Biblio
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(1979). The Social Psychology of Organizing.
"As criticisms first start to increase the person exerts more effort, concentration is already quite high, and quality improves. As the criticisms continue to increase there comes a point where the additional increments of effort are now canceled because the person can't concentrate. Beyond this point, the greater the number of criticisms, the lower the quality of performance." (p. 227)
(1980). Intervention and Revolution.
(1980). Quality Is Free.
"Objectivity comes with not placing the blame for problems on individuals. Aim the questions and probing at the job. The job is what failed, not the individual. It may be that the two are imperfectly matched and you have to change one or the other. Either way, the individual has the chance to improve another time, under different conditions." (p. 75)
(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)
Lacking this perspective on such experiences, however, we often miss the point and simply become 'disillusioned.'" (p. 101)
(1981). How to Win Friends and Influence People.
"If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity." (p. 58)
(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)
(1981). The New Rational Manager.
In human performance problems, assessing consequences is an attempt to protect an employee's future against unintended harm....Actions affecting human beings have multiple consequences—some good, some harmful. Fairness requires that at least any unintended effects be assessed. The organization should not decide for the employee how life in the future should be lived; rather, it must be aware of how today's decisions affect tomorrow's conditions." (p. 198)
(1981). Not Working: an Oral History of the Unemployed.
"There are people in this book whose living rooms have turned into prisons without bars, and others who gleefully feel they have escaped jobs that were jails. There are people who have been broken by years of idleness, and others who have discovered emotional resources that allow them to endure—even, in a way, to triumph. In short, the men and women in this book vary enormously. Yet amid the variety there is a common feeling, stated with bitter clarity at times, only half spoken at others, and occasionally not yet formed as a thought but rather a troubled notion whispering behind the words. It is a crime that has been committed." (p. 1)
(1981). Stress/Unstress: How You Can Control Stress at Home and on the Job.
"The value of this Self Test for Stress Levels is that if you are getting totals of 300 or more, you are well-advised to take it easy for a year or so with any major life decisions. Not making a decision to change is an acceptable option."
(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)
(1982). Living, Loving and Learning.
(1982). The Art of Japanese Management: Applications for American Executives.
"The evidence would suggest that for most of us being pushed too hard and crowded into a corner is counterproductive. Great honesty is seldom helpful without empathetic compassion, skillfully expressed in private, by someone assumed to care about the other person's well-being." (p. 158)
(1982). The Computer Establishment.
"Computing is a technology with many paths to follow; at each fork there is vigorous dissension among the brightest practitioners. We need to preserve that dissension, to offer scientists and businessmen a reasonable chance to pursue whatever goal seems promising and customers the greatest possible opportunity to choose their supplier." (p. 408)
(1982). The Organizational Unconscious: How to Create the Corporate Culture You Want and Need.
"One company we had the good fortune to work with some twenty years ago was shockingly changed when we visited it recently. People who had once cared deeply for one another and demonstrated high levels of creativity and innovation had become bureaucratized and uncaring, both in their work and in their interrelationships. The company had grown in size, but had shrunk in quality. Its earlier dynamism had become only a memory in the minds of the few who had originally created it." (p. 110)
(1982). Out of the Crisis.
"Basically, what is wrong is that the performance appraisal or merit rating focuses on the end product, at the end of the stream, not on leadership to help people. This is a way to avoid the problems of people. A manager becomes, in effect, a manager of defects....
The effect is exactly the opposite of what the words promise. Everyone propels himself forward, or tries to, for his own good, on his own life preserver. The organization is the loser.
Merit rating rewards people that do well in the system. It does not reward attempts to improve the system. Don't rock the boat."
The effect is exactly the opposite of what the words promise. Everyone propels himself forward, or tries to, for his own good, on his own life preserver. The organization is the loser.
Merit rating rewards people that do well in the system. It does not reward attempts to improve the system. Don't rock the boat."
(1982). Quality Productivity and Competitive Position.
"The economic loss from fear is appalling. It is necessary, for better quality and productivity, that people feel secure." (p. 33)
(1983). Previews & Premises: an interview with the author of Future Shock and The Third Wave.
"In Third Wave industries, the talk is all about employee participation in decision-making; about job enlargement and enrichment, instead of fractionalization; about flex-time instead of rigid hours; about cafeteria-style fringe benefits which give employees a choice, rather than a fait accompli; about how to encourage creativity rather than blind obedience." (p. 31)
(1984). The Precious Present.
(1984). Forces of Production.
"For when technological development is seen as politics, as it should be, then the very notion of progress becomes ambiguous: what kind of progress? progress for whom? progress for what? And the awareness of this ambiguity, this indeterminacy, reduces the powerful hold that technology has upon our consciousness and imagination, and it reduces also the hold upon our lives enjoyed by those whose social power has long been concealed and dignified by seemingly technological agendas. Such awareness awakens us not only to the full range of technical possibilities and political potential but also to a broader and older notion of progress, in which the struggle for human fulfillment and social equality replaces a simple faith in technological deliverance, and in which people, with their confidence restored, resume their proper role as subject of the story called history." (preface xiv)
(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)
(1984). In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies.
"The most discouraging fact of big corporate life is the loss of what got them big in the first place: innovation. If big companies don't stop innovating entirely, the rate almost certainly goes way down." (p. 200)
(1984). Scenes from Corporate.
"The men and women who work in middle management and technical jobs in corporations suffer from fear, but not from cowardice. Their ability to endure fear in the struggle to achieve happiness as it has been defined for them proves that they are not cowards. They lack options. They may move from corporation to corporation, but the systems in which they live do not change with the change of employment. As they grow older, even that illusory option disappears. Then they must choose between human alienation and their accustomed standard of living." (p. 284)
(1984). Techno Stress: The Human Cost of the Computer Revolution.
"Unemployment ultimately eats away at self-esteem. We normally spend much of our time discussing work, socializing with our co-workers, and thinking about our jobs. We identify with the work we do. Status is earned according to what we do, how much we earn, and whether or not we supervise others, and, if so, how many. Our sense of worth, confidence, and security disappears when we lose our jobs." (p. 57)
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