How Come Every Time I Get Stabbed in the Back My Fingerprints Are On the Knife?

And Other Meditations on Management

Jerry B. Harvey

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 1999 , 264 pages

ISBN: 0-7879-4787-3

Synopsis:

Toggle Synopsis

Displaying equal parts philosophy, humor, and management expertise, Jerry B. Harvey discourses on topics ranging from backstabbing to corporate spin doctoring, elephants, heart surgery, and Waco, Texas. In a series of witty and thought-provoking essays, the best-selling author, who has been called a thinking person's Dilbert, tackles the hard topics of management and organizational life. By helping us realize the role we all play in our own downfalls, he provides a fresh perspective on the ethical, moral, and spiritual dilemmas we all face as well.

Table of Contents:

Toggle Table of Contents

• Introduction: It's Not My Dog

1. Some Thoughts About Organizational Backstabbing or How Come Every Time I Get Stabbed in the Back My Fingerprints Are on the Knife?
2. The Spin Doctors: An Invitation to Meditate on the Organizational Dynamics of the Last Supper and Why Judas Was Not the Traitor
3. On the Ethics of Standing for Something or Sitting on Our Duffs
4. Learning to Not*Teach
5. Prayers of Communication and Organizational Learning
6. This Is a Football: Leadership and the Anaclitic Depression Blues
7. What If I Really Believe This Stuff?
8. Musing About the Elephant in the Parlor or "Who the Hell Is Elliott Jaques?"
9. On Tooting Your Own Hom or Social Intervention as the Process of Releasing Flatus in the Confines of Religious Institutions
10. Ode to Waco: When Bizarre Organizational Behavior Is Concerned, God Works in Strange and Mysterious Ways
11. When We Buy a Pig: The Tragedy of the No-Nonsense Manager

• Afterword: In Memory of Suzanne
• Notes
• References