Robert Spillane

Funny Business: management unmasked is an expos of management as it is practiced in business, government and the non-profit sector. Keywords are explained through humour, making them better understood than a library of management textbooks. Management theories and applications are made memorable through savage wit and fearless comedy. This book is an ideal gift for bosses, peers and subordinates to give to each other. It is similarly useful to distribute at conferences and semonars, to question assumptions and the status quo. Each business word in the book holds a bundle of meanings, and can serve to create entertaining and productive discussions.

Managerialism has often been defined as an ideology, according to which the effective and efficient running of commercial firms, not-for-profit organizations and public administrations is delivered by individuals who possess superior formal knowledge and expertise in management. Arguing to their exclusive education, managers deprive employers and employees of decision-making power and ensconce themselves systematically in the power structure of workplaces to advance their own interests and agenda. The central thesis of Overcoming Managerialism is that resisting and overcoming managerialism necessitates the re-establishing of the conceptual distinction between power and authority. Second, it requires the rehabilitating of authoritative management as a protection against authoritarian practices. Authority, properly conceived, redirects power to technical experts and professionals and thereby limits managerial power. The authors discuss ten contentions which, taken together, represent a theory of the foundation of management in which authority, power and rhetoric are central concepts. This book combines academic scholarship with a readable critique of managerialism. It will be of interest to both management scholars and students.

Managerialism has often been defined as an ideology, according to which the effective and efficient running of commercial firms, not-for-profit organizations and public administrations is delivered by individuals who possess superior formal knowledge and expertise in management. Arguing to their exclusive education, managers deprive employers and employees of decision-making power and ensconce themselves systematically in the power structure of workplaces to advance their own interests and agenda. The central thesis of Overcoming Managerialism is that resisting and overcoming managerialism necessitates the re-establishing of the conceptual distinction between power and authority. Second, it requires the rehabilitating of authoritative management as a protection against authoritarian practices. Authority, properly conceived, redirects power to technical experts and professionals and thereby limits managerial power. The authors discuss ten contentions which, taken together, represent a theory of the foundation of management in which authority, power and rhetoric are central concepts. This book combines academic scholarship with a readable critique of managerialism. It will be of interest to both management scholars and students.

The book's premise is that the theories taught in management schools are based on unacknowledged philosophical perspectives that are significant not so much for what they explain, but for what they assume. Rarely made explicit, these perspectives cannot be reconciled, with the result that the study of management has been dominated by contradictions and internecine intellectual warfare. However, the ability critically to analyze these diverse perspectives is essential to practicing and aspiring managers if they are to evaluate expert opinion. Moreover, since management is primarily an exercise in communication, managing is impossible in the darkness of an imprecise language, in the absence of moral references, or in the senseless outline of a world without intellectual foundations. Managing is a prime example of applied philosophy.

In a fascinating analysis of the great psychological and sociological thinkers—including Freud, Maslow, McClelland, Durkheim, Skinner, Lewin and Mead—this erudite text challenges the models, myths and metaphors of modern psychology. Psychologists have promoted the view that human beings are the victims of internal and external forces, and have laboured to absorb free and responsible individuals into a pseudo-scientific framework that denies moral agency and thus renders them incapable of recognising notions of right and wrong. This book will appeal to anyone who has read enough psychology to have been perplexed and frustrated by its famous emperors. It demonstrates that if we take these naked emperors seriously and deny human freedom and personal responsibility, we shall have contributed to the undermining of our civilisation. With skill and verve, the book carries readers through an array of ideas to a 'purposive psychology' that enables individuals to gain insight into, and mastery of, themselves.

Funny Business: management unmasked is an expose of management as it is practiced in business, government and the non-profit sector. Keywords are explained through humour, making them better understood than a library of management textbooks. Management theories and applications are made memorable through savage wit and fearless comedy. This book is an ideal gift for bosses, peers and subordinates to give to each other. It is similarly useful to distribute at conferences and seminars, to question assumptions and the status quo. Each business word in the book holds a bundle of meanings, and can serve to create entertaining and productive discussions.

The ultimate test of management is performance - the achievement of actual results. Why, then, do Australian managers concern themselves with their colleagues personalities and motives? Why have they become infatuated with emotional intelligence and, in bizarre cases, with spiritual intelligence? Traditionally, managers who performed earned the right to argue with their colleagues. Nowadays, individuals who argue are said to lack soft skills while a sad few are thought to be suffering from a personality disorder. The popularity of soft-skill management has created psychomanagers: managers who have entered into a Faustian bargain with psychologists. Some managers work with psychologists to master themselves; others work with psychologists to master other people. As psychomanagement requires specialised knowledge, many Australian managers have yielded their authority to counsellors, coaches and consultants, many of whom believe that human behaviour is determined by internal and external forces over which individuals have little or no control. Accordingly, psychologists have laboured to absorb the idea of the free and responsible individual into a pseudoscientific framework that denies moral agency. The result is that ideas of right and wrong have been replaced with healthy and sick. In their pursuit of a therapeutic state, psychologists have medicalised morality and managers have embraced powerful myths about minds, motive-forces, personality traits, social conditioning, leadership, occupational stress and mental illness. Consequently, the twin ideas of personal freedom and responsibility have been sabotaged. This book is about Australian managers and their long-standing love affair with psychologists. For fifty years the author has studied, taught and consulted with managers and waltzed with several famous psychologists.

This book proposes a review of important Western philosophies and their significance for managers, management academics, and management consultants. Management theories taught in management schools that managers and consultants are supposed to apply are built upon different perspectives of the world, man, and society that are important not so much for what they lead to, but for what they assume. Although rarely made explicit, these assumptions cannot be reconciled and are at the source of many incompatibilities that management academia has been busy ignoring or obfuscating. The ability to evaluate critically these perspectives is essential to managers if they are to make sense of what experts profess, however. Moreover, since management is primarily an exercise in communication, managing is impossible in the darkness of an imprecise language, in the absence of moral references or in the senseless outline of a world without intellectual bases. Managing is an applied philosophical activity; any attempt at repairing management academia and the practices it has produced must accept this conclusion as its premise.

Philosophy of Leadership has been written to arouse curiosity, not to satisfy it. The authors point out ideas about leadership which draw upon both ancient and modern wisdom. This book develops a philosophy of leadership by tracing the evolution of Western ideas from philosophical perspectives, ancient and modern.

This book discusses ten philosophical perspectives, or worldviews, which present original ideas capable of evoking in us values that are guidelines for personal conduct. Harmonising knowledge, values and conduct maximises our personal power and thereby enables us to solve the practical and psychological problems of human existence, or overcome those that cannot be solved. The philosophers discussed in this book embody ideas of considerable fascination and force which can change our lives by penetrating the illusions of appearance and the delusions of common sense. As philosophy is thinking critically about thinking, it is a liberating activity because philosophers confront us with our prejudices and arouse our curiosity without satisfying it.hey show us what they were and how philosophy inspired them to live productive lives. They did not seek disciples but encouraged others to philosophise with them.

Office politics, power struggles, ulterior motives, personality differences ...all combine to make this cynical poke at the "executive branch" of a typical office highly entertaining. The setting takes you to a management training program where several managers are invited to attend. As we watch form the sidelines we are witness to undercurrent of what really goes on. This is pure entertainment disguised as education! Using extensive research and personality tests for a look into human behavior we are able to glean from this witty and ironic work. Performance versus personality, management versus leadership all play a part in the clever portrayal of the world of executives. As the managers are skeptical about the motives of those who organize and conduct management conferences, they meet to discuss tactics. At the conference they argue with the psychologist who is trying to entertain them. The conference proceeds in the face of questions and arguments which challenge the authority of the psychologist who attempts to control the protagonists. But the conference participants have other ideas... Sit back in your seats, prepare to laugh uncontrollably.

The book discusses Bacon, Descartes, Bayle, Fontenelle, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, d'Alembert, La Mettrie, Holbach, Kant, Schiller and many other philosophers. These philosophers were united in their belief that reason rather than revelation is the primary source of authority and they courageously attempted to destroy traditional, superstitious and religious ideas and replace them with a liberal, rational and humane worldview. This books is a declaration of respect and admiration for these philosophers. Threatened and attacked in their time, they are today ignored or ridiculed by those who fear or wish to suppress the truths of human existence. The challenge today is to find eccentrics enlightened enough to argue that the age which venerated reason and science as humankind’s highest faculty must not be lost to us. All those interested in philosophy will enjoy this important contribution to the literature.