From Publishers Weekly
As American corporations accelerate their downsizing and proclaim their dedication to "leaner" staffing, the pressure on bosses increases: they are ordered to do more with less. Therein lies the issue confronted by Hornstein (Social Intervention), a psychology professor at Columbia University and a psychotherapist, after eight years of work and interviews with more than 1000 workers. He opens by listing the eight deadly sins bosses can commit: deceit, constraint, coercion, selfishness, inequity, cruelty, disregard and deification. Then he classifies brutal bosses as executioners, dehumanizers, blamers, rationalizers, conquerors, performers and manipulators, some because they are neither sensitive nor introspective, others because they are bullies; many of them, he reports, are backed by their superiors or peers. Of three conceivable remedies?changing the victims, changing the abusers and changing the system?he views only the last as feasible and then presents six survival skills to help the abused.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
From Library Journal
A psychotherapist, professor of social-organizational psychology, and senior management consultant, Hornstein writes not as an impartial observer of human behavior but as someone who has obviously had his fill of tales of employer abuse. Much of his book is a passionate, and painfully repetitive, indictment of a corporate culture that turns a blind eye to and/or explicitly condones the abuse of employees by "brutal bosses." Although this is a timely and important topic, the book's impact is diminished by the redundant narratives of anonymous employees recounting their personal on-the-job horror stories. Such anecdotal reports, paired with descriptions of the atrocious managerial behavior of real-life CEOs, grow tiresome after five chapters. The book's relative strength lies in its final two chapters, which describe solutions to employee abuse, but this is not the heart of the book. Managers, employees, and management consultants may find the subject matter interesting, but they'll likely forgo this work in favor of more substantive solutions and recommendations.?Alan Farber, Northern Illinois Univ., DeKalb
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
