Michael A. Diamond - Böcker

This book offers a contemporary psychodynamic view of organizational life. Michael Diamond stresses the unconscious dimensions of hierarchic and other work relationships in organizations. From these relationships, he argues, come not only organizational cultures but also organizational identities. The book transcends the common technical rational approach to organizational behavior by isolating and then analyzing the nonrational side of organizational experience. Diamond illustrates how different characteristics of organizational life emerge from the dynamics of shared and projected emotions between leaders and followers, managers and subordinates, and among workers. The author suggests that these complementary unconscious feelings anchor the definition of organizational membership in interpersonal relationships at work. The result is, what he calls, the emotionally grounded structure of organizations--the organizational identity.What distinguishes this book from other psychodynamic approaches to organizations are the following: (1) an up-to-date synthesis of object relations, self psychology, and interpersonal psychoanalysis based primarily but not exclusively on the work of Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, Heinz Kohut and Harry Stack Sullivan; (2) a discussion of psychoanalytic organization theory and the application of psychodynamic concepts in organizational behavior; (3) a psychodynamic critique of organizational culture, the structure of values and rituals at work, and the introduction of the structure of organizational emotions, what the author calls organizational identity; (4) a psychoanalytic explanation and typology of regressive behavior in work groups; (5) a discussion and illustration of the role of language and communication in organizational consulting; and (6) a variety of case studies drawn from over ten years of organizational research and consulting. Finally, this book offers the organizational theorist and consultant a variety of psychodynamic tools to apply in understanding and positively changing organizations. This book will be of interest to organizational development consultants, human resource professionals, organizational theorists and researchers, organizational psychologists and psychodynamically oriented social and behavioral scientists, and psychologically informed managers and executives.

This book presents a unique, in-depth examination of the effects that the popular approaches to management organizational change—downsizing, restructuring, and reengineering—had on a major American hospital. The Human Cost of a Management Failure shows what can happen when management insists on accomplishing its ends strictly by the numbers. The authors ask why top management so often, and with seemingly such a cavalier attitude, selects downsizing and similar methods when research indicates that they are all too often such poor choices. Based on a year-long longitudinal study, Allcorn, Baum, Diamond, and Stein report on their interviews with 23 senior and mid-level hospital administrators, then interpret their findings from a psychoanalytic perspective, to make clear that the human side of the workplace can only be ignored at great risk when change is contemplated and then implemented. This is essential reading not only for corporate management, but also for other professionals and academics throughout the social and behavioral sciences.Readers of The Human Cost of a Management Failure are oriented to the literature on downsizing, restructuring and reengineering, and to the context of the study. Case material follows, enabling readers to draw their own conclusions with regard to the nature of the organizational change and its effects upon the hospital's employees, and consultants offer their own viewpoints. An update of events at the hospital after the study was conducted is provided along with summaries by each author of his own interpretation and how he interprets the others' views. In this way, readers will get an unusual opportunity to evaluate their own viewpoints against those of the psychoanalytically trained researchers, and to decide for themselves whether there are, in fact, better ways to make an organization economically competitive in the marketplace.