Book Description
Ethics in business is the most urgent problem facing America today. Now two of the best-selling authors of our time, Kenneth Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale, join forces to meet this crisis head-on in this vitally important new book. The Power of Ethical Management proves you don't have to cheat to win. It shows today's managers how to bring integrity back to the workplace. It gives hard-hitting, practical, ethical strategies that build profits, productivity, and long-term success.
From a straightforward three-step Ethics Check that helps you evaluate any action or decision, to the "Five P's" of ethical behavior that will clarify your purpose and your goals, The Power of Ethical Management gives you an immensely useful set of tools. These can be put to work right away to enhance the performance of your business and to enrich the quality of your life. The Power of Ethical Management is no theoretical treatise; Peale and Blanchard speak from their own enormous and unique experience, They reveal the nuts and bolts, practical strategies for ethical decisions that will show you why integrity pays.
"So Vince Lombardi was wrong. Winning is not the only thing as headlines and hearings from Wall Street to Washington confirm. Now comes a better game plan from the powerful one-two punch of Ken Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale in a quickreading new book, The Power of Ethical Management. Peale and Blanchard may be the best thing that has happened to business ethics since Mike Wallace invented 60 Minutes.
- -- JOHN MACK CARTIER
- Editor-in-Chief
- Good Housekeeping
Customer Reviews:
Great, Quick, & Meaningful .......2007-06-11
The Power of Ethical Management, by Norman V. Peale, is a fine book on leadership and making the right decision for the right reason. The book is a fast read and very straightforward. Though simple in its delivery, the message goes down easy and is meaningful. As a leader/manager in business or government, this book reinforces valuable lessons about treating people the right way for the right reasons; and how that leads to productive and motivated employees. 5 Stars.
Excellent book.......2006-03-13
This book will be used as a resource in our leadership library. Excellent, short, to the point leadership book.
the Power of Ethical Management.......2005-09-25
An easy read with great wisdom. Every individual should read this book, even the nominal employee as it has insight regarding moral decision-making in and out of the workplace.
Ken Blanchard has done it again!.......2002-04-09
Simply one of the best (if not THE best), most enjoyable, and most entertaining books on ethics, morality, character, and leadership.
This short and easy to read masterpiece by two of the most influential business and spiritual thinkers of our time should be required reading for all managers and leaders in any organization - business, family, government, military, etc. The stories and situations used to teach the many commonsense (but unfortunately not common practice) lessons are real and recognizable to everyone. The power and wisdom behind the three "Ethics Check" questions and the "Five P's of Ethical Power" for individuals and organizations are priceless.
If you ever wondered why some people and organizations make such a big deal about ethics, read this book and you will wonder why more people and organizations do not make ethics their top priority.
Ethical issues pondered and pontificated on............2000-06-16
I have always been a fan of Mr.Peale's books so when my college professor assigned this book as mandatory reading, I was delighted. I enjoyed the use of parables to talk about ethical issues. Each story made you think about ethics and how/when to apply them. I do not know about Mr.Blanchard's writings but I think he focused on the business aspects of ethical dilemmas. The 2 authors make a good team and wrote a very informational book. There are lots of great sayings as well as principles about ethics. An enjoyable read as well as a thought-provoking little book.
Book Description
Moral Leadership brings together in one comprehensive volume essays from leading scholars in law, leadership, psychology, political science, and ethics to provide practical, theoretical policy guidance. The authors explore key questions about moral leadership such as:
- How do leaders form, sustain, and transmit moral commitments?
- Under what conditions are those processes most effective?
- What is the impact of ethics officers, codes, training programs, and similar initiatives?
- How do standards and practices vary across context and culture?
- What can we do at the individual, organizational, and societal level to foster moral leadership?
Throughout the book, the contributors identify what people know, and only think they know, about the role of ethics in key decision-making positions. The essays focus on issues such as the definition and importance of moral leadership and the factors that influence its exercise, along with practical strategies for promoting ethical behavior. Moral Leadership addresses the dynamics of moral leadership, with particular emphasis on major obstacles that stand in its way: impaired judgment, self-interest, and power. Finally, the book explores moral leadership in a variety of contextsbusiness and the professions, nonprofit organizations, and the international arena.
Book Description
Toxic leaders--such as Ken Lay at Enron or Al Dunlap ("Chainsaw Al") at Sunbeam, or Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia--have always been with us, and many books explain what makes them tick. But in The Allure of Toxic Leaders, Jean Lipman-Blumen explains what makes the followers tick, exploring why we tolerate--and remain steadfastly loyal to--leaders who are destructive to their organizations, their employees, their nations, and their constituents. Why do we knowingly follow, seldom unseat, frequently prefer, and sometimes even create toxic leaders? Lipman-Blumen argues that these leaders appeal to our deepest needs, playing on our anxieties and fears, on our yearnings for security, high self-esteem, and significance, and on our desire for noble enterprises and immortality. The author explores how psychological needs--such as the desire to be at the heart of the action, to be an insider--can often make us susceptible to toxic leaders. She describes how followers inadvertently keep themselves in line by a set of insidious control myths that they internalize. In addition, outside forces--such as economic depressions, political upheavals, or a crisis in the company--can increase our anxiety and our longing for charismatic leaders. Equally important, Lipman-Blumen shows how followers, mired in the swamp of toxic leadership, can learn critical lessons for the future and survive in the meantime. She discusses how to confront, reform, undermine, blow the whistle on, or oust a toxic leader. And she suggests how we can diminish our need for strong leaders, identify "reluctant leaders" among competent followers, and even nurture the leader within ourselves. Toxic leaders first charm, but then manipulate, mistreat, weaken, and ultimately devastate their followers. The Allure of Toxic Leaders tells us how to recognize these leaders and identify the germ of toxicity within their "noble" visions before it's too late.
Customer Reviews:
delves into how and why harmful leaders come to and keep power.......2007-01-03
The central question for Lipman-Blumen, professor of Public Policy and of Organizational Behavior at California Claremont Graduate U., and one of the founders of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Leadership, is "What are the forces that propel followers, again and again, to accept, often favor, and sometime create toxic leaders?" The question has many sides involving sociological, psychological, historical, political and also in varying measures pathological and irrational matters. The author delves into these varied areas with familiarity, depth, analytic abilities, and nimbleness. There is no simple answer to the question. Followers' self-esteem, the delusions of crowds, deceptiveness of a leader, historical circumstances, and the nature of and need for society play into the acceptance, toleration, and support of toxic leaders. There is also often an ambiguity to a leader making it difficult to see if he or she is toxic; and some leaders may become toxic over a period of time. Not all toxic leaders are as evident in their time or even historical hindsight as Hitler or Stalin and the other ogres of history. Lipman-Blumen's purview of toxic leaders extends to Jeffrey Skilling of Enron notoriety and other top corporate executives of recent years whose harmful wrongdoings have been uncovered. While she regularly refers to certifiably toxic or questionable leaders in varied fields as examples, Lipman-Blumen engages only minimally in psychoanalysis of them. Her concentration is on the broader circumstances and patterns of how toxic leaders come to power in the first place and how they are able to stay in power even when their harmful behavior and policies become known. The author also pays much attention to the role of much of respective populations and key supporters in this. But the author also provides answers on how to counter toxic leaders in this timely, needed work.
Another Essential Book on Leadership by Lipman-Blumen.......2006-09-29
Not content with having revolutionized how we think about leadership with "Hot Groups" and "Connective Leadership," Lipman-Blumen has now set her sights on why "toxic leaders" can be so successful and why they can be so hard to remove. Almost all of us can relate to these leaders, ones whose toxicity is unquestioned even as their hold on their followers is intense. Often, their followers can even seem nostalgic when these leaders are finally chased out. Certainly this book is as timely as it is insightful. Read this one and her two other books.
Highly Recommended!.......2005-06-15
This intriguing, intellectual study of disastrous leadership offers a courageous interpretation of corporate scandal and political folly. Amoral leaders are not entirely to blame, Jean Lipman-Blumen argues. Rather, followers enable misguided leaders to rise to power and stay there. Her analysis applies psychological principles to Adolf Hitler's Germany and Jeff Skilling's Enron (not exactly parallel, but you get the idea) and concludes that toxic leaders' followers are willing victims who allowed misguided bosses to appeal to their basest instincts. While Lipman-Blumen's assertions are startling, she makes a compelling case written in dense but readable prose with intriguing detail. We suggest this book to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the relationship between leaders and their followers, particularly given the swath cut by today's toxic leaders.
HOW TOXIC LEADERS GAIN AND KEEP POWER, BUT CAN BE CHECKED........2005-04-19
Toxic leaders leave their followers worse off than they found them. A few of the many other ways toxic leaders act are they: violate basic standards of human rights; feed followers illusions; stifle criticism; maliciously set constituents against one another. The book shows how these leaders win people over by playing on their fears and self-esteem, only to ultimately use their power against their own followers. The book explores, in depth, how people are drawn into accepting, even embracing toxic leaders, and how these leaders retain power. This is an enlightening probe into the psyche of people and how their culture, situation, deepest fears, and dysfunctional personalities, make them vulnerable to toxic leaders. The book also explores ways of dealing with these leaders: counsel them to change; undermine them; join with others to confront or overthrow them. The book closes with a chapter on how to be freed of toxic leaders, by facing up to our anxiety and the accompanying pain, as well as by bringing nontoxic leaders to the fore. The author's insights apply to leaders of all kinds, political and business. This brief review does no justice to the breadth and depth of this work.To read this book is to help become aware of, and armed against, toxic leaders of all types. Required reading for all who yearn and strive to live free of domineering, destructive leaders. Our highest recommendation.
meandering.......2005-02-07
I found this book disappointing. The author meanders telling anecdotes about various nasty leaders, but can't seem to get on with an organised discussion of the book's supposed theme:
why do people follow these crooks?
Average customer rating:
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Power Through People and Principles
Vipen Kapur
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 007116443X |
Book Description
This unique book is an insightful, uplifting, and practical guide to leading a more balanced and fulfilling life both inside and outside the corporation. Drawing upon his decades of experience working in top management, Vipen Kapur offers invaluable insights into corporate values, leadership, teamwork, integrity, and interpersonal communication. Packed with instructive, often humorous, anecdotes drawn from the author¿s own experiences and from history, this is a must read for every manager concerned with the human side of management.
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Energy Investments and the Environment: Selected Topics : A Collection of Papers Prepared for a Workshop Organized by the Economic Developmental in (E D I Technical Materials)
Corazon M. Siddayao , and
Lisa A. Griffin
Manufacturer: World Bank Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0821323989 |
Book Description
In The Haves and Have Nots, leading organizational consultant Dr. Harvey A. Hornstein illuminates the predictable psychological and organizational patterns that lead executives to shower themselves with special privileges, demonstrates exactly how these patterns undermine the organization, and—above all—offers practical solutions.
Hornstein outlines a systematic, honest blueprint for rooting out executive misbehavior and enhancing employee identification with the organization. And, in so doing, he clears the way for addressing virtually every business challenge more effectively, from raising productivity to managing change.
The idea that destroys organizations: "We're not all in this together"
The pernicious culture of executive privilege
The psychology of management misbehavior
Overcoming the natural human impulse to elevate "us" by diminishing "them"
Rewards, respect, and recognition
Breakthrough techniques for managing the three pillars of organizational life
Beyond "loyalty": real identification
An innovative and practical plan for deepening employee identification with your organization
Building fairer, more successful organizations.
Focuses on the #1 precondition for success: strong employee identification with the organization
Building organizations where everyone really is "in it together"
It's not just greed: The real reason executives demand unfair special treatment
Aligning rewards, respect, and recognition to maximize employee commitment
Reflects 30 years of real-world case studies from actual enterprise consulting assignments
"No one should be allowed to manage who has not read this book and takenits content to heart." —Russell L. Ackoff, Anheuser Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Download Description
The Haves and Have Nots introduces a unique framework for understanding how employees' efforts depend on their identification with the organization, how employee/employer ties are built and broken, and how enterprises can achieve powerful competitive adva
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Leadership and Power: Ethical Explorations
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0195655915 |
Book Description
The accelerating spread of mammon worship, galloping commercialization of science, technology and academia along with the crumbling traditional norms which upheld social conduct, have all combined to produce increasing evidence of worrisome abuse and misuse of power in all channels of life.
The book examines this global problem from multiple perspectives.
Book Description
In the great boom of the 1990s, top management's compensation soared, but the wages of most Americans barely grew at all. This wages stagnation has baffled experts, but in The New Ruthless Economy, Simon Head points to information technology as the prime cause of this growing wage disparity. Many economists, technologists and business consultants have predicted that IT would liberate the work force, bringing self-managed work teams and decentralized decision making. Head argues that the opposite has happened. Reengineering, a prime example of how business processes have been computerized, has instead simplified the work of middle and lower level employees, fenced them in with elaborate rules, and set up digital monitoring to make sure that the rules are obeyed. This is true even in such high-skill professions as medicine, where decision-making software in the hands of HMOs decides the length of a patient's stay in hospital and determines the treatments patients will or will not receive. In lower-skill jobs, such as in the call center industry, workers are subject to the indignity of scripting software that lays out the exact conversation, line by line, which agents must follow when speaking with customers. Head argues that these computer systems devalue a worker's experience and skill, and subject employees to a degree of supervision which is excessive and demeaning. The harsh and often unstable work regime of reengineering also undermines the security of employees and so weakens their bargaining power in the workplace. Drawing upon ten years of research visiting work places across America, ranging from medical offices to machine tool plants, Head offers dramatic insight into the impact of information technology on the quality of working life in the United States.
Customer Reviews:
Working Under the All-Seeing Eye.......2006-12-19
With Drucker`s Post Capitalist Society, I got the impression that production was the key to higher pay, but Head contradicts that notion saying that the American work force has been made more productive, but it still has not seen much of an increase in pay. A worker works harder and faster, but still gets paid about the same. Even white collar workers and highly skilled professionals are managed scientifically under Taylor's principles. There seems to be a spreading madness for higher production. It is dehumanizing to have to do tasks at a speed and manner that may not fit the personality and ability of the person doing the job. I suppose that increasing production may decrease the price of the product because of the increased supply due to higher production. This would lower the cost for the consumer who is also the worker, which would be a benefit.
I can see why workers resisted Taylor's schemes to get them to be more productive. It is much more desirable for the workers to set the pace without having supervision, rather than having a supervisor tell you to speed up. Besides, not everyone works at the same pace, unless you force them to.
Even health care has become a dehumanizing experience for patients as they too have to endure a managed care system geared toward production, rather than caring for the patient. It seems to be a very male-oriented philosophy to coldly concentrate only on production and beating out the less productive competition, as opposed to other values that could be emphasized.
By increasing the productivity of workers, an employer reduces the labor cost of making the product, ultimately trimming down the number of people employed. With Taylorism, the worker participates in his own eventual replacement by suggesting ways to do the work more efficiently.
Although there had been some talk of the increase of worker autonomy and empowerment with rise of Japanese auto production, actually management practiced a more refined Taylorism. Workers were both bored by simple tasks and stressed to keep up with the speed of the line. This decreased the quality of working life. Unions were unable to penetrate into Japanese run plants worldwide to attempt to slow down the line and give workers more power.
It's amazing that the engineers of the Casepoint software thought that it would work. Customers who call in about equipment they don't understand are often rambling and incoherent. Such unpredictability would ruin such a system. You need to use the human computer to figure out such problems. No artificial computers have been created yet that would fix such problems.
I agree with Reichheld that if you treat employees well and retain their loyalty and service, then the business runs much more smoothly and profitably, without having to resort to such immoral tactics as management by excessive and stressful monitoring. Management, employees, and customers benefit from having a humane work environment. Businesses should focus on this, rather on just production. Unfortunately, businesses often view their employees with contempt and think that they can be easily replaced. Businesses listen more to scientific managers, rather than to humane ones.
With Head's review of scientific management, I get the impression that Taylor and his followers really do belong in the lowest parts of hell. But focusing on higher production is not a bad pursuit as long as it doesn't become the only goal.
There are many problems with scientifically managed healthcare. Patients are "medical losses" in managed care; the term is used to describe the loss of profit when the patient cost the MCO to much money. Such patients are unprofitable clients to the reengineers following the principles of scientific management to try to reduce the cost of healthcare. The invasion of this philosophy into the healthcare system has not gone over well with doctors or patients. Patients don't want to be treated like products; doctors want to make their own decisions about the patient's care without having to go by the rigid guidelines of managed care. Because physicians are no longer making flexible decisions during the diagnosis of patients, medical errors are opening them up to lawsuits, which further increase the cost of healthcare. MCO's are more interested in making a profit, than merely holding down costs. Since there has been an increase of bureaucracy because of the contentious negotiations between doctors, hospitals, and HMO's, costs are increasing probably more so than they were before managed care. To bring costs down they must deny care to patients, particularly if they are unprofitable patients with severe and chronic health problems. This market solution to rising health care costs has not been that successful; the author suggests that all could be covered under nationalized health care. Drucker would probably object with the usual argument about people waiting years for a serious operation to be done under nationalized care.
Although companies talk of employee empowerment with the advent of IT technologies, the opposite has actually occurred. There is a chance for empowerment, but not with the way the technology is being used now. The technology actually gets in the way of employees becoming more experienced at solving problems, which could lead to job satisfaction. While scientific management has had some success in manufacturing as far as higher production goes, it has not been successful in services that deal with humans, which requires more complexity and caring. There are other values that are more important than production in the services. Head disagrees with Drucker that higher production necessarily leads to higher wages. The fruits of increased productivity often go to the CEOs and shareholders, and senior managers, not employees.
The Digital Age Catches Up........2005-09-15
The chronology of this book spans almost two centuries of American history. In 1824, John Hall achieved the automatic machining of metal components at the Harpers Ferry arsenal, and Hall's new methods were the ancestors of mass production and scientific management.
By another convenient accident of history, one of the pivotal events in this narrative, the beginnings of mass production at Ford's Highland plant in 1913, stands near the midpoint. If time travel allowed us to look back from the perspective of 1913, we would see how Henry Ford and Fred Winslow Taylor pulled together the "technical and organizational achievements of the 19th century" and welded them into a productive machine of commanding power and efficiency.
Looking forward from 1913, and with the advantage of hindsight, we can see how Ford's and Taylor's methods were elaborated by the technologies of the mid- and late 10th century, which will continue to shape today's U. S. A. economy. From their base in manufacturing, these methods have launched an invasion of the service economy in which eighty percent of Americans work.
After I learned computer training at the Vo-Tech in Pulaski, I agreed that I could effectively work robotic computers. I never had the chance to show my stuff, but I did have various and sundry computer-entry jobs in different factories. It was, for me, the Alpha and Omega -- the beginning and the End.
Is it possible for humans to be programmed like machines? Like in the movie, ROBOTS, and 'The Island,' it is likely that some sort of robotic entity will exist in our near future. Simon Head puts doubts on our "illusions about information technology and argues that everyone loses when corporations try to use technology to conquer human nature." We all know that machines have no minds (like the two city of Knoxville representatives at yesterday's TPO meeting) and can never have the ability to think and feel on their own. Computers do as they are told or programmed, which is good. Humans need to always be in control.
Big Brother Is Watching.......2004-04-12
The New Ruthless Economy by Simon Head is a somber, thought provoking examination of how the American workforce has been dehumanized over the past decade. The widespread use of Information Technology in business was predicted to decentralize decision-making and empower employees through greater team efficiency. The reality of IT is an aggressive return to Taylorism and assembly-line routine and controls that migrated from manufacturing to service industries.
During the 1990?s, wages of top management went through the roof but the average American worker realized little, if any, increase at all. The New Ruthless Economy explores contributing factors to the inequality of wages, loss of job security and weakened bargaining power in the American workforce.
Simon Head drew his conclusions based upon ten years of research across industry lines and geographic boundaries. He discovered that in the name of efficiency, businesses have established highly structured rules, computerized their processes and then implemented technology to ensure these rules were strictly adhered to al? George Orwell.
The author provides concrete examples ranging from software implemented by HMOs that determine a patient?s length of care and treatment to the computer scripting used in call centers for wide-range solicitation. Use of these systems once again separates decision-making from the worker. It devalues an employee?s education, training and experience while subjecting them to excessively close supervision and monitoring.
Head also points to the ?lean production? and ?ERP? (enterprise resource planning) practices that prompted wholesale layoffs in the early to mid 1990?s. Not only did these systems reduce the skill levels of employees but they also significantly increased the level of worker scrutinization. Head explores the relationship between Information Technology and Scientific Management and concludes his book with a discussion of ?the economics of unfairness? where both the National Labor Review Board and employee privacy rights take major hits at the waterline. The New Ruthless Economy takes a look backward and forward where the view for American labor is equally disappointing.
Wake-up call.......2004-03-21
Head picks three areas to primarily study in his New Ruthless Economy: autos, health care and call centers, but the first part of the book is devoted to an excellent review of the basic tenets of scientific management as originally envisaged by the engineer Frederick Taylor, and his lesser-known counterpart in office management, William Leffingwell. Armed with this knowledge, the reader can easily trace developments in the last fifty years or so.
As Head points out, the overall effect of the extension of these principles, especially combined with the vast electronic monitoring provided by recent advances in IT, is the overall dumbing-down of the worker, regardless of inherent or potential skills. The study of Toyota auto plants in Japan and other countries is particularly distressing, and one can easily see that it is only the influence of unions that has slowed down the treadmill. The situation with regard to call centers is appalling: truly the workers there are exploited ruthlessly. One wonders if in the offshoring of American jobs in the service sector, eventually the same massive turnover numbers will appear in developing countries.
Head, in my opinion, saves the best till last?managed care organizations. Here, as one reads both figures rarely published, research findings, and case studies, it becomes all too obvious that MCOs are an absolute disaster. Why are health care costs going up? It?s all here in simple terms. Just this section of the book is worth reading alone if one is worried about health care in America.
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Resource Management) and a host of other business areas literally reorganized by giant software programs (SAP R/3, for example), are also discussed, and viewed as boondoggles that rarely achieve any desired goals.
The overall trends discussed in this well-written book should frighten both management and employees, and it is unfortunate that the latter so often buy into the consultants? ill-advised mantras.
Fresh perspective on the perils of the new economy.......2003-10-15
This provocative book exposes the dark side of IT productivity gains, in which workers in service sectors such as medicine are being transformed into cogs on an assembly line. Ironically, just when industrial assembly line workers have been empowered to take responsibility for the overall quality of the products, the workers in areas where judgment once reigned supreme find themselves extruded through routines-- what to do, what to say-- that make central planning seem creative. The initial productivity gains are apt to disappear, Head suggests, just as they did in old assembly lines, as numb minds produce bad products.
Book Description
"The key questions for today's managers and leaders, " writes Jack Hawley, "are no longer issues of task and structure, but questions of spirit....not religion, spirit." We all yearn for spiritually rooted qualities at work - integrity, character, inspiration, belief, and even reverence - qualities that are key factors in an enterprise's success. Hawley provides a direct response to the widespread desire for spirituality at work, offering a practical vision of work permeated with "dharma" - deep integrity fusing spirit, character, human values, and decency. He shows how successful leaders or managers who are motivated by a spiritual vision liberate the best in people, and explains why all leadership is spiritual. He provides many examples of people actually living by their inner truth at work, and shows how such people can create an improved place to work and a better life as well as a more resilient, effective organization that is prepared to meet the challenges of the present and future.
Customer Reviews:
LOVE LOVE LOVE .......2005-05-09
"All Leadership is Spiritual," says Jack Hawley. Though that concept sounds sweeping, reading through the book the reader evolves the thought that the concept was not alien after all. The book takes the reader through elements that leadership and spirituality in such a manner that the reader keeps wondering, `Why didn't this thought occurred in my mind earlier?' Probably, that is what makes this book wonderful.
The book introduces the concept of Spirit with the quote of Joseph Campbell by stating "There is a dimension of the universe unavailable to the senses". The book expresses Spirit as the Vitality/ Aliveness that dwells and also refers to Spirit as the source of energy within us and a part of us. As promised, the book goes beyond the theories of abstractness, and thus tries to explain the spirit of Spirit through the words of an IBM employee, who lives the spirit of the famed IBM Service standards and thus tries to communicate what spirit is about.
The book is laden with powerful anecdotes and stories, which, in addition to opening wonderful vistas of thoughts, brings to us memories when we were "spiritual", but never realized. From Alexander the Great's march into the Kulu valley in North Western India to a lovey-dovey incident between two small kids during a birthday party, these selected incidents do help the reader to stand aside, be a witness and then to merge in the nectar of Love. The reader will be able to find a number of autobiographical elements in the pages of the book, as the author has been successful in connecting with the deep yearnings of an individual. This connection that the author develops with a reader helps the reader to engross his attention to the book.
The book is divided into five sections. The first section is about Reawakening to Spirit in Management and Life, followed by the section that deals with Love and Reverence in Work and Life. The third section deals with realigning beliefs, thoughts and being, while the fourth section deals with strengthening personal and organizational integrity. The final section is about spiritual core of leadership. The book deals with various facets of a Leader like Leader as a Servant, Leader as a Steward, Leader as a Sense Maker, Leader as a Guide, Leader as a Yogi and yes, Leader as a Warrior too. The author travels 6000 years back to narrate a conversation between the warrior supremo Bhishma, who is on his deathbed, and Prince Yudhishtira, at the end of the fierce battle in Kurukshetra. The author soon takes the reader from this historical incident to the modern day business wonder of Hard Rock Café, an acclaimed chain of restaurants and its founder, Isaac Tigrett, who bought in "Spirit" and "Love" to his workplace, before leaving the company.
The book speaks about the `Reverence Continuum' in organizations, a model which raised eyebrows and quizzical looks when the author was introducing the model as part of a management development programme. The book while acknowledging the existence of organizations that are indifferent and apathetic, focuses its attention on those organizations that are "basically civilized". The reverence continuum thus moves from a Polite organization to a Caring organization. As per the book, increased levels of Caring take an organization from the state of Caring, to the state of Respect. Soon, increased levels of Respect, takes an organization, to the state of Reverence. The author says, "I know reverence sound far out, but think back to the best boss you've ever worked for or the best team you've ever worked on or the best subordinates you've ever worked with. Tell me; was there reverence in that situation?" Answering the question for ourselves will help us to question whether Reverence is so far-off after all.
The book also follows a movement when it speaks about Love (the "L-Word" as the author mentions it), which the author feels is a crucial idea that business people, scientists, doctors, teachers etc are reluctant to acknowledge. While reverence continuum was two dimensional, the books gets into a three dimensional mode when it speaks about the landscapes of Love. As per author, Love at its first parcel is the Ocean of Desire, a choppy gray-green sea. Following the mission arising from the Heart, an individual leaves the sea and soars over a Rich, Grassy Plain, an area where Love finds its expression as a cluster of emotions, thoughts and attitudes. Continuing with the Heart mission, one leaves the plains and reaches the Action Hills, where Love is the daily acts of Love that living beings perform. Soon the Action Hills are transcended, and the Selfless Mountains of giving are sighted, a landscape which can be equated to the overwhelming love that puppies and little children shower on each other. The Mountains slowly moves away to High Peaks, a landscape which is a magical mixture of "clarity and mist". Love here becomes pure energy. "Love here is the high inner knowing that we are one with all others" Bursting away from the Peaks, one soars into a Vast Quiet, a "landscape" of fearlessness, just Beingness.
This book which was published almost a decade back, in 1993, and hence well before the scandals that rocked the corporate world, gives clear indications to the erosion of character in the field of business, but does not venture to paint the business world black and dull. On the contrary, the author speaks about the growing influence the field of business and business books have in the life of everyone. The author utilizes the first available chance to mention that the book is a "spiritual adventure" and not a religious book. Going beyond the defined boundaries of religion, it looks into things you and me are concerned about, like security, purpose and meaning in life, love, peace, death etc. The book steers away from the "the ozone of theory," and thus looks into pragmatic ways of dealing with the reality of work place. Though the word "Dharma" in the title catches attention and brings in an oriental flavor to the book, the book rarely uses words from Oriental languages. Hawley expresses himself in a language which is simple, and affectionate.
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