Biblio

Sort by: Author Title [ Type  (Desc)] Year
Filters: Term is Business  [Clear All Filters]
Book
Postman, N. (1993).  Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.
"In the work of Frederick Taylor we have, I believe, the first clear statement that society is best served when human beings are placed at the disposal of their techniques and technology, that human beings are, in a sense, worth less than their machinery." (p. 52)
Yalom, I. D. (1995).  The theory and practice of group psychotherapy.
"In their classic research on three different styles of leadership, White and Lippit noted that a group is more likely to develop disruptive in-group and out-group factions under an authoritarian, restrictive style of leadership. Group members, unable to express their anger and frustration directly to the leader, release these feelings obliquely by binding together and mobbing or scapegoating one or more of the other members." (p. 330)
Ouchi, W. G. (1981).  Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge.
"A Japanese company committed to lifetime employment will go to great lengths to build loyalty among its employees by ensuring fair and humane treatment. In the United States, by comparison, an alienated, disgruntled employee can be laid off during the next downsizing in the business cycle and thus represents only a short-term burden to the employer. The problem is purely one of incentives. People committed to long-term relationships with one another have strong commitments to behave responsibly and equitably towards one another." (p. 34)
James, J. (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)
Epstein, M., & Lama D. (2003).  Thoughts without a Thinker : Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective.
"The purpose of life is to be happy....
On its own no amount of technological development can lead to lasting happiness. What is almost always missing is a corresponding inner development." (p. ix, forward by the Dalai Lama)
Bolles, R. N. (1978).  The three boxes of life: and how to get out of them : an introduction to life/work planning.
"In a study prepared by professor M. Harvey Brenner of Johns Hopkins University for the Joint Congressional Economic Committee, every rise in the unemployment rate in this country has been followed by increases in 'seven indicators of social stress': homicide, suicide, deaths from cardiovascular and kidney disease, deaths from cirrhosis of the liver, total number of deaths, admissions to mental hospitals, and the number of people sent to jail for crimes." (p. 249)
Peters, T. J. (1987).  Thriving on Chaos.
"It's absurd! We don't want for evidence that the average worker is capable of moving mountains—if only we'll ask him or her to do so, and construct a supportive environment. So why don't we do it?...
I am frustrated to the point of rage—my files bulge with letters about the power of involvement. Sometimes it's planned, and I'll talk about that. Sometimes it's inadvertent. But the result is always the same: Truly involved people can do anything!" (p. 286)
Peters, T. J. (1987).  Thriving on Chaos: handbook for a management revolution.
"Today, there is an especially virulent form of corruption induced by overly rigid systems. This new corruption, in service to the 'system's imperative,' is non-responsiveness to constituent needs." (p. 606)
Gladwell, M. (2002).  The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.
"The mistake we make in thinking of character as something unified and all-encompassing is very similar to a kind of blind spot in the way we process information. Psychologists call this tendency the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is a fancy way of saying that when it comes to interpreting other people's behavior, human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of the situation and context. We will always reach for a 'dispositional' explanation for events, as opposed to a contextual explanation."
Petroski, H. (1994).  To Engineer is Human: The role of failure in successful design.
"There is a familiar image of the writer starting at a blank sheet of paper in his typewriter beside a wastebasket overflowing with crumpled false starts at his story. This image is true figuratively if not literally, and it represents the frustrations of the creative process in engineering as well as in art." (p. 75)
Davidow, W. H., & Uttal B. (1990).  Total Customer Service : The Ultimate Weapon.
"The hard truth is that there's little place for the traditional middle manager in companies that go all out to serve customers. The skills that most such managers have mastered—protecting their fiefdoms, proving their importance by forcing all information and communications to flow through their offices, meticulously enforcing bureaucratic controls—become serious liabilities. Yet no matter how flat the organization, no company can function without middle management.

The solution service leaders often take is to redefine the middle manager's job. Instead of acting like a boss, he is encouraged to behave like a helper." (p. 106)

Friedman, S. D. (2013).  Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life. 284. Abstract
"If you approach your dialogues with a spirit of inquiry—if you want to learn, not argue—you will likely open up new pathways." (p. 109)
Hunter, R., & Waddell M. E. (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)
Beal, D. (2001).  The Tragedy in the Workplace: The Longest Running Show in the Country.
"Because of the current ego-driven management, many people in the workplace feel as though they are in prison, with little freedom of expression or ability to perform and contribute at their highest level. Learning to face the ego and learning to become an enlightened leader are meaningful and necessary goals. As business leaders begin to personally transform, they will free the employees to work creatively and productively within an environment that fosters their true potential." (p. xxii)
Amado, G., Ambrose A., & Amato R. (2001).  The Transitional Approach to Change.
"It might be argued that once a system has moved into a situation that is basically regressive, it does not take long for a vicious spiral to commence that rapidly reduces the effectiveness of the system by diminishing the contribution of individuals in the system and generates suspicion and hostile, destructive forces. Such a view must be qualified, however. The structure and viability of many systems is based on regression—that is, on the dependency of the people within them. Such systems can be called 'totalitarian'. They all institutionalize, or have people unconsciously internalize, a system of values, norms, and rules that have to be followed precisely. Their functioning can be compared to that of closed systems, such as bureaucracies, sects, and some organizations with a high degree of imposed common ideology and culture. If such a system is to be efficient, it is important to realize that the price to pay is the relinquishing of individual autonomy, responsibility, and creativity and the oppression of subcultures (Amado, 1988)." (p. 109)
Bridges, W. (1980).  Transitions: making sense of life's changes.
"The point is that disenchantment, whether it is a minor disappointment or a major shock, is the signal that things are moving into transition. At such times we need to consider whether the old view or belief may not have been an enchantment cast on us in the past to keep us from seeing deeper into ourselves and others than we were then ready to. For the whole idea of disenchantment is that reality has many layers, each appropriate to a phase of intellectual and spiritual development. The disenchantment experience is the signal that the time has come to look below the surface of what has been thought to be so.
Lacking this perspective on such experiences, however, we often miss the point and simply become 'disillusioned.'" (p. 101)
George, B., & Sims P. (2007).  True north: discover your authentic leadership.
"When you do not feel in a safe place, you cover your core self to protect it from exposure and harm, and you develop a false self." (p. 77)
Trump, D., & Schwartz T. (2005).  Trump: The Art of the Deal. Ballantine Books.
"Most people are surprised by the way I work. I play it very loose. I don't carry a briefcase. I try not to schedule too many meetings. I leave my door open. You can't be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you've got too much structure. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops."
Reina, D. S., Reina M. L., & Chagnon M. L. (1999).  Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace.
"Transformative trust occurs when the amount of trust within a team or organization reaches a critical point and increases exponentially, becoming self-generating and synergistic. Four core characteristics are usually present: conviction, courage, compassion, and community." (p. 155)
Fukuyama, F. (1995).  Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity.
"Workers whose work rules were not rigidly defined but were instead allowed to make their own decisions about the production process turned out to be both more productive and better satisfied with their jobs. Workers under these conditions showed considerable interest in helping one another and created their own system of leaders and mutual support if left to themselves." (p. 230)
Wilmer, H. A. (1994).  Understandable Jung: the personal side of Jungian psychology.
"With our personas, we often attempt to present our idealized selves, our ego ideals. Therefore, it hides our shadows and protects us from the shadows of others. It is a kind of acceptable sham." (p. 33)
Dertouzos, M. L. (2001).  The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do For Us.
"By now, people who work as a team over the Internet have discovered that as long as they know and trust each other, the team functions well in its virtual forays. But when new team members join, the group loses its effectiveness. The team returns to progress only after the new members have bonded with the old ones in old-fashioned ways—by squeezing each other's hand, drinking beer together, exchanging personal stories, or giving one another a slap on the back." (p. 211)
Hort, B. E. (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"

(C)2014 CC-BY-NC 3.0, workcreatively.org