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(1906). The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: Cape Cod and Miscellanies.
"If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for — business! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business." (p. 457)
(1987). When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough.
"Martin Buber, an important twentieth-century theologian, taught that our relationships with others take either of two forms. They are either I-It, treating the other person as an object, seeing him only in terms of what he does, or I-Thou, seeing the other as a subject, being aware of the other person's needs and feelings as well as one's own." (p. 54)
(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)
(1988). What Works at Work: Lessons from the Masters.
"The sunflower effect—doing what your boss wants you to do—is still very powerful in all organizations because the power in all organizations is significantly at the top. Conflicts at high levels in organizations reverberate all the way down, reflecting the displacement downward of that anger and hostility and once again reflecting power at the top." (p. 282)
(1988). Who Am I? What Am I: Search for Meaning in Your Work.
"Work is one of the most important sources of personal meaning, and, therefore, self-acceptance. Research on the unemployed underscores this conclusion emphatically. Furthermore, the same research insists that the degree of self-depreciation felt by a person out of work can only be realized by experience."
(1990). Working With Difficult People.
Phenomenal advances in technology have led to a demand for speedier production. Couple that with hiring and firing in the labor market, and stress may become overwhelming. Even patient people can appear apoplectic."
(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)
(1990). A whack on the side of the head: how you can be more creative.
"If you think you're creative, then you'll put yourself in situations where you can use your creativity, where you can take a few risks and try some new approaches, and where you come up with new ideas." (p. 166)
(1992). Windows Magic Tricks.
(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.
(1994). Why Climb the Corporate Ladder when You Can Take the Elevator? : 500 Secrets for Success in Business.
"Many corporations encourage independent thinking right up until the day they fire you for it." (p. 382)
(1994). Working Without a Net: How to Survive and Thrive in Today's High Risk Business World.
"Self-disclosers explain to others who they are, not just what they do. No one builds relationships unless they reveal more than job-related facts. Contrary to the old paradigm—which held that others don't have the right to know about your personal life—the new paradigm says that it's a necessity that they know." (p. 71)
(1994). What You Can Change and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement.
"It is a disturbing idea that depressed people see reality correctly while nondepressed people distort reality in a self-serving way. As a therapist I was trained to believe that it is my job to help a depressed patient to feel both happier and see the world more clearly. I am supposed to be the agent of happiness as well as the agent of truth. But maybe truth and happiness antagonize each other. Perhaps what we have considered good therapy for a depressed patient merely nurtures benign illusions, making the patient think that her world is better than it actually is." (p. 199)
(1995). Winn L. Rosch's Printer Bible.
(1995). Wellness 9 to 5: Managing Stress at Work.
"My encounter with job stress is part of an epidemic. In the United States, over 75 percent of all visits to primary care physicians are to treat stress-related complaints, and the vast majority of these complaints are job-related (Wallace, 1992). Work site stress can kill the very spirit of who we are as individuals. Our dreams, aspirations, creative goals, and hopes to 'make a difference' wither and die if the stress of daily work obscures our capabilities." (p. 5)
(1995). Why Smart People Do Dumb Things: Lessons from the New Science of Behavioral Economics.
"Mature people develop—and enjoy—what Thorstein Veblen called 'the instinct of workmanship'. Oliver Wendell Holmes talked about pride in one's work: 'To hammer out as compact and as solid a piece of work as one can, to try to make it first rate.'—this is the goal of all mature people." (p.228)
(1995). Workplace diversity.
"We think minimizing distinctions makes sense. Research informs us that employees who feel 'out' or 'down' rather than 'in or 'up' also have less job satisfaction, less commitment, and less loyalty to their organization. As an individual manager or supervisor, you can minimize the scrambling after titles and perks by the way you behave. You might consider, for example, moving to a less desirable office space or eliminating some perks based solely on status. Managers who have tried this are often amazed at the positive results." (p. 110)
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