Why Work Isn T Working Anymore

Less than half of all employees today are satisfied with their jobs. After years of meager raises and mass layoffs, employees do not believe employers care about them beyond their utility as human resources. Corporate America has done little to reverse the precipitous decline in employee morale. Most companies deny it exists in their own organizations. Others have tried to improve morale with fancy mission statements, renominating employees as team-members, making less look like more, and balancing work and life, as if those were two different experiences. None of these solutions have been effective. In this fascinating, well-researched book, two experienced labor lawyers reveal why work isn't working anymore for most employees, how and why companies have failed to reverse the decline in employee satisfaction and workplace happiness by relegating the entire workplace experience to economics, and how managers and supervisors can make a positive difference by creating meaningful relationships with their employees using the authors' Credible Connections relationship-based management model.

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

You have likely heard stories from friends, family members, and colleagues who quit a job because of a toxic person—an individual who belittles, shames, humiliates, shames, or bullies. You may not have realized that these individuals not only take their tolls on our emotional psyches, but the financial outcomes of their organizations as well. Through this book’s many case examples, as well as evidence-based practices and templates, each chapter singles out one main issue and how to resolve it with respect and clarity. Dr. Kusy presents concrete practices that will restore civility and respect into your organization as well as with increased financial performance. Some of these practices include: Calculating the real financial cost of toxic people in your organization. Providing direct and respectful feedback to a toxic peer, direct report, and even your boss. Replacing traditional exit interviews -- that often don’t work very well -- with a method for dealing with toxic chameleons who "knock down and kiss up." Hiring, engaging talent, and even firing people based on a new approach to values-based performance management. You will emerge with a newfound understanding that restores personal well-being and increased financial performance.

In this groundbreaking book, Elizabeth Perle McKenna challenges the outdated system of work for professional women, and encourages readers to re-examine work as their sole identities, and, if they are unhappy, to allow room for their Lives. For every worn-out, emotionally depleted female professional who has ever sighed, "there has got to be a better way," here is the revolutionary book by Elizabeth Perle McKenna--herself a former publishing executive--that explores women's relationship with work. For decades, women have succeeded at traditional male jobs, but now, deep in the second stage of the feminist movement, they want lives that are integrated and whole. Based on original research and containing hundreds of interviews with prominent working women, this book exposes the inherent conflict between the way work traditionally is structured and rewarded, and what women desire and value in their lives. More important, it suggests new ways for women to identify their values, reclaim their identities, and define success on their own terms. Most importantly, this is not just another book about working mothers. Liz Perle McKenna deconstructs the myth that women can have it all, and shows that they risk true happiness until they give up that impossible ideal. The author's focus extends to every working woman who will most likely face a life-altering situation at some point in her career and will need to redefine what success means to her. Any woman who has been working for more than a few years will identify strongly with the issues raised here, and will be rewarded by the insights she gleans from this vital book.

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER! "You can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form. You've got to have models in your head." - Charlie Munger, investor, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway The world's greatest problem-solvers, forecasters, and decision-makers all rely on a set of frameworks and shortcuts that help them cut through complexity and separate good ideas from bad ones. They're called mental models, and you can find them in dense textbooks on psychology, physics, economics, and more. Or, you can just read Super Thinking, a fun, illustrated guide to every mental model you could possibly need. How can mental models help you? Well, here are just a few examples... • If you've ever been overwhelmed by a to-do list that's grown too long, maybe you need the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to help you prioritize. • Use the 5 Whys model to better understand people's motivations or get to the root cause of a problem. • Before concluding that your colleague who messes up your projects is out to sabotage you, consider Hanlon's Razor for an alternative explanation. • Ever sat through a bad movie just because you paid a lot for the ticket? You might be falling prey to Sunk Cost Fallacy. • Set up Forcing Functions, like standing meeting or deadlines, to help grease the wheels for changes you want to occur. So, the next time you find yourself faced with a difficult decision or just trying to understand a complex situation, let Super Thinking upgrade your brain with mental models.

While innumerable books have been penned down by contemporary motivational speakers and writers on success, ambition, motivation, positive thinking and accomplishments; very few books, if any at all, have talked of what success actually is and how it is different from a socially-defined set of parameters. Being an IIT-Delhi, IIM-Ahmedabad and an Ex-Indian Civil Services Officer himself, the author very compassionately steps into the shoes of an ambitious mind and invites it to be sensitive towards the incessant suffering caused due to this burning desire to achieve. He vividly talks of how understanding of 'your' real aim will bring you to peace even during the race. He jovially remarks on how playing hard and not working hard will be a more sensible way of moving towards a goal. Author's genius lies in the fact that he has very simply answered the most intricate and complex questions that arise in the mind of every student and working professional, giving clarity on success, a topic that haunts them perpetually.

A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives. You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Whether it's working for "exposure" and "experience," or enduring poor treatment in the name of "being part of the family," all employees are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do what we love. In Work Won't Love You Back, Sarah Jaffe, a preeminent voice on labor, inequality, and social movements, examines this "labor of love" myth—the idea that certain work is not really work, and therefore should be done out of passion instead of pay. Told through the lives and experiences of workers in various industries—from the unpaid intern, to the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit worker and even the professional athlete—Jaffe reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny of work. As Jaffe argues, understanding the trap of the labor of love will empower us to work less and demand what our work is worth. And once freed from those binds, we can finally figure out what actually gives us joy, pleasure, and satisfaction.

From bestselling writer David Graeber—“a master of opening up thought and stimulating debate” (Slate)—a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs…and their consequences. Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After one million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer. There are hordes of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs. Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. “Clever and charismatic” (The New Yorker), Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation and “a thought-provoking examination of our working lives” (Financial Times).