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United Nations NGO Committee on Sustainable Development
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Toxic Workplace!: Managing Toxic Personalities and Their Systems of Power |  | Authors: Mitchell Kusy, Elizabeth Holloway
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $15.32
as of 9/8/2010 23:55 CDT details
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New (29) Used (13) from $15.03
Seller: indoobestsellers
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 42,429
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.4 x 1
ISBN: 0470424842
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.3045
EAN: 9780470424841
ASIN: 0470424842
Publication Date: April 20, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Praise for Toxic Workplace! "Toxic Workplace! describes how to identify and best work with toxic personalities. It also provides a systemic approach for creating a culture that's positive and respectful while improving the bottom line. Kusy and Holloway share how their national research translates into real-world practices in organizations. I endorse their practical, concrete approaches that will make a significant difference in organizations today and in the future."
—Gregg Steinhafel, president and CEO, Target Corporation "Toxic Workplace! brings a rare and valuable view of one of the great challenges facing leaders in today's organizations. It is a significant guidebook to the healthy enterprise of the future, not only because of Kusy and Holloway's systems approach to dealing with toxic personalities, but also their unique practice of creating communities of respectful engagement. This book demonstrates how this impacts both organizational social responsibility and the bottom line."
—Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.; founding president and chairman of Leader to Leader Institute, formerly The Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management "Transforming the culture to support the strategy and mission is the real stuff of leadership. Toxic Workplace! gives you the research-based tools to identify and deal with the 'dark side' of this important dynamic. Read it and you will engage your organization in new, more authentic, and effective ways!"
—Kevin Cashman, author, Leadership from the Inside Out and senior partner, Korn/Ferry Leadership & Talent Consulting
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
You will never look at people the same way again November 14, 2009
Ralf Weiser (Pennsylvania USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Hello there,
This book is really great in that it tackles the subject of toxic people by using the three-fold strategy - instead of the old and highly unreliable approach: "Just kick this or the other person off the team and thing will improve automatically". That does not work, or at least not well. The author did a great job in explaining that it does take addressing toxic people directly, and it recommends to also deal with the aftermath (usually the confusion and power vacuum) as well as with my favorite topic: Instill a great deal of integrity, honesty, but most of all purpose into your top leadership and thus the whole organization.
I found this book so captivating that I read it on a plane ride from Arizona to Philadelphia.
Ralf Weiser
Evironmental Protection Agents for Corporate America May 12, 2009
Larry Underwood (Scottsdale, AZ)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's a sad commentary on business life in general, when very few of us can truthfully assert that (a) we've never had to deal with at least a couple of toxic losers on the job and (b) those who are most inflicted with highly dangerous levels of toxical substances in their soul are actually shocked when confronted with this reality. "Me? It's them, I tell you; it's them!"
Of course, it's no shock to this reviewer that many companies, world-wide, are plagued with this syndrome; but help has arrived----this wonderful and very timely book, authored by a couple of brilliant Ph.Ds, no less.
What gives me even greater hope for the world of business in the future are the recent releases of several other books dealing with the elimination of toxic waste in the workplace.
"Employee engagement" seems to be the best remedy companies can use---the simple, common sense approach of giving employees positive feedback on a regular basis as their skills improve, while keeping an eye out for any possible early warning signs of toxic symptons. Early detection is the key.
If the toxic employee somehow gets into management, results usually don't vary. Everbody in the company is slightly worse off now, and in some cases, significantly worse off, depending on who is most infected by the inept, mean-spirited and toxic manager. The correlation between that situation and lower employee morale and productivity is well documented.
This book is certainly a wonderful guide for best dealing with the toxic power that infiltrates so many otherwise outstanding organizations. The critical point delivered to help create a toxic free work environment is by enhancing the spirit of teamwork along with the power of positive employee engagement, throughout all levels of the company.
That's the best pest control service available, and it doesn't even require a swine flu shot. With any luck, the toxic swines will fall by the wayside. However, they'll usually emerge somewhere else; so no company is ever immune to a possible toxic outbreak.
Be prepared by being informed; and by all means, read this very cleverly analytical book.
The Toxic Truth March 25, 2010
Jamie Bremen (Bronx, NY)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I had to read this book for a class and I have to say I'm glad I picked it. It is an essential guide for anyone looking to go into management or is already in management. It's a super easy read and useful in the workplace. I def recommend this book to anyone who is dealing with a toxic person at work or just to prepare yourself for the possibility of working with someone toxic.
Engaging research findings and practical solutions November 27, 2009
Janet Bell Crawford
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
PhDs Kusy and Holloway have taken the findings from robust research and created an engaging text with practical solutions for organizations. From a systems perspective they address how toxicity invades the workplace and organizational culture, why it thrives and what to do about it. "Toxic Workplace" is a must read for organizational leaders trying to maximize results while taking care of their people.
Janet Bell Crawford
Sobey School of Business
Saint Mary's University
Timely, Pointed, A Good Starting Point July 21, 2009
Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I read this book in the process of obtaining two other books that are being used in a mid-career leadership course, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (J-B Lencioni Series).
Although a bit over-hyped and not the complete picture, I consider this a valuable book that is the equivalent of a Social IQ primer for an organization instead of an individual.
I was raised in the command & control environment and would be classed an over-achiever, with documented performance equal to the next four of my peers combined. Never-the-less, I see in myself toxic elements that have been allowed to run rampant in counter-productive ways. The book focuses on insulting and bullying behavior rather than "voices not heard." On the latter see The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future as well as Pedagogy of the Oppressed and All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents (Hardcover)) for sharp critiques of patriarchal "rankism" and lost knowledge.
What concerns me especially that is NOT covered by this book is the inability of organizations to "hear" the frustration of their high-performers. Looking back over twenty years what I see is a two-way failure: I have been screaming and shouting about organizational pathologies and the failure of leadership, and those affected have refused to engage--they "shut out" both critics and those offering alternative views. The US National Security Council, to take one specific example, is filled with brilliant people who, in the words of Daniel Elsberg lecturing Kissinger (see my review of his book, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers "are like morons" who limit themselves to their Top Secret tid-bits and close out all those who actually have "ground truth" to offer.
The bottom line for me on this book is two-fold: first, we all need to recognize personality traits that may be good in isolation but are toxic when "unheard" or unchecked, and second, We the People, the "stockholders" in our dysfunctional government, must demand that it modernize away from the rigid hierarchical bureaucracy and toward the open space democracy that is now possible (see the books below).
Similarly "social IQ" of a corporation, beginning with a rational "not to exceed" multiplier for CEO salaries versus lowest-paid employee salaries, must become a feature of stock evaluations. Not only must corporations now embrace "Green to Gold" and "Cradle to Cradle" "Natural Capitalism", but they must achieve "Integral Consciousness," grow "The Knowledge Executive," and LISTEN to their "Exemplary Performer(s)." All quotes are book titles.
Toxicity begins in the White House and Congress as well as the Boardroom. When they shut themselves off from the public interest and instead pander to special interests, they are poisoning democracy and strangling the Republic. ENOUGH!
This book is well-titled, well-organized, and just right for our times.
See also:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
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