"Management gurus continue to exert tremendous influence over management thinking and strategy, not only through their published works, but more significantly via the international management lecture circuit. Research suggests that public performances are critical to their popularity and success, and that the "best" gurus are all highly skilled in persuasive communication techniques. This book examines techniques, both verbal and non-verbal, used by gurus to communicate their messages and identifies several additional techniques which enhance the gurus' reputations as highly effective orators. It focuses on video recordings of public lectures given by Tom Peters, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Kenneth Blanchard, Daniel Goleman, Gary Hamil, Charles Handy and Peter Senge who are all renowned for their public performances and the impact they have had on organizational life. Challenging and original, this text provides a unique insight into the management guru industry and the persuasive skills of some its leading proponents." -- Jacket.

Tim Phillips has been a journalist for 20 years, and during that time he has been slowly driven crazy by bad spokespeople: the jargon, the evasiveness, the inability to make a point or to answer a direct question. Now that every company has a small army dedicated to communications, the problem seems to be getting worse. That's why we should stop thinking about spin and management, and start concentrating on talking like human beings. Is this possible? Talk Normal is an attempt to find out. Based on the author's blog, www.talknormal.co.uk it's full of excruciating examples of corporate jargon, and it will help you to steer a path to better communication, whilst coping with the worst excesses of management speak at work.

There is a fundamental disconnection between the way business people speak and real people communicate. From advertisers, big business and CEOs - the blather is coming at us in waves. The International Language of Business is no longer English - it's gobbledygook. The authors blindly discovered the enormity of the problem in June 2003 with the launch of Bullfighter, an anti-jargon software tool. But jargon is just one symptom in a larger problem afflicting corporate communications today: the wholesale inability to connect with an audience. In the form of admirably straight-talk, we discover how to avoid the 'obscurity trap', 'the anonymity trap', the 'hard-sell trap' and most importantly, 'the tedium trap'. In this witty and practical new book readers are given all the tools they need to fight the 'spin' and learn to speak like the rest of us.

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

From one of Australia's best-known writers and public intellectuals comes a funny and profound polemic about the sorry state of public language and what can--and must--be done about it.

Our organizations are flooded with empty talk. We are constantly "going forward" to lands of "deliverables", stopping off on the "journey" to "drill down" into "best practice". Being an expert at using management speak has become more important in corporate life than delivering long lasting results. The upshot is that meaningless corporate jargon is killing our organizations. In this book, management scholar the author argues we need to call this empty talk what it is: bullshit. The book looks at how organizations have become vast machines for manufacturing, distributing and consuming bullshit. It follows how the meaningless language of management has spread through schools, NGOs, politics and the media. Business Bullshit shows you how to spot business bullshit, considers why it is so popular, and outlines the impact it has on organizations and the people who work there. It also outlines what we can do to minimise bullshit at work. The author makes a case for why organizations need to avoid empty talk and reconnect with core activities.

Transactional Analysis (TA) has continued to grow and develop ever since its inception by the Canadian American psychiatrist Dr Eric Berne over a half century ago. It has proven itself to be an extremely useful model for human relations professionals working in a variety of contexts and fields, such as psychotherapy, coaching and counselling, management and organisational development, or parenting and education. TA combines an accessible theory on the development of people and systems with a practical approach, centred on the possibilities of change, growth and development. Into TA is a comprehensive textbook of contemporary TA in theory and practice. The first section of the book focusses on theory, presented so that both beginning and experienced professionals will find much of value. TA theory is then further integrated with other current models of psychology, education, and organisational consultation. The second section provides rich and stimulating examples of TA in practice that bring the theory to life.