Biblio

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2002
Weiner, D. L. (2002).  Power freaks: dealing with them in the workplace or anyplace.
"The primitive brain mechanism drives us into creating hierarchies, an essential for primitive tribal organization and survival. It confers on some of us today an innate need to dominate others in situations where we might also understand rationally that cooperation would make better sense than domination." (p. 44)
Goleman, D., Boyatzis R. E., & McKee A. (2002).  Primal leadership: realizing the power of emotional intelligence.
"Leaders often talk about wanting to get their people 'aligned' with their strategy. But that word suggests a mechanical image of getting all the pencils pointing in the same direction, like a magnetic field lining up the polarity of molecules. It isn't that simple. Strategies, couched as they are in the dry language of corporate goals, speak mainly to the rational brain, the neocortex. Strategic visions (and the plans that follow from them) are typically linear and limited, bypassing the elements of heart and passion essential for building commitment." (p. 208)
2003
Davidson, J. (2003).  The Anxiety Book.
"Have compassion for yourself and others. Rational responses should not only be more truthful than core negative thoughts, but also be kinder. When you magnify your own weaknesses, your cognitions become skewed toward disaster because you don't believe in your ability to handle stress or challenge. When you magnify the weaknesses (or dark sides) of other people, your relationships are characterized by mistrust, and you'll never feel safe in the world. You don't have to expunge awareness of your own imperfections, or whitewash the fact that people can be malevolent, in order to cultivate compassion. A compassionate worldview acknowledges all our multifaceted complexity but is purposely skewed toward the positive: You look for the good in yourself as well as in others." (p. 98)
Kottler, J. (2003).  Beyond Blame: How to Resolve Conflicts with Friends, Lovers, and Co-Workers.
"Avoid even the appearance of blame. No surprise here. This is, after all, the main theme of this book....
"There is nothing that will sabotage any strategy you employ more quickly than the mere suggestion that you are blaming the other person for the troubles. Equally detrimental is for you to accept blame that is directed toward you. This compliance tactic (perhaps even driven by the misguided belief that one person can be at fault in a conflict) will only encourage further fault-finding in the future." (p. 223)
Schmaltz, D. (2003).  The Blind Men and the Elephant: Mastering Project Work.
"Much of what we call 'project management' stands upon Taylor's flat-earth perspectives. When applied to repeatable manufacturing situations, his primitive notions have great utility. The same ideas fall apart when applied in more human, less mechanical contexts." (p. 7)
Rothenberg, L. (2003).  Breathing For A Living.
"A team is a team because of their spirit, not always because they play perfectly together all the time." (p. 189)
O'Neil, W. (2003).  Business Leaders and Success: 55 Top Business Leaders and How They Achieved Greatness.
"Deming's sometimes-gruff nature reflected impatience with managerial abuses of power. He thought that power carried a precious responsibility. 'Research shows', Deming said, 'that the climate of an organization influences an individual's contribution far more than the individual himself.' " (p. 206)
D'Alessandro, D., & Owens M. (2003).  Career Warfare: 10 Rules for Building a Successful Personal Brand and Fighting to Keep It.
"Organizations that value you only for your business skills—a lot of Wall Street firms fall into this category—are very antiseptic. They tend to be built on addictions, but not loyalties: addictions to the money, addictions to the process. They are a bit like galley ships. The overseers don't care about the relationship. They just want you to keep rowing.

This is fine when times are good, but if you should ever fail to handle your oar well, you are overboard. Such firms will have no compunction about firing you and even ruining your reputation, if it serves their purpose." (p. 54)

Evans, P. (2003).  Controlling People: How to Recognize, Understand, and Deal with People Who Try to Control You.
"Other people's definitions of us are not just absurd—if unchallenged, they erect prison walls around us. As they rise higher, the light of awareness fades. The world darkens. We lose freedom, safety, confidence, conviction, and sometimes ourselves." (p. 77)
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)
Silberman, S. (2003).  The Geek Syndrome.
Flattened workplace hierarchies are more comfortable for those who find it hard to read social cues. A WYSIWYG world, where respect and rewards are based strictly on merit, is an Asperger's dream.
Hoover, J. (2003).  How to work for an idiot: survive & thrive– without killing your boss.
"The plan I suggest in this chapter is the old 'false identity' ploy. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Or make it appear as if you're joining 'em. Sometimes it's just no use fighting the system. Burn your personal fuel cells on things you have some control over and enjoy. If you're trapped in a culture of idiots with no possibility for improvement in your lifetime, you might as well blend in. Why burn yourself out?" (p. 32)
Cox, A. M. (2003).  I Am Never Lonely: A brief history of employee personality testing.
"This first boom in personality testing reached its apogee with Henry C. Link's Employment Psychology, in 1919, in which he proclaimed:
'The ideal employment method is undoubtedly an immense machine which would receive applicants of all kinds at one end, automatically sort, interview, and record them, and finally turn them out at the other end nicely labeled with the job which they are to do.'
Jansen, J. (2003).  I Don't Know What I Want, but I Know It's Not This : A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Gratifying Work.
"Being bored or plateaued does not mean that you aren't working hard or that you don't have enough work to do. Being busy and dealing with the excessive stimulation that the workplace provides us with today have little to do with being bored. The combination of the two merely leads to a greater level of burnout." (p. 123)
Godin, S. (2003).  In Praise of the Purple Cow.
"Tom Peters took the first whack with The Pursuit of Wow,1 a visionary book that described why the only products with a future are those created by passionate people." (p. 5)
  • 1. Citekey Peters2004 not found
Bennis, W. G., & Nanus B. (2003).  Leaders: strategies for taking charge.
"We must learn to perceive power for what it really is. Basically, it's the reciprocal of leadership." (p. 16)
Grant, M. (2003).  Sick Caesars - Madness and Malady in Imperial Rome.
"Sick Ceasars is an account, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, of men transformed, and more often deranged, by absolute power." —from the cover jacket
Heatherton, T. F. (2003).  The Social Psychology of Stigma.
"How do people come to accept their own unjust treatment of the stigmatized? Ideological commitments lead them to self-justification. A justification ideology exempts stigmatized individuals from full moral inclusion, and as a result, the stigma in conjunction with the ideology can lead to rough treatment." (p. 128)

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