Better Place to Work. A: A New Sense of Motivation Leading to High Productivity (AMA Management Briefing) [Paperback]

Adolf Hassen (Author)

Book Description

Series: AMA Management Briefing | Publication Date: June 5, 1997

Highly motivated employees represent a key source of competitive advantage for companies. Employees are fully equipped with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to meet the challenges they face. They exhibit astounding creativity and seemingly unlimited productive energy. This Management Briefing helps companies build highly motivated workforces by showing them how to:

- enhance worker autonomy and decision-making

- promote personal learning and growth

- create mutually supportive work teams

- provide a high-quality workplace that's fun to work in.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Adolf Hassan (Hartsdale, NY) is managing partner in A&R Associates Ltd., a human resources consulting firm, and a former operations executive with Merck in Europe and Latin America. Gordon F. Shea is president of a training and human resources development firm and author of the bestselling Management Briefing, Mentoring. His clients include corporations, governmental agencies, professional associations, and major universities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 102 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM (June 5, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814423639
• ISBN-13: 978-0814423639
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,989,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Adolf Haasen, born 1934, a native from Gotha/Germany, gained extensive international experience as an executive for the German-based global pharmaceutical company Merck. In recent years, Haasen co-authored with his friend and mentor Gordon Shea several publications on unique workplace cultures, entitled "A Better Place to Work" (AMA, 1997), "New Corporate Cultures That Motivate" (Praeger, 2003) and "The Older Worker Advantage" (Praeger, 2006).

Since acquiring a secondary residence near his former hometown in East Germany, Haasen became intrigued with the unique character of the East German people, leading to the idea of his newest book "Toward a New Germany" (iUniverse, 2009).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Review of the Advantages of Intrinsic Motivation, June 24, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Better Place to Work. A: A New Sense of Motivation Leading to High Productivity (AMA Management Briefing) (Paperback)

Since Taylor first identified the principles of scientific management, there has been a continuing evolution in thinking and best practices for how to create motivated employees who are more effective and efficient.

In the 1950s and 1960s, thinkers like Abraham Maslow, Frederick Hertzberg and David McCelland argued that external rewards could make a difference. Most companies today create "incentives" as a result to reward workers financially and psychologically for doing a good and improving job.

Since then, newer research has shown (by people like Teresa Amabile and her work in creativity) that the work itself can be designed in such a way as to stimulate higher effectiveness that comes from the worker's preference for doing the work. In essence, the work becomes fun and play, rather than drudgery.

A Better Place to Work explains the new research on intrinsic motivation, and provides a number of intersting case histories that show the theory in practice. Some of these case histories will be familiar to you, such as Southwest Airlines (if you have flown with them or read Nuts!). Most will not, yet the examples are interesting, understandable and illuminative. I particularly liked the examples (like Apex) that explored success in creating a learning organization (paying for skills, offering education every night after work, and encouraging people to use what they have learned).

The book is candid about what works and what does not. Although employee ownership can help create internal motivation, it is not sufficient of itself to allow that to occur. So you can learn how to be sure you get benefits from whatever you have done or decide to do on the ownership front.

The American Management Association strongly endorses this book, because it provided a copy to all of its members when the book first came out.

Reading about intrinsic motivation is a good idea. A better one is to then visit some of the companies listed and described in the book to get your own sense of what is going on in these companies. I hope you will enjoy your site visits!