Biblio

Sort by: [ Author  (Asc)] Title Type Year
Filters: Term is Business  [Clear All Filters]
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 
A
Acuff, F. L. (2008).  Shake Hands with the Devil.
You get dirty, and the pig likes it.
'There's a very animalistic response to a bully. It's either fight: "Hey, you talkin' to me?" or flight: "I'm outta here—my life's too short for this crap." The problem with the flight strategy, is that you've just taught the boss that you're the doormat he always thought you were.

But the fight strategy is no better. For one thing, it's hard to outtalk a bully. He doesn't like you. He's never liked you. He's been gunning for you, he's had lots of practice being a bully, and he enjoys it. And besides, if you get down on his level, it's like wrestling with a pig: you get dirty, and the pig likes it!' (p. 45)

Adams, S. (1997).  The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Stupidity in the 21st Century.
"The current method of motivating employees involves frightening them until their arteries harden, then trying to make it all better by giving them inexpensive gifts bearing the company logo." (p. 123)
Adams, S. (1996).  Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook.
"Lying isn't a good idea in nonwork situations because bad things can happen if you get caught. But when you're dealing with employees, they have few retaliatory options as long as you keep the supply cabinet locked. And if you lose their trust, you can always use fear and intimidation to get the same results. There's no real risk." (sec. 1.13)
Adams, J. L. (1978).  Conceptual blockbusting : a pleasurable guide to better problem solving.
"Most people are not happy with criticism and, to make matters worse, are somewhat unsure of the quality of their own ideas. They therefore require a supportive environment in which to work."
Adams, S. (1996).  The Dilbert Principle: Cubicle's-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads, and Other Workplace Afflictions.
"A company can't do much to stimulate happiness and creativity, but it can do a lot to kill them. The trick for the company is to stay out of the way. When companies try to encourage creativity it's like a bear dancing with an ant. Sooner or later the ant will realize it's a bad idea, although the bear may not." (p. 320)
Adams, S. (2002).  Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel.
"Thanks to evolution, humans made the leap from sniffing butts to kissing butts, and the seeds of capitalism were sown." (p. 82)
Aguayo, R. (1991).  Dr. Deming: The American Who Taught the Japanese About Quality.
"Some writers call for greater accountability. The computer is seen as the sure way out of our problems by providing management with intricate details about each person's performance. All these views are wrong!" (p. 93)
Alessandra, T. (1993).  Communicating at Work.
Basics of conflict resolution include: supportiveness, positiveness, equality.
Allen, D. (2008).  Making it All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life. 322. Abstract
"But to my thinking there is an inherent fallacy in affirming that 'life' and 'work' are mutually exclusive spheres. The truth is, when you are 'in your zone'—when time has disappeared and you're simply 'on' with whatever you're doing—there is no distinction between 'work' and 'personal'." (p. 58)
Allen, R. F., Kraft C., Allen J., & Letner B. (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)
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)
Arendt, H. (1994).  The origins of totalitarianism.
"Those who aspire to total domination must liquidate all spontaneity, such as the mere existence of individuality will always engender, and track it down in its most private forms, regardless of how unpolitical and harmless these may seem." (p. 456)
Arnold, R. A. (1997).  Arnold Economics.
Interview with Gordon Tullock:
"I am a very fortunate man to be paid a high salary to pursue my hobby." (p. 560)
Aronowitz, S., & Difazio W. (1994).  The Jobless Future: Sci-Tech and the Dogma of Work.
"In the past twenty-five years, computer-mediated work, despite its potential for reintegrating design and execution, has been employed, typically but not exclusively, in a manner that reproduces the hierarchies of managerial authority. The division between intellectual and manual labor and the degradation of manual labor that was characteristic of the industrializing era have been simultaneously shifted to the division between the operators and the professional-managerial employees, but also the division between the "lower" operating and "higher" expert orders broadly reproduces within intellectual labor itself the old gulf separating manual and intellectual labor in the mechanical era. Hierarchy is frequently maintained despite the integrative possibilities of the technology. Under this regime of production, the computer provides the basis for greatly extending the system of discipline and control inherited from nineteenth-century capitalism. Many corporations have used it to extend their Panopticonic world-view; that is, they have deployed the computer as a means of employee surveillance that far exceeds the most imperious dreams of the Panopticon's inventor, Jeremy Bentham, or any nineteenth- or early twentieth-century capitalist." (p. 89)
Auw, A. (1999).  The Gift of Wounding: Finding Hope and Heart in Challenging Circumstances.
"Balance is the key to truth rather than one rigid position or judgement. Balance can be experienced only after examining many different sides of an issue, and measuring their worth and integrity. We begin that process by recognizing from the outset that there are other sides and perceptions and that we want to learn from these, as well as from our own knowledge and experience." (p. 48)
Axelrod, A. (2006).  Profiles in Audacity: Great Decisions and How They Were Made.
"[Bill] Gate's role in the creation of modern civilization was made possible in part through genetic predisposition, through being in the right place at the right time, and through certain deliberate decisions he made." (p. 124)
B
Bakke, D. W. (2005).  Joy at work: a revolutionary approach to fun on the job.
"As Rob Lebow and Randy Spitzer wrote in Accountability: Freedom and Responsibility Without Control, 'Too often, appraisal destroys human spirit and, in the span of a 30-minute meeting, can transform a vibrant, highly committed employee into a demoralized, indifferent wallflower who reads the want ads on the weekend....They don't work because most performance appraisal systems are a form of judgement and control.'" (p. 110)
Barell, J. (2003).  Developing More Curious Minds.
"[Colleen Rowley replied to the Senate Judiciary Committee], 'I go back to the "don't rock the boat, don't ask a question" problem.' Any question, she said, might be perceived as a 'complaint', or 'as a challenge to somebody higher up and they get mad or whatever' (Excerpts...,2002)." ...
"People who ask 'hard questions' too often have been fired because of their challenges to accustomed ways of thinking and doing business." (p. 6)
Barry, D. (2000).  Claw Your Way to the Top: How to Become the Head of a Major Corporation in Roughly a Week.
"So the trick, with subordinates, is to keep them happy, productive, hopeful, and—above all—subordinate." (p. 36)
Bassman, E. S. (1992).  Abuse in the Workplace: Management Remedies and Bottom Line Impact.
"Certain conditions are necessary for creativity to flourish, one of which is the time to play with ideas while in an open mode of thinking: relaxed, expansive, less purposeful, more contemplative (Cleese 1991). Organizationally, this translates into administrative slack. Peter Drucker relates a company's ability to innovate to the amount of administrative slack it provides in its daily operations ('Creativity in Danger' 1991)." (p. 149)

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