Good, short book with many mini-chapters, each expressing a paradoxical idea in the world of business and management. Uneven (some of the ideas are more provocative and more interesting than others), but reading this book was nevertheless an extremely useful mental exercise: it's a sort of test for the reader for sitting with paradox and oppositional ideas.
Introduction
On various fashions in management.
On embracing paradoxes: rather than trying to resolve them or trying to escape the cognitive discomfort they bring, instead just letting the paradox itself wash over us for a while. The merits of applying paradoxical logic to understand human affairs. Using paradox to challenge conventional ways of thinking, and to offer a more realistic way of assessing situations and managing oneself and others.
Chapter 1: the opposite of a profound truth is also true
How communication in an organization needs to be both accurate and deceptive. You require diplomacy and tact, and messages need to be filtered and massaged before they're sent up or down the chain of command. Honesty and deception function together in a paradoxical way
Chapter 2: nothing is as invisible as the obvious
Various inventions that were obvious but only in retrospect: the steam engine, penicillin, mass production. When the invisible obvious is pointed out to us we either reject and ignore it or say "of course we knew this all along."
Chapter 3: the more important a relationship, the less skill matters
"Management skills" don't matter when we're dealing with our closest colleagues. It's not what we do but who we are that counts with these relationships. Management as a type of artifice, of artificiality.
Chapter 4: once you find a management technique that works, give it up
Any technique loses its power when it becomes evident that it is a technique. "I see what you're doing." Furthermore most techniques derive their power from being different from what was previously done. If a manager becomes attentive to an employee he normally rarely pays attention to, the effect will be dramatic. But then the effect goes away because it's eventually it becomes the norm and it is not contrasted with its opposite.
You can actually compromise the respect your employees have for you, because they feel that you are "handling" them. Carl Rogers first addressed this in a therapeutic context.
Chapter 5: effective managers are not in control
Management techniques of control and manipulation cannot succeed.
The "vulnerability requirement": People need to know they are dealing with a genuine person, not someone who is managing them.
Experts and child development or psychologists or psychiatrists may know more about human relationships, but that knowledge may be an impediment. Does not mean that they are any better at conducting them.
Chapter 6: most problems that people have are not problems
Abraham Kaplan and distinguishing between a problem and a predicament. Problems can be solved; predicaments can only be coped with.
Chapter 7: technology creates the opposite of its intended purpose
The introduction of the washing machine helped save time, until it gave rise to the idea of wearing clean clothes on a daily basis. This required washing clothes more often, such that the number of hours spent at the task remain the same.
Likewise introducing the computer to the office actually increased the amount of paper in the office. Iatrogenic effects: there are a thousand diseases that would not exist if not for the practice of medicine and the existence of hospitals.
The problem of backfiring technology. Do MRIs improve our health or longevity?
Chapter 8 we think we invent technology, the technology also invents us
The automobile and how it has changed cities, society, courtship, the environment, our feelings of isolation due to suburbanization, and so on. "We think we invented the automobile but, in fact, the automobile also invented us."
Technology always invents us. We assume that it is neutral, benign, and under our control, but it is not. Technology is autonomous, and the consequences of applying it are likely to differ from our expectations, and very often bring the opposite of our intent. "Only by understanding this can managers intelligently apply technology, assess its effects, and be reasonably prepared to cope with the unpredictable eventualities it will cause."
Chapter 9 the more we communicate, the less we communicate
Communication seldom works the way we think it does. Intra-group communication beyond a certain level becomes dysfunctional, even paralyzing, to the group.
Open communication with an asymmetric power relationship: marriage counseling, a worker clearing the air with her boss, then getting fired. Candid communication can be very risky.
Chapter 10: in communication, form is more important than content
Emotional context, the form of the message (written, printed, typed, handwritten), what is the nature of the metamessage?
We remember almost nothing of the specific things we were taught in school, but we do remember very clearly the "hidden curriculum" which includes various cultural and social norms and messages that were part of the ritual or the form of education, not the content. Very striking insight right here.
"In all of life, the metamessage tends to be more powerful than the message itself."
For other examples of form over content, look at where we sit in a business meeting, or the various symbols of executive authority (a large office, windows, corner office etc).
Chapter 11: listening is more difficult than talking
Listening is tiring, inordinately difficult, it's unrealistic for most people to be able to do it, it can also be disturbing: when we understand other people's perspectives, we risk being changed ourselves. It demands significant amounts of openness and trust, qualities seldom exhibited in most people.
Genuine listening should not be reduced to a technique.
Chapter 12: praising people does not motivate them
Praise may be perceived as threatening, people react to praise sometimes with discomfort or uneasiness. People also may play down what they're praised for ("oh, I really can't take credit for it").
Giving praise establishes the fact that you are in a position to sit in judgment.
Also many of us have been trained with the "sandwich technique," where praise is followed by criticism then followed by praise, so we are getting ready for the shock/reproof part of the sandwich.
Chapter 13: every act is a political act
Every management act in some way redistributes or reinforces power, whether done consciously or unconsciously.
Chapter 14: the best resource for the solution of any problem is the person or group that presents the problem
Ex-convicts are better able to rehabilitate prison inmates than prison staff. Ex-drug addicts are more successful helping other addicts than psychiatrists. A full grasp of any problem is only in the hands of the people who have experienced it.
Chapter 15: organizations that need help most will benefit from it least
This parallels a problem in psychotherapy, people and companies who really need help don't usually seek it, and don't usually benefit when they do. Furthermore the healthier a company is or an individual is psychologically, the more it (or you) can change. The person who can change is the one to work with.
Chapter 16: individuals are almost indestructible, but organizations are very fragile
Most businesses fail because of ruptured relationships among the principals. Often we don't see the relationships that make organizations work.
Chapter 17: the better things are, the worst they feel
The paradox is that improvement in human affairs leads not to satisfaction but to discontent, albeit a higher-order discontent than might have existed before. Cf: the cause of revolutions is the theory of rising expectations.
Successful psychotherapy leads not to satisfaction but to new and different feelings of discontent. One takeaway is change and growth comes from the development of higher-quality/higher-order discontent.
Maslow talking about "grumbles" of different levels ranging from deficiency needs (like "I don't get paid enough") to higher order grumbles (like "we need better safety standards") to metagrumbles (complaints having to do with needs for self-actualization). Only in an organization where people are in on things and where their talents are being utilized would it occur to someone to complain about these highest order issues. (!!!) Thus management can judge their effectiveness by assessing the quality of the discontent they engender
Chapter 18: we think we want creativity or change, but we really don't
Clients come to therapy seemingly wanting to change but then spend most of their time resisting it.
The problem of creativity: every new idea requires a manager or someone to undergo a significant change, therefore it's a threat, or it's extra work. Real creativity is unmanageable. So when we say we desire creativity we really mean manageable creativity.
Chapter 19: we want for ourselves not what we are missing, but more of what we already have
Our absorption with what we do well blinds us to what will enable us to do better.
Chapter 20: big changes are easier to make them small ones
Gradualism ("the tranquilizing drug of gradualism" --Martin Luther King,) and the civil Rights movement, contrast this with the instant integration of the military by Truman. Major changes can often be easier than small changes.
Big bold changes often are big enough to withstand any attempted countering them.
Chapter 21: we learn not from our failures but from our successes--and the failures of others
We keep repeating mistakes, while we seem obsessed with the success of others, and try to learn from their example. We learn better from our own successes because we reinforce behaviors this way. When our successes are relatively consistent, our rate of learning rises accordingly.
Jonas Salk: "I'm rebuilding my life out of the ashes of success."
Chapter 22: everything we try works, and nothing works
A paradox that any kind of change or technique can be attempted by various consultants, and they all seem to work. But putting that together with the unsettling facts that all changes soon fade and disappear, you arrive at a paradox that nothing works even though everything works.
All techniques "work" in psychotherapy as well.
Young managers become enthusiastic about new techniques because they have yet to learn this paradox that everything works and nothing works.
Chapter 23: planning is an ineffective way to bring about change
Organizations typically change as a result of invasion from the outside or rebellion from the inside, less so as a result of planning.
Planning processes tend to be located in low-status departments, or with low status employees. Thus the planners working on change don't even know about top level concerns. Too often it is an empty ritual designed to make management feel that there's something going on.
Chapter 24: organizations change most by surviving calamities
Paradox: the situations we try hardest to avoid in our organizations would actually be the most beneficial for them. The problem is the calamity is seen as an embarrassment to management and thus not seen as a key to success.
Chapter 25: people think we need changing are pretty good the way they are
Most studies of people's behavior are done in situations where they're not at their best, like in school, clinics, prisons. Our efforts are usually to reform people, we often don't see people at their best.
Chapter 26: every great strength is a great weakness
Strengths can become weaknesses when we rely too much on them, or apply them where they don't belong. People who are tenacious continue behaviors long after it's obvious that they should change course or give up. See also the phrase "to a fault" used to describe people's characteristics along this vein: "she is loyal to a fault."
Can weaknesses be strengths? Certain brilliant giants of psychology have extraordinary abilities in spite of their own emotional disabilities. For whatever reason they're excellent at reading people quickly and carefully.
Weightlifter/gymnast dichotomy for companies, see IBM versus KayPro, the latter was very quickly able to enter the PC market whereas IBM took forever.
Chapter 27: morale is unrelated to productivity
Certain liabilities to high productivity: see for example pieceworkers ("rate busters") who get ostracized.
Chapter 28: there are no leaders, there is only leadership
The bulldog, stereotypical image of a leader giving orders, with an entourage, etc. Like Vince Lombardi, or Lee Iacocca.
In reality leadership is distributed among members of a group, everyone plays vital roles: taskmaster, clown, mother figure, etc. Also people who are most successful in achieving power in a group did not dominate the group, rather they served the group.
"Watching an accomplished executive secretary at work can make one wonder sometimes just who is managing whom."
Chapter 29: the more experienced the managers, the more they trust simple intuition
We admire children for their quick and uninhibited judgments. Clear-eyed judgment. Experience can get in the way. In school we are taught to rely on authority or the opinions of others. We also haven't been taught to be suspicious of our initial reactions.
Leaders need to regain trust in gut reactions. Think of ourselves as sensitive instruments, measuring situations and registering visceral reactions that are usually ignored but should be paid attention to.
Chapter 30: leaders cannot be trained, but they can be educated
"Training" adds a layer of new responsibilities, like training a manager to handle employees who have drug problems, whereas education can yield wisdom and vision, new ways of thinking.
Chapter 31: in management, to be a professional one must be an amateur
Frank Lloyd wright struggling to explain what architecture is, "it's like this flower... no that's not it." Domains like management and leadership are high arts when they're working well, but it is difficult to explain how or why they are working well or even what they are.
Chapter 32: lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for
Lost causes tend to be the most important, the most humane. Because they are so crucial we must try.
Also there's a central paradox in that if you have the confidence (or audacity) to believe that you can reform someone in psychotherapy, often you get nowhere: "Whenever I have the arrogance or audacity to believe that I can reform people, I get nowhere. But when I fundamentally recognize that I cannot possibly accomplish these reforms, I can move ahead with a more humble posture and, paradoxically, perhaps then there is a chance that the situation can change. The absurd lesson is to recognize that it is a lost cause and work on it anyway."
"Leaving rake marks": going beyond the necessary to what is elegant, beyond the purely functional to the aesthetic. And being humble about knowing the "right" way to do something.
Chapter 33: my advice is don't take my advice
"Not only is advice worth little, it also costs nothing to give." Advice addresses the situation without actually dealing with it. It is easier than understanding, than listening and analyzing.
On giving yourself good advice everyday but seldom acting upon it: "Son, I already know how to be twice as good a farmer as I am." A farmer speaking to a government agricultural agent.
Thus this book is not advice but an effort to deepen understanding of issues that managers face.
Frau Beethoven waking up Ludwig with a 2-5 chord progression, but not playing the final 1 chord (it forced him to get up and complete the chord himself because of the musical "tension"). An amusing analogy for this book, you have to complete the "chord" yourself and think through the paradoxes and the absurdities yourself.
Reading List:
This book would be very well-paired with Edward de Bono's Lateral Thinking
Journey Into Self (documentary film with Carl Rogers)
Warren Bennis: Still Surprised
Charles Handy: The Age of Paradox
Abraham Kaplan: In Pursuit of Wisdom
Ivan Illich: Deschooling Society