The ultimate test of management is performance - the achievement of actual results. Why, then, do Australian managers concern themselves with their colleagues' personalities and motives? Why have they become infatuated with emotional intelligence and, in bizarre cases, with spiritual intelligence? Traditionally, managers who performed earned the right to argue with their colleagues. Nowadays, individuals who argue are said to lack 'soft skills' while a sad few are thought to be suffering from a personality disorder.
The popularity of soft-skill management has created psychomanagers: managers who have entered into a Faustian bargain with psychologists. Some managers work with psychologists to master themselves; others work with psychologists to master other people. As psychomanagement requires specialised knowledge, many Australian managers have yielded their authority to counsellors, coaches and consultants, many of whom believe that human behaviour is determined by internal and external forces over which individuals have little or no control. Accordingly, psychologists have laboured to absorb the idea of the free and responsible individual into a pseudo-scientific framework that denies moral agency. The result is that ideas of 'right' and 'wrong' have been replaced with 'healthy' and 'sick'. In their pursuit of a 'therapeutic state', psychologists have medicalised morality and managers have embraced powerful myths about minds, motive-forces, personality traits, social conditioning, leadership, occupational stress and mental illness. Consequently, the twin ideas of personal freedom and responsibility have been sabotaged. Freud, Maslow, Eysenck, Skinner and other influential psychologists have denied, or minimised the importance of, personal responsibility. And insofar as managers have entered into an unholy alliance with them, they too have minimised personal responsibility at the workplace.
This book is about Australian managers and their long-standing love affair with psychologists. For fifty years the author has studied, taught and consulted with managers and 'waltzed' with several famous psychologists and an infamous psychiatrist. Fortunately, they represented both sides of the debate about personal responsibility and human freedom. This book is, therefore, a personal and selective account of a professional life spent studying the problematic relationship between managers and psychologists.
Industry Reviews
This vibrant analysis of the growing role of psychology in Australian management starts at a most unutual reference point - Australian literature. Spillane quotes Miles Franklin recommending that visitors to Australia who want to understand Australian life must immerse themselves in its atmosphere before coming to hasty conclusions. The same can be said about the Australian management climate. In an effort to determine whether management should be practised by performance or by psychology, the author immerses the reader in a critical examination of a number of topics - Australian literature and the culture of mateship, postmodernist influences, the measurement of intelligence and leadership qualities. The role of occupational stress and conditions like RSI are also considered - these seen as crucial psychological developments....Spillane's credentials also permit him to write with a level of cynicism and authoritative questioning. He is highly sceptical of testing intelligence, as a means of determining managerial potential, stating that 'the field is a mess and a mass of propaganda. He is also critical of the measurement of leadership qualities. 'The search for stable and enduring personal qualities of leaders has failed, and must lfail, because leaders cannot be understood apart from the relationship with their followers.' This book attempts to unravel the relationships between leaders and followers, managers and employees and performance and psychology in the workplace. It does so effectively, with extensive research, meaningful arguments and a healthy dose of scepticism.
~Law Society Journal
Finally a detailed exploration into the history of psychomangement along with the bonus of an understanding of the Australian psyche like never before. Why are there more managers in Australia (as % or workforce) than almost anywhere else in the developed world, yet there is little respect for management and authority from the general Australian worker?
~P. Frensemeyer
This is an unusual book. It is semi-autobiographical in that Spillane discusses a range of topics from levels of cortisol in the saliva of Qantas flight crews to Popper's theory of science. However is there is a core message from this book it is that personality tests as method of predicting the performance of managers are useless... On the other hand there is much to enjoy in this book and it is thought-provoking. Spillane contends that too few management groups argue and discuss issues, and there is too much emphasis on consensus particularly emotional consensus. I was reminded of the scene in The Iron Lady where Thatcher realises that people "spend too much time feeling and not thinking." And too many leaders, "want to be something rather than do something." Although Spillane would probably be horrified at being compared to Thatcher, there is in both the desire for logic and rational thinking which in our current world is becoming less prevalent.
~EQ Expert, Amazon
