Customer Reviews

The Alchemy of Fear: How to Break the Corporate Trance and Create Your Company's Successful Future

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Kay Gilley has transformed my ideas about love and fear in the workplace. In "Alchemy of Fear", it became clear to me that in most workplaces, the foundations on which services and attitudes are built are primarily fear-based and serve the corporate structure rather than the human heart. Our programming demands that, as experts and successful companies, we know all the "right" answers and be able to spit them out cleanly and efficiently in order to maintain our status in this culture. The fear of "not knowing" blocks creativity and closes our minds to a diversity of options. Facing this fear and the resulting chaos this unleashes, and transforming them into energy which holds us in "not-knowing", creates opportunity for amazing growth when combined with clear and soulful intent. This book is required reading for all corporate alchemists who want to practice the new magic of success.

I have been stagnent in my life for years. I felt trapped by circumstance. I blamed life and everyone in it for my feeling of being unfullfilled. After reading Ms. Gilley's book I realized that I was afraid, afraid to step out of being who my family thought I was and into the person I knew I was. Ms. Gilley may have written this book for the business world but I feel like she wrote is just for me. It spoke volumns to me and as I followed the path Ms. Gilley laid out my world started changing for the better. I smile and laugh now and the unhappy person that I once was is gone. Bless you Ms. Gilley and God for giving you the words!

Kay Gilley has done it again. She has cut to the bone of the corporate malaise and shown us how to lead by inspiration and intrinsic rewards, a far cry from the traditional approach to management. If we think of corporate culture as a collective hallucination that is generally subscribed to by employees, then here's a formula for waking up to a more functional reality. We can not only do better business, but lead better lives as well. Isn't that why we work in the first place? If you work for a company, buy this book. It will help you make it a healthier place. If you can't change the culture of the company you work for, you may find yourself thinking about finding a more human place to work. If you run a company, it will likely change how you think about and do leadership. Kay is one of our most valuable business thinkers and has the academic credentials and practical experience to back it up. Buy this book now. You'll be glad you did.

THE ALCHEMY OF FEAR although oriented toward business was invaluable to my personal growth. It showed me that I was hiding in my little world out of fear of failure of new challenges. It showed me how to use & face my fears and to succeed getting my career and personal life back on track. This is definitely a thought provoking good read.

Kay Gilley is living her message by demonstrating the courage to take on one of business world's most unmentionable subjects: the pervasive climate of fear and its devastating consequences to individual lives and group performance. Companies have relied on fear to motivate and control emplyees for so long that most people are unaware that this is the case. And that, says Gilley, is the problem.

The author provides practical, personal advice on how we can awaken from our trance states and provides a rich description of the new beliefs and behaviors that we can adopt. The end result, Gilley maintains, is a more rewarding life for individuals and dramatic increases in performance for organizations.

Buy this book, and change yourself so that you can lead the life you were born to live. Then buy this book and use your new found courage to deliver a copy to your boss and co-workers. Imagine a fear-free workplace... it will be worth it!

In this pivotal work, Kay Gilley reveals one of the unspoken driving forces in corporate America: Fear. All too often, we don't acknowledge the fears we have, covering them up with rational business behaviors. After a while, the cover-ups seem "normal" and cycle of denial continues. She shows the many forms of fear and the high cost of letting it rule us. For example, decisions are often made before the best available information gets on the table. Why? Because people with real concerns are afraid to bring them forward. The book gives examples of both the obvious and subtle fears that drive us. Just the act of becoming aware of where and how fear drives a company could be worth millions in recaptured work time and deeper relationships with customers and teammates. She may have topped Leading from the Heart with this one. These are important works. Keep `em coming, Kay!

Kay Gilley's book is perhaps the best thing you can read if you wish to follow Dr. W. Edwards Deming's admonition to "drive fear out of the workplace." A unique admixture of real world business savvy and mystic wisdom, reading this book is almost like having Lao Tzu as a consultant to your organization. I was especially intrigued with her description of how being in a trance (not living in the present) generates fear, and how the basic task in life is to wake up from the trances that keep us in fear's thrall. In my own work with the Never Fear, Never Quit organization I find that the dominant organizational emotion is fear (though it may be disguised as anger, cynicism, mistrust, etc), and that the prevalent condition faced by many individuals is that of being "stuck," which is a symptom of being in fear's grasp. Gilley's formula for emotional competence and for transforming fear could be invaluable to organizations and individuals everywhere.