Commitment And Control

"Engineering Culture" is an award-winning ethnography of the engineering division of a large American high-tech corporation. Now, this influential book - which has been translated into Japanese, Italian and Hebrew - has been revised to bring it up to date. In "Engineering Culture", Gideon Kunda offers a critical analysis of an American company's well-known and widely emulated "corporate culture." Kunda uses detailed descriptions of everyday interactions and rituals in which the culture is brought to life, excerpts from in-depth interviews and a wide variety of corporate texts to vividly portray managerial attempts to design and impose the culture and the ways in which it is experienced by members of the organization. The company's management, Kunda reveals, uses a variety of methods to promulgate what it claims is a non-authoritarian, informal, and flexible work environment that enhances and rewards individual commitment, initiative, and creativity while promoting personal growth. The author demonstrates, however, that these pervasive efforts mask an elaborate and subtle form of normative control in which the members' minds and hearts become the target of corporate influence. Kunda carefully dissects the impact this form of control has on employees' work behavior and on their sense of self. In the conclusion written especially for this edition, Kunda reviews the company's fortunes in the years that followed publication of the first edition, reevaluates the arguments in the book, and explores the relevance of corporate culture and its management today

An innovative and effective approach to organizational behavioral management Despite more than 40 years of empirical and conceptual research, the contribution of behavior analysis to the world of business remains relatively small and organizational behavior management gets little attention in both the academic and professional communities. Acceptance and Mindfulness at Work presents behavioral analysis of human language that’s ready to use, with applied extensions proven to have a significant impact in organizational settings. The leading experts in the field examine how these ongoing developments can help broaden the exploration of the psychological issues relevant to organizational behavioral management (OBM) in the workplace. Acceptance and Mindfulness at Work presents conceptual and empirical articles, and reviews of working examples of Relational Frame Theory (RFT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) applied to organizational behavior management. The book examines goal setting, feedback, task descriptions, and workers’ ability to learn as examples of how to affect positive change in organizations through increased productivity and improved quality of life in the workplace. The possibilities presented by RTF can lead to advancements in employee safety and training, stress and health management, employee evaluation, managing absenteeism, tardiness, and turnover, and self-management. Acceptance and Mindfulness at Work examines: cognition in OBM industrial/organization (I/O) psychology how interventions using ACT have increased psychological flexibility rule-following feedback task performance feedback programmed schedules of reinforcement goal setting, goal statements, and goal-directed behavior how psychological flexibility and job control can predict learning, job performance, and mental health and much more Acceptance and Mindfulness at Work is a vital professional resource for organization development practitioners and human resource managers.

You'll never see leadership the same way again after reading this book. These fifteen commitments are a distillation of decades of work with CEOs and other leaders. They are radical or provocative for many. They have been game changers for us and for our clients. We trust that they will be for you too. Our experience is that unconscious leadership is not sustainable. It won't work for you, your team or your organization in the long term. Unconscious leadership can deliver short term results, but the costs of living and leading unconsciously are great. Fear drives most leaders to make choices that are at odds with healthy relationships, vitality and balance. This fear leaves a toxic residue that won't be as easily tolerated in an increasingly complex business environment. Conscious leadership offers the antidote to fear. These pages contain a comprehensive road map to guide you to shift from fear-based to trust-based leadership. Once you learn and start practicing conscious leadership you'll get results in the form of more energy, clarity, focus and healthier relationships. You'll do more and more of what you are passionate about, and less of what you do out of obligation. You'll have more fun, be happier, experience less drama and be more on purpose. Your team will get results as well. They'll be more collaborative, creative, energized and engaged. They'll solve issues faster, and once resolved the issues won't resurface. Drama and gossip will all but disappear, and the energy and resources that fueled them will be redirected towards innovation and creativity. Any one of these commitments will change your life. All of them together are revolutionary. Leaders who practice the 15 commitments: - End blame and criticism - Speak candidly, openly and honestly, in a way that invites others to do the same - Find their unique genius - Let go of taking everything-especially themselves and their problems-so seriously - Create win for all solutions - Experience a new relationship to time and money where there is always enough What do you need to bring to the table? Be curious. Sounds so simple, and yet in our experience it's a skill few have mastered. Most of us are far more interested in being right and proving it, than we are in learning, growing and shifting out of our old patterns. By default we gravitate towards the familiar. We're asking you to take a chance and explore the unfamiliar. You'll get scared and reactive. We all do. So what? Just stay curious and let us introduce you to a whole new world of leadership.

Winner of the Project Management Institute’s David I. Cleland Project Management Literature Award 2010 It’s no wonder that project managers spend so much time focusing their attention on risk identification. Important projects tend to be time constrained, pose huge technical challenges, and suffer from a lack of adequate resources. Identifying and Managing Project Risk, now updated and consistent with the very latest Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)® Guide, takes readers through every phase of a project, showing them how to consider the possible risks involved at every point in the process. Drawing on real-world situations and hundreds of examples, the book outlines proven methods, demonstrating key ideas for project risk planning and showing how to use high-level risk assessment tools. Analyzing aspects such as available resources, project scope, and scheduling, this new edition also explores the growing area of Enterprise Risk Management. Comprehensive and completely up-to-date, this book helps readers determine risk factors thoroughly and decisively...before a project gets derailed.

This book reports a breakthrough in the management discipline of planning and controlling the work within the corporation. It has been successfully implemented in several types and sizes of organizations. The name of this new leadership style is "Management-By-Commitment. It is easy to understand, simple to implement within the corporate organizational management team and involves only three pieces of paper and six steps: Step 1: Executives share the annual business plan down from level to level delegating those sections to which a Subordinate organization is assigned to contribute. Step 2: The subordinate organization responds by preparing and submitting performance objectives to their senior manager which tells him exactly how they will achieve what They have been assigned. Step3: The senior manager conducts meaningful dialogue with his subordinate manager. When recommended objectives are understood, agreed upon, and accepted they become performance commitments and are documented on the subordinate's performance plan. Step 4: As work proceeds, the subordinate organization monitors their own performance. Where there is a potential problem identified which may threaten the results desired It is escalated immediately with recommended corrective actions. At this point, the senior manager applies coaching skills and becomes a mentor to his subordinate organization. The subordinate's performance plan is updated allowing both levels of managers to operate in an environment of "no surprises". Step 5: A periodic commitment status report is completed by the department and provided to their senior manager. This book presents "Management-By-Commitment" as an effective management discipline and an improved leadership style now newly published for your organization.