Flawed Advice and the Management Trap

"We act in ways that encourage neither inquiry into our views nor the robust testing of the claims that we make."

"Top management risks damaging its credibility if it talks about internal commitment as if there were few limits or?what is far more common?if it espouses internal, but really practices external, commitment. "

"In a world of defensiveness and escalating error, it is understandable that people will try to protect themselves by striving even harder to be in unilateral control, to win and not lose."

"Model II couples articulateness and advocacy with an invitation to others to confront the views and emotions of both self and other."

"The professionals who are supposed to be leaders are, at best, keepers of the status quo and, at worse, drivers of the low effectiveness of their programs."

"There is nothing "soft" about Model I. It is ruthlessly programmed into people and organizations, and these programs are as hard as programs get."

"On the one hand, practitioners say that appraisals are necessary to help define and ensure effective performance. On the other hand, many practitioners are also justifiably skeptical about the credibility of performance ratings."

"Internal commitment is created when individuals have a significant influence on defining the goals to be achieved and the paths required to achieve them and when the goals represent a significant (but not insurmountable) challenge."

"The ideas about how to be in control in the face of embarrassment and threat are themselves embarrassing."

"A program to create a learning organization requires coming to grips with skilled incompetence, skilled unawareness, fancy footwork, and undiscussables."

"The leadership characteristics described by each guru may be true some of the time, none of the time, or most of the time. It is difficult to make true and actionable generalizations about leadership."