Biblio
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(2009). The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics.
"Our democracy is presently being threatened by the politics of obedience to authority, the very thing that democracy was invented to counteract....Democracy is too important to leave the shaping of the brains of Americans to authoritarians." (p. 120)
(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)
(2009). The Miracles of Mentoring.
"Mentoring is a work of the heart. It is a desire to build community, to inspire hope, to share success, to enrich life." (p. 131)
(2009). Billy Budd.
"Now envy and antipathy, passions irreconcilable in reason, nevertheless in fact may spring conjoined like Chang and Eng in one birth. Is Envy then such a monster? Well, though many an arraigned mortal has in hopes of mitigated penalty pleaded guilty to horrible actions, did ever anybody seriously confess to envy? Something there is in it universally felt to be more shameful than even felonious crime. And not only does everybody disown it, but the better sort are inclined to incredulity when it is in earnest imputed to an intelligent man. But since its lodgement is in the heart not the brain, no degree of intellect supplies a guarantee against it."
(2009). Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things.
"If individual human beings can form forceful and persistent mental models, organizations or groups of people seem to be able to do so on an almost unimaginable scale. A person has secret doubts and fears. An organization has the emotional life of a reptile." (p. 93)
(2009). Michael Moore: America's Teacher.
"But we spend eight to ten to twelve hours of our daily lives at work, where we have no say. I think when anthropologists dig us up 400 years from now—if we make it that far—they're going to say, 'Look at these people back then. They thought they were free. They called themselves a democracy, but they spent ten hours of every day in a totalitarian situation and they allowed the richest 1 percent to have more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.'
Truly they're going to laugh at us the way we laugh at people 150 years ago who put leeches on people's bodies to cure them."
Truly they're going to laugh at us the way we laugh at people 150 years ago who put leeches on people's bodies to cure them."
(2009). Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography.
"Corporate bodies do not look for their strength in ideas and in the values of the people for whom they are responsible. They try to achieve the greatest possible uniformity. They believe that in this way they hold the greatest power, offensive as well as defensive." (p. 224)
(2009). Without a Job, Who Am I?: Rebuilding Your Self When You've Lost Your Job, Home, Or Life Savings.
"We remind ourselves that by acting on values such as compassion, honesty, and forgiveness, we realize our real worth—the worth that is deeper than that associated with job, career, or material success." (p. 10)
(2009). JBoss at Work: A Practical Guide.
(2008). Innovate Like Edison: The Five-Step System for Breakthrough Business Success.
"The most innovative contemporary workplaces welcome humor and play and the most bureaucratic ones invariably take themselves too seriously. Overseriousness is a warning sign of mediocrity and bureaucratic thinking." (p. 124)
(2008). Love the work, hate the job: why America's best workers are unhappier than ever.
"Although [Dan Pink] did cite the use of long-term temporary workers at companies like Microsoft as examples of a problem, not a promising new trend, he exaggerated the extent to which short-term employment and self-employment were voluntary. After all, how many downsized executives, professionals, and technicians describe themselves as 'consultants,' rather than as job hunters, because admitting they were laid off sounds perilously close to labeling themselves 'losers'?" (p. 53)
(2008). Nice guys can get the corner office: eight strategies for winning in business without being a jerk.
"If there is an implicit agreement from the top down that excellence always comes first, then the primary criteria for judging ideas will always be excellence—not who talks the loudest or blows the most smoke." (p. 244)
(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)
(2008). Outliers: The Story of Success.
199. Abstract
"My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is. When outliers become outliers it is not just because of their own efforts. It's because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of different circumstances, and that means we, as a society, have more control about who succeeds—and how many of us succeed—than we think."
(2008). The Positive Power Of Negative Thinking.
252. Abstract
"I should make clear from the outset that I don't think defensive pessimism is the ultimate solution to the world's problems, or even to I problems of any particular couple or individual. Defensive pessimists are neither saints nor paragons, and defensive pessimism has both costs and benefits. People are different, and what works well for some people may not work well for others—that's the point. (And what works well in some situations may not work well in all situations.) The costs and benefits of any strategy depend on who is using the strategy and what the circumstances are."
(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)
(2008). Just Enough Anxiety: the hidden driver of business success.
"Compassionate leaders assume goodwill. They respect and see the good in others, and in themselves. They honor people's feelings as true for them. And they try to minimize people's pain and fear while maximizing their sense of well-being. In the words of George Washington Carver: 'How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.'" (p. 84)
(2008). The Management Gurus: lessons from the best management books of all time.
(, Ed.).
"Finally, the traditional hierarchy—the pyramid structure of almost all organizations—has to be discarded. The traditional top-down method of leadership is wasteful and ineffective because a company's need to innovate continues to conflict with shared assumptions about loyalty and unquestioning obedience. This situation must change." (p. 269)
(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.
'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)
(2008). The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
"'The use of cancer in political discourse encourages fatalism
and justifies "severe" measures—as well as strongly reinforcing
the widespread notion that the disease is necessarily fatal.
The concept of disease is never innocent. But it could be argued
that the cancer metaphors are in themselves implicitly genocidal.'
—Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 1977" (p. 177)
and justifies "severe" measures—as well as strongly reinforcing
the widespread notion that the disease is necessarily fatal.
The concept of disease is never innocent. But it could be argued
that the cancer metaphors are in themselves implicitly genocidal.'
—Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 1977" (p. 177)
(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)
(2008). Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke–the Simple Change That Can Make Your Job Terrific.
"You're stuck in a cube with a desktop computer and a phone with a cord so you can be there in person should your manager walk over to check up on whether or not you're working. The game becomes looking busy instead of working hard and solving problems and contributing. It's a game no one wins. You lose your freedom, your motivation, your soul, and in exchange for control over your life, your company gets little more than a show of work." (p. 28)
(2008). Dojo: The Definitive Guide.
(2008). jQuery in Action.
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