books – Page 3 – understand-culture

It’s Always Personal

It’s Always Personal. Random House. 2013. Author Ann Kreamer writes about emotions in the workplace, especially during evaluations formal and informal. Statements about the book from amazon(dot)com:

“Ms. Kreamer comes down on the side of accepting and expressing one’s authentic feelings, though in sensible and constructive ways. It’s a stimulating read bolstered by snippets of some of the best recent work on emotional intelligence and the science of happiness.” The Wall Street Journal

“Kreamer demonstrates why emotion matters so much in the workplace–and, with practical advice, she identifies ways to be happier and more effective at work.” New York Times

“What’s the role of anger, fear empathy, anxiety and tears? This book explains them in ways that will make you a better worker, boss and human being.” Walter Isaacson, President and CEO, The Aspen Institute and former CEO of CNN

“Kreamer makes a solid case for her philosophy in the most compelling way possible, by appealing to rationality and the bottom line.”

— Publisher’s Weekly Review

Constructive Criticism

Critique: A detailed analysis and assessment of something, especially a literary, philosophical, or political theory. Derived from mid 17th century from French, based on Greek kritikē tekhnē ‘critical art”.

Constructive criticism is legitimate criticism – fair, objective, well grounded. It is constructive when its purpose, tone and spirit aim to help the other person recognize, understand and then correct their weaknesses. Constructive criticism is helpful.

Employee evaluation helps management to measure performance while maintaining motivation and reducing employee turnover. It has three components: praise work well done; address areas of improvement; recommend improvement measures. Employee evaluations also serve as documentation of future goals to be reviewed at a later date.

There are 58,885 books on self-improvement on Amazon.com. The most popular areas for self-improvement are money management, healthy living, attitude, speaking skills, time management, and interpersonal relations.

Popular titles include “The Power of Self-Coaching: The Five Essential Steps to Creating the Life You Want” by Joseph J. Luciani, “The Secret Art of Self-Development: 16 Little-Known Rules for Eternal Happiness & Freedom” by Karl Moore, “50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life from Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus” by Tom Butler-Bowdon, and “I Had It All The Time: When Self-Improvement Gives Way to Ecstasy” by Alan Cohen.

Books on advice-giving

When typing in „advice“ into amazon(dot)com – USA – roughly 140,000 books are listed. When inputting Ratgeber (literally advice-givers) into amazon(dot)de – Germany – about 640,000 books are listed.

There 320 million people in the U.S. In Germany there are 80 million. The American population is four times larger than the German. However, there are four times more books written in Germany on giving advice than in the U.S.

The Germans give advice and the Germans take advice.

Books about process

For “business processes and procedures” amazon(dot)com returned 1,800 titles. “business process management” yielded 26,000 books.

And “business processes” led to over 490,000 book titles.

Four hundred and ninety thousand. That’s a lot of books. Does this mean that Americans consider internal processes critical to the success of companies?