EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR YOU LEARNED IN HIGH SCHOOL

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EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR YOU LEARNED IN HIGH SCHOOL

Name: EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR YOU LEARNED IN HIGH SCHOOL
Author: Victor P. Becker

by Victor P. Becker ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A short, amusing, and practical guide to workplace dynamics.

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Becker takes the reader back to high school in order to learn how to be a more effective worker in this debut guide to getting ahead.

In his 35 years working in HR departments for companies large and small, Becker learned something interesting: Adults in the workplace don’t behave demonstratively differently than teenagers in a high school. “Organizational behavior, at all levels, is best defined as adolescent,” writes Becker in his introduction, “and the behavior patterns within the business environment are deeply rooted in the volatile period of our teenage/high school years.” While the fact that human behavior doesn’t really mature after senior year is a bit disheartening, there is good news: If a 16-year-old can thrive in such an environment, so can you! Becker shows how the dynamics of high school society still apply in the workplace, from earning varsity letters and superlatives to making friends and dealing with bullies. The first chapter, for example, asserts that the in-group dynamic of “the cool kids” from high school holds true in adult human organizations, and, just as in high school, there are plenty of sycophants attempting to schmooze their way into the higher ranks. The guide helps the reader identify these familiar structures and work around them, thereby succeeding without actually descending to the emotional level of a teenager. Becker’s prose is conversational and humorous, and he delights in examining the minutiae of social situations like a table meeting: “It is clear that there are two distinct power seats at each end and senior people occupy these seats 98% of the time. Interestingly I have observed that when the two power seats are occupied the seat holders are often times of dissenting points of view which makes for excellent corporate theater.” Becker doesn’t claim to be an expert in human psychology, and he frequently admits that he has no idea why people behave the way they do. He relies mostly on his own personal experience and has no compunction about quoting song lyrics or the website Urban Dictionary. Even so, his advice mostly rings true, and his common-sense perspective makes for a memorable read.

A short, amusing, and practical guide to workplace dynamics.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Kurti Publishing

Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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UNDER THE BRIDGE

by Rebecca Godfrey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2005

A tour-de-force of true crime reportage.

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Godfrey reconstructs a horrific murder with a vividness found in the finest fiction, without ever sacrificing journalistic integrity.

The novel The Torn Skirt (2002) showed how well the author could capture the roiling inner life of a teenager. She brings that sensibility to bear in this account of the 1997 murder of a 14-year-old girl in British Columbia, a crime for which seven teenage girls and one boy were charged. While there’s no more over-tilled literary soil than that of the shocking murder in a small town, Godfrey manages to portray working-class View Royal in a fresh manner. The victim, Reena Virk, was a problematic kid. Rebelling against her Indian parents’ strict religiosity, she desperately mimicked the wannabe gangsta mannerisms of her female schoolmates, who repaid her idolization by ignoring her. The circumstances leading up to the murder seem completely trivial: a stolen address book, a crush on the wrong guy. But popular girls like Josephine and Kelly had created a vast, imaginary world (mostly stolen from mafia movies and hip-hop) in which they were wildly desired and feared. In this overheated milieu, reality was only a distant memory, and everything was allowed. The murder and cover-up are chilling. Godfrey parcels out details piecemeal in the words of the teens who took part or simply watched. None of them seemed to quite comprehend what was going on, why it happened or even—in a few cases—what the big deal was. The tone veers close to melodrama, but in this context it works, since the author is telling the story from the inside out, trying to approximate the relentlessly self-dramatizing world these kids inhabited. Given most readers’ preference for easily explained and neatly concluded crime narratives, Godfrey’s resolute refusal to impose false order on the chaos of a murder spawned by rumors and lies is commendable.

A tour-de-force of true crime reportage.