Six Silent Killers: Management's Greatest Challenge [Hardcover]

James R. Fisher Jr. (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1574441523 | ISBN-13: 978-1574441529 | Publication Date: October 23, 1997 | Edition: 1

It is a book directed at viewing the complex organization realistically, not as management would have it be seen, but as it is, an organization in crisis as well as in transition. The crisis is manifested in the failure of management to note, deal with, and motivate the post-modern workforce. The consequence has spawned six silent killers, social termites that destroy the infrastructure from within, while failing to be detected until it is usually too late for damage control. The transition represents a discrete change in the power base of the organization. Authority has been detached from management and integrated into the professional workforce at the level of consequences. In 1950, eighty percent of the workforce was blue collar and twenty percent was white collar. In the 21st century, these numbers have been reversed. Position power has had to yield to knowledge power. Yet the workplace culture still, in the main, is managed, motivated, and mobolized! as if management is a separate entity to workers; as if management has the answers when only the manager-worker partnerships do. The book in painfully direct and empirical detailed, outlining the problems and consequences of management's myopia. The book is a detailed and integrated discourse on possible ways to reverse this trend. It suggests that eighty percent of the work now being accomplished is by only twenty percent of the workforce. Imagine what a difference it would make if this could be changed to only 70-30: the possible difference between being competitive and being bankrupt.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Invest the time, read this book, and you'll agree the central reason for an unhappy workplace are these "killers." --Dr. Thomas Brown, The Wall Street Journal -- Across the Board Magazine, June 1998

Fisher gets his ideas from the workplace. He describes these killers so forcefully it turns a lighbulb in your head. --Dr. Billy G. Gunter, Professor of Sociology, University of South Florida, AQP Journal, Winter, 1998.

This book provides great insight, philosophical depth, and uncanny predictive truth, or the crucial factors if we are to survive. --Anna Flowers, The Journal of Applied Management and Entrprenerism, Summer 1999

About the Author

Dr. James R. Fisher, Jr., an industrial/organizational psychologist, is a bold thinker who spells out what needs to be done to reestablish manager-worker trust and productivity consistent with the demands of global competition in the 21st century. With clinical precision, he bares the troubled soul of the complex organization, analyzes its chronic problems, then prescribes achievable remedies. Dr. Fisher gleaned his comprehensive insights first as a laborer, then as a chemist, later as a sales engineer, followed by being a field manager, international corporate executive, management consultant, adjunct professor, and then author of several books and hundreds of articles in the genre of organizational development (OD). He has worked and lived on four continents, and now resides in Tampa, Florida from with his wife, Betty, where he continues to write and consult.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: CRC; 1 edition (October 23, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574441523
• ISBN-13: 978-1574441529
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,670,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, November 30, 1999

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Six Silent Killers: Management's Greatest Challenge (Hardcover)

For many years, researchers and behavioral scientists have attempted to view organizations by using psychoanalytical and/or other psychological schools of thought structures. James R. Fisher, Jr. follows similar approaches, but does so, to this reviewer's opinion, with great insight, philosophical depth and uncanny predictive truth.

This book provides readers with an accurate development of organizations in the USA over the past century, and those crucial factors that must be taken into consideration if organizations are to survive. Fisher's vibrant prose explores the dominant cultures in the marketplace, the need for a new set of organizational paradigms, incipient catastrophe, the six silent killers, the cutlures of comfort, complacency, and contribution.

The author opens his heavily documented and self-experienced work with the dilemma that has spawned the "Six Silent Killers," and discusses why this phenomenon is the latest and greatest challenge to management. He observes that "professionals have the mind of an artist, rather than that of an analyst, more the heart of the creator than the discoverer, more the soul of the rebel than the patriot."

The book examines those areas that have created what Fisher calls "the new workforce that the post-industrial society has created." He cites the six silent killers, which have evolved in organizations as "a reaction to the frustration with the growing breach between the role demands of modern workers and the self-demands of those in charge."

Fisher's six silent killers, "the manic monarchs of the merry madhouse," are passive aggression, passive responsive, passive defensive, malicious obedience, approach avoidance, and obsessive compulsive behaviors.

His poetic description indicates that these silent killers "eat at the sinews of organizations, and workers who display them have an amazing ability to appear as performers when they clearly are not. They are caught in the crunch between hypocrisy and hype, turning their frustrations into deceptive devices. They are looking for leadership in a leaderless society. They are looking for direction when nobody admits to being off course. They are looking for real work in the chaos of activities. Wherever they look, they find confusion. Nobody knows who is in control or who has the power. Managers and workers alike, equally frustrated, spread these silent killers. Nobody is in charge. Management plays the role but has little control. Workers are reluctant to step up to the challenge of taking control because they don't want the responsibility. So control and productive effort slip silently between them, covered by the smoke and mirrors of frenzied activity."(pp. 87, 88)

After a substantive analysis of organizations and managers and workers, which represents the residue of an obsolete culture, Fisher explores the cultures of comfort, complacency and contribution. He suggest that modern organizations should develop the culture of contribution, which represents "an entirely new landscape for doing business, a new visage and frame of reference. It is the land of growth and contribution."

This book is written with sincerity and passion, evoking incredible syntactic imagery and stimulating thought. However, it is more an analytical approach in understanding cause and effect of American Society and its organizations rather than the process of solutions. It is optimistic, perhaps simplistic in the actualization of coping behaviors for survival, but it is very deep in ferreting out those hidden factors (subconscious) that impact behavior without an explanation as to why this kind of behavior occurs.

James R. Fisher, Jr. has succeeded in writing a book which is a valuable contribution to the fields of psychology, philosophy and business. He provides insight and important issues in contemporty society that allows readers and organizations to understand, prepare for, and survive the new millennium.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A managers action book written brilliantly and succinctly!, August 3, 1998

By 

Glenn V. Wilson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Six Silent Killers: Management's Greatest Challenge (Hardcover)

In this book Fisher presents models for three phases of cultural development: Culture of Comfort; Culture of Complacency; and Culture of Contribution. Six "productive" organizational activities commonly initiated by senior management are dispelled as "unproductive" to a contributory culture. Fisher goes on to analogize that just as termites destroy a home, "social termites" (employees with destructive behaviors) destroy and undermine an organizations infrastructure. Managing these covert-destructive behaviors (Six Silent Killers) are one of management's greatest challenges.

Fisher doesn't pull any punches in this book, and I like that. His brilliant and succinct writing style makes this book an absolute must for anyone who: a) makes decisions about employees (hiring, firing, performance assessments, etc.); b) can't put their finger on employee challenges; and c) for those looking to improve productivity and well being in their workplace.

Authors Note: As ! I was reading this book, I realized that three of my six employees in my restaurant business were clearly "social termites." I was working hard but getting no where, spending all my time putting out fires. This book provided me with the insights into employee behaviors which I was then able to take action on. Sales are up, customers are happy, other workers seem to enjoy their work more, leading to improved productivity. I no longer spend all my time putting out fires. I now spend my time managing a "successful, creative business" and leading the ENTIRE organization, not just an un-chosen few. I wish I had this book 30 years ago, but grateful that I have it now! Thank you James R. Fisher Jr.!!!