these theorists have not linked the experience of uncertainty to people's feelings of anxiety, they have posed the issue of uncertainty too narrowly and have proposed solutions that rely on such rational methods as mathematical calculation and organization design. When anxiety intrudes, rational procedures are distorted by irrational processes. For example, the managers of the manufacturing and sales departments in many companies fight chronically with one another over inventory policy, each blaming the other for the gap between market demand and company supply. Because they feel anxious, they project their sense of blame and failure outward, often scapegoating the person they must cooperate with to reduce the uncertainty they face." (p. 3)
(1998). Its a Job Not a Jail: How to Break Your Shackles When You Cant Afford to Quit.
"What hurt me most was believing that my problem was caused by rotten bosses instead of by a stubborn me. Had I not been so bullheaded, I might have realized that although I would have preferred bosses that left me alone, what I really thirsted for was respect, fulfillment, and the opportunity to do work of which I could be proud." (p. 28)
(1995). Social Organization of Work.
"Alienation occurs when work provides inadequately for human needs for identity and meaning. Work is alienating to the extent that one does it only from economic necessity, not from its intrinsic pleasures." (p. 56)
"A common response to alienating work is passive resistance through making work into a game (Burawoy, 2000), restricting one`s output (Roy, 1952), or focusing on aspects of work tangential to the main productive activity (Collinson, 2003). For instance, workers often adjust to alienating situations by focusing on interactions with their peers. Managers label such behavioral responses 'poor performance.' However, such behaviors do not necessarily result from incompetence or laziness: rather, they may be straightforward responses to having a job that is tedious, repetitive, or alienating. These responses are difficult to predict from workers' levels of job satisfaction or commitment. Workers who are very committed to their work may be the ones most likely to resist alienating conditions. Those who are less committed may simply exit or grudgingly suffer in silence." (p. 68)
"A common response to alienating work is passive resistance through making work into a game (Burawoy, 2000), restricting one`s output (Roy, 1952), or focusing on aspects of work tangential to the main productive activity (Collinson, 2003). For instance, workers often adjust to alienating situations by focusing on interactions with their peers. Managers label such behavioral responses 'poor performance.' However, such behaviors do not necessarily result from incompetence or laziness: rather, they may be straightforward responses to having a job that is tedious, repetitive, or alienating. These responses are difficult to predict from workers' levels of job satisfaction or commitment. Workers who are very committed to their work may be the ones most likely to resist alienating conditions. Those who are less committed may simply exit or grudgingly suffer in silence." (p. 68)
(1999). Set For Life.
(2003). How to work for an idiot: survive & thrive– without killing your boss.
"The plan I suggest in this chapter is the old 'false identity' ploy. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Or make it appear as if you're joining 'em. Sometimes it's just no use fighting the system. Burn your personal fuel cells on things you have some control over and enjoy. If you're trapped in a culture of idiots with no possibility for improvement in your lifetime, you might as well blend in. Why burn yourself out?" (p. 32)
(1950). Neurosis and human growth: the struggle toward self-realization.
"If the word 'depersonalization' did not already have a specific psychiatric meaning, it would be a good term for what alienation from the self essentially is: it is a depersonalizing, and therefore a devitalizing process." (p. 161)
(1996). Brutal Bosses and Their Prey.
"Bosses can make or break your day, your month, your year, your career. They have the power to ease or intensify adverse reactions to normal organizational stress. Empirical evidence broadcasts a consistent message: People reporting to more considerate bosses are less likely to suffer the ravages of burnout and more likely to experience work satisfaction than those reporting to less considerate bosses. In fact, as an innoculation against burnout, respect from a boss offers more protection than salary. Conversely, there is solid evidence that working for unsupportive bosses is associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression, and even heart disease." (p. 69)
(1996). Unholy Hungers : Encountering the Psychic Vampire in Ourselves and Others.
"We, too, try to emulate the gods, but unlike the Greeks, we seem dangerously ignorant of the peril of hubris. Not that we blindly aspire to godhood from stupidity or arrogance; rather, we aspire to godhood because the modern demigods we revere are themselves mortal, so we quite reasonably feel their enviable fate might just as well be our own. What's more, celebrity in our culture is supposed to be available to all who have the guts to seek it, which implies that those who do not attain it are somehow deficient in the skills of self-reinvention"
(1995). Wrestling with depression: a spiritual guide to reclaiming life.
"Our society teaches us to be open to receiving communication as long as that communication is nonthreatening. However, because we are always in competition with one another, the communication is usually threatening. This leads us to forms of protection such as facades and interpersonal isolation, both of which promote depression....
Each cover-up or facade makes us more unreal to ourselves. Eventually we are out of touch with some areas of ourselves." (p. 89)
(2008). Toy Box Leadership: Leadership Lessons from the Toys You Loved as a Child.
"Big business often treats people as disposable, when we should look at how to repurpose our people to better fit the future needs of the company and the employee." (p. 12)
(1987). When Smart People Fail.
"There are several basic kinds of organizational environments: corporate, entrepreneurial, intrapreneurial (independent responsibility within a corporate structure), partnership, or complete autonomy (in the case of the artist). Sometimes the real you is in the wrong environment." (p. 109)
(1984). Iacocca: An Autobiography.
"Everybody has lost good people who have simply been in the wrong job and who might have found more satisfaction as well as greater success if they could have been moved to another area instead of being fired." (p. 49)
(1989). Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers.
"Given the proper assurances and assumptions, acceptance of blame can be an exercise in loyalty, although it is never without risk. But the more frequent case is when those with the power to do so foist or allow blame to fall on unwary or inexperienced underlings. They do so to cover up their own mistakes, or to extricate themselves from potentially embarrassing or politically untenable situations." (p. 86)
(1988). Take This Job and Love It: How to Change Your Work Without Changing Your Job.
"Burnout is of epidemic proportions because of a delay in companies' responding to the new needs of their workforce, or mismatch between what people want from their job and what the job offers them. Burnout signals not that people are working too hard but that they are not used enough. It recedes when the individual worker is empowered to make the workplace different and when the company makes a commitment to serve its employees." (p. 39)
(1997). Thinking in the Future Tense.
"Psychologist Sheldon Kopp warned clients to plow the fields of their past if they wanted to be able to plant their own crops. Business consultant Peter Senge agreed: 'Structures of which we are unaware hold us prisoner. Once we can see them and name them they no longer have the same hold on us. This is as true for the organization as it is for the individual.'" (p. 41)
(1977). The OK Boss.
"[Good bosses] know that everyone needs strokes. Some people need more strokes of a certain kind than others. Without these particular strokes, they tend to shrivel up in some way. Their work may go sour, their ideas may become less creative, they may be absent more often, and their errors and poor decisions may increase." (p. 78)
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