Whyte, W. H.
(1956).
The Organization Man.
"It is the nature of a new idea to confound current consensus—even the mildly new idea. It might be patently in order, but, unfortunately, the group has a vested interest in its miseries as well as its pleasures, and irrational as this may be, many a member of organization life can recall instances where the group clung to known disadvantages rather than risk the anarchies of change." (p. 440)
Schein, E. H.
(1979).
Organizational Psychology.
"The main conclusion will be that there is no one answer, no 'perfect' way to organize or to design work. Instead, one must become diagnostic and flexible, sensitive to events and their subjective interpretation by the participants in a given situation, so that one can choose a course of action appropriate to that situation."
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)
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)
Schweitzer, A.
(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)
Deming, E. W.
(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."
Gladwell, M.
(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."
Swenson, R., & M.D. R. S. A.
(1999).
The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits.
"The recent book Finding Time: How Corporations, Individuals, and Families Can Benefit from New Work Practices describes work stress among software engineers, thus highlighting issues important throughout many occupations. 'Knowledge workers, like senior executives, experience immense pressure to . . . put work above all else,' observes University of Michigan business professor Leslie A. Perlow, who studied a Fortune 500 company to write the book. 'Engineers believe that they must be perceived as always willing to "accommodate the demands of the work." . . .They should be willing to do whatever is asked, not just in terms of producing output but also in terms of working whatever hours are deemed necessary to get the job done.' As long as nobody's getting hurt, what's the big deal? The big deal is—somebody's getting hurt." (p. 179)
Stout, M.
(2007).
The paranoia switch.
One instructive example is the Office of Financial Management at the University of Washington, which reports that those who are willing to admit mistakes belong to a category of leaders who have a genuine 'work process focus,' a quality that involves recognizing and supporting the team, and an interest in how the job gets done. In contrast, those who lead by using our fears focus solely on achieving and maintaining personal influence—regardless of how this is accomplished—and characteristically such leaders are unwilling to acknowledge their mistakes." (p. 182)
Hanson, D. S.
(1996).
A Place to Shine: Emerging from the Shadows at Work.
"After thirty years of practicing the art of leadership and listening to the students in my classes talk about their work, I have concluded that in order to shine in our work, we must be given the opportunity to love as well as to work. And both in the same place. We need to feel that we have the freedom to create, to develop our special gifts in ways that are unique to our calling. But we must also be given the opportunity to connect our gifts with others, to feel that our gifts, and thus our very selves, are confirmed by others who care about us."