How Come Every Time I Get Stabbed in the Back My Fingerprints Are on the Knife?: And Other Meditations on Management Hardcover - 1999

Backstabbing-defined as "an attempt to discredit by underhanded means, such as innuendo, accusation or the like"-seems to be prevalent in all kinds of organizations, including families, churches, businesses, governmental agencies, academic institutions, and voluntary associations.

The role each of us plays in our own downfall creates the profound--and profoundly entertaining--basis for this series of linked "meditations" as the author of The Abilene Paradox takes another irreverent look at the nature of life on the job. With his title essay and the other cutting-edge queries found here, Jerry Harvey takes aim at many of our long-cherished assumptions about management, organizations, and human nature. In this work, Harvey draws on his extensive background in management science and organizational psychology to explore the ethical, moral, and spiritual dilemmas we all face in the modern world of work. But he does it in a most unconventional way. His is an approach that mixes equal parts humor, philosophy, and insight to make us laugh, think, and examine organizational behavior in a brand new light.Readers will come upon such diverse topics as elephants, passing gas in church, heart surgery, the importance of Not*Teaching, and back-stabbing as a social process. They'll also discover why high-performance organizations must always employ plenty of incompetent people, why Judas was not a traitor, and why no-nonsense managers are both tragic and useless figures. The twelve essays themselves carry such spirited titles as "What If I Really Believe This Stuff," "On Tooting Your Own Horn," and "Ode to Waco."On every page, Harvey offers hosts of office dwellers a fresh take on the problems they confront every day. And his refusal to prescribe solutions will be a relief to readers who know that the advice contained in most business books doesn't work anyway. Instead, Harvey delivers a collection of wise and witty parables that brilliantly illustrate the redemptive value of the truth, in a voice that is ultimately understanding of human shortcomings.