Bendable Learnings: The Wisdom of Modern Management by Don Watson
Mission statements are everywhere: you have to have one, whether you're a Fortune 500 company, a hedge fund, a primary school, a church or a hockey club.
The language of modern management has triumphed, transforming clear, everyday communication into meaningless sludge. To sound professional, you must express everything in abstract nouns, and each noun in terms of another one; you must talk about synergy and strategy, uptake and outcomes and outputs and inputs, key performance indicators and drivers and customer experience - even if your 'customers' are in fact patients in your hospital.
This language is deliberately obscure and falsely scientific; what is more worrying, those who use it have lost the very ability to think clearly. From Don Watson comes this new assortment of noxious management drivel and financial market blather. Read them aloud - then try the exercises. The disease may not yet have run its course, but Watson's acerbic wit restores hope in the power of well-chosen words to entertain and to inspire.
About the Author
Don Watson's Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: Paul Keating Prime Minister, won the Age Book of the Year and Non-Fiction Prizes, the Brisbane Courier Mail Book of the Year, the National Biography Award and the Australian Literary Studies Association's Book of the Year. His Quarterly Essay, Rabbit Syndrome : Australia and America won the Alfred Deakin Essay Prize. Death Sentence, his best-selling book about the decay of public language won the Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year 2003. Watson's Dictionary of Weason Words, another best-seller, was published in 2004. His most recent book American Journeys won the Age Non-Fiction and Book of the Year Awards in 2008. It also won the inaugural Indie Award for Non-Fiction and the Walkley Award for Non-Fiction.
Hardback | 336 pages
138 x 217 x 31mm | 472g
01 Oct 2009
Random House Australia
Knopf Australia
North Sydney, Australia
1741669049
9781741669046
Condition: Good
A book that has been read but is in good condition. Very minimal damage to the cover including very minor scuff marks, but no holes or tears. The dust jacket is included and in good condition (minor scuff marks). The majority of pages are undamaged with no creasing or tearing, no pencil underlining of text, no highlighting of text, no writing in margins. The first page has a small rectangular sticker stuck on the top-right corner. The sticker has the name and address of a previous owner on it. No missing pages.