Biblio
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(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)
(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)
(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)
(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)
(Submitted). Creativity in Your Professional Life.
"When you find yourself stuck on some problem or issue, taking a trip or simply immersing in a new environment often brings up synchronistic solutions. The trouble is, we can't mentally 'will' ourselves to go to this new place. Our minds know how to analyze, compartmentalize and dissect; they know how to churn things around in circles. They do not know how to enter the imaginal."
(1977). The managerial woman.
"It is healthy and natural for all persons, men and women, to live directly in both the instrumental and the affective worlds. The best example we can give to explain what we are talking about is to quote the man who said, 'My boss is the best boss I've ever had. When you go in there and she criticizes your work she makes sure you leave feeling you are a good and valuable person who wrote a bad report.'"
(1990). From Conflict to Resolution: Strategies for Diagnosis and Treatment of Distressed Individuals, Couples, and Families.
"The more an individual has been exposed to no-win situations, the more readily he assumes that other situations cannot be changed for the better. As a consequence, such individuals put out less effort to try to control new conflictual situations." (p. 89)
(1986). The Tao of leadership: Lao Tzu's Tao te ching adapted for a new age.
"If you measure success in terms of praise and criticism, your anxiety will be endless." (p. 25)
(2003). The Social Psychology of Stigma.
"How do people come to accept their own unjust treatment of the stigmatized? Ideological commitments lead them to self-justification. A justification ideology exempts stigmatized individuals from full moral inclusion, and as a result, the stigma in conjunction with the ideology can lead to rough treatment." (p. 128)
(1988). Growing a business.
"Like canny investors, employees know exactly how much of themselves they will invest in a given work situation before they feel taken for granted or ripped off. For pragmatic reasons of productivity and employee satisfaction, if for no other reason, I advise employee ownership. Nevertheless, it is not a panacea. lf it is instituted as a 'technique,' it has no meaning and can backfire. There is no point in sharing equity if it does not stem from your sense of fairness. If you are not a fair person, don't fake it. Employees resent hypocrisy more than greed.
Fairness is something people feel. You cannot fool workers with fancy titles, by calling people 'associates' or holding pep rallies, or by convoluted profit-sharing schemes that vest on the seventieth birthday. So often in business literature the question comes up as to what is the best way to treat your employees. It is a question with no meaning. The question you should always ask is what do you think of your employees. What you think about the people you work with will decide how you treat them, and will determine how you structure your company." (p. 114)
Fairness is something people feel. You cannot fool workers with fancy titles, by calling people 'associates' or holding pep rallies, or by convoluted profit-sharing schemes that vest on the seventieth birthday. So often in business literature the question comes up as to what is the best way to treat your employees. It is a question with no meaning. The question you should always ask is what do you think of your employees. What you think about the people you work with will decide how you treat them, and will determine how you structure your company." (p. 114)
(2011). A Reason (and Season) to Stop Shunning.
"One of the least discussed aspects of bullying and mobbing, and perhaps the most powerful and damaging, is the practice of shunning."
(2013). Mobbed! A Survival Guide to Adult Bullying and Mobbing.
"But compassion is not about seeing the differences between ourselves and those who have harmed us. It's about recognizing the common features that make us human." (Kindle loc. 3147-3149)
(1996). A Place to Shine: Emerging from the Shadows at Work.
"After thirty years of practicing the art of leadership and listening to the students in my classes talk about their work, I have concluded that in order to shine in our work, we must be given the opportunity to love as well as to work. And both in the same place. We need to feel that we have the freedom to create, to develop our special gifts in ways that are unique to our calling. But we must also be given the opportunity to connect our gifts with others, to feel that our gifts, and thus our very selves, are confirmed by others who care about us."
(2008). The Art of Power.
"If we water the seed of anger or hatred, it will make the living room of our mind a hell for ourselves and our loved ones." (p. 18)
(1994). The Empty Raincoat.
"If we are not machines, random accidents in the evolutionary chain, we need to have a sense of direction." (p. 263)
(1998). The Age of Unreason.
"Organizations are not by nature forgiving places. Mistakes are magnified by myth and engraved in reports and appraisals, to be neither forgotten nor forgiven. Organizational halos are for sinners as well as saints and last for a long time. The new manager must be a different manager. He, and increasingly she, must use what, in psychological jargon, is called reinforcement theory, applauding success and forgiving failure; he or she must use mistakes as opportunities for learning, something only possible if the mistake is truly forgiven because otherwise the lesson is heard as a reprimand, not an offer of help...The new manager has to be a teacher, counselor, and friend, as much as or more than he or she is commander, inspector, and judge." (p. 131)
(1994). Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution.
"We found that many tasks that employees performed had nothing at all to do with meeting customer needs—that is, creating a product high in quality, supplying that product at a fair price, and providing excellent service. Many tasks were done simply to satisfy the internal demands of the company's own organization." (p. 4)
(1994). Competing for the Future.
"There beats in every person the heart of an explorer. The joy of discovery may be found in the pages of a new cookbook, in a brochure of exotic vacations, in an architect's plans for a custom-built home, in the trek to a remote trout stream, in the first run down a virgin-powdered ski slope, by the opportunity to explore the unfamiliar. Thus, it's not surprising that when a company's mission is largely undifferentiated from that of its competitors, employees may be less than inspired." (p. 132)
(1989). Group Psychodynamics: New Paradigms and New Perspectives.
"Sifneos coined the term alexithymia or 'the absence of words for feelings'. He described alexithymic patients as having an impoverishment of fantasy life, a constriction of emotional functioning, and a tendency to describe endless situational details or symptoms." (p. 171)
(2006). CrazyBusy : overstretched, overbooked, and about to snap : strategies for coping in a world gone ADD.
"Our task now is to learn how to use the technology we've invented, rather than allow it to use us, so that it improves our human connections, and does not replace them."
(1994). The Warren Buffett Way: Investment Strategies of the World's Greatest Investor.
The Institutional Imperative
"...an unseen force he calls 'the institutional imperative'—the lemminglike tendency of corporate management to imitate the behavior of other managers, no matter how silly or irrational it may be. It was, Buffett confesses, the most surprising discovery of his business career. At school he was taught that experienced managers of companies were honest, intelligent, and automatically made rational business decisions. Once out in the business world, he learned instead that 'rationality frequently wilts when the institutional imperative comes into play.' " (p. 84)
"...an unseen force he calls 'the institutional imperative'—the lemminglike tendency of corporate management to imitate the behavior of other managers, no matter how silly or irrational it may be. It was, Buffett confesses, the most surprising discovery of his business career. At school he was taught that experienced managers of companies were honest, intelligent, and automatically made rational business decisions. Once out in the business world, he learned instead that 'rationality frequently wilts when the institutional imperative comes into play.' " (p. 84)
Compare with "group narcissism" (Fromm) or "institutional narcissism" (Duncan). Also Howard Schwartz, et. al.
(1985). The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense.
"It ought to be true that the support structure and the job success would come of themselves, automatically, as a result of your being a good person who does your work properly. I am sorry to have to tell you that the game is not played that way. People who assume it is will be trampled upon and will usually never know what hit them." (p. 244)
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