Quotes from Jeffrey Pfeffer

evidence shows most workplaces filled with distrustful, disengaged, dissatisfied, despairing employees.

Systematic research supports the message of these cases. As noted in an article in the New York Times, "even in the most extreme circumstances—like the financial crisis—directors bore little consequence for their poor decisions.

is also famous for his outbursts of temper and his put-downs of employees

most of the workplace exposures have health effects comparable to or even greater than exposure to secondhand smoke.

very wary of judging people just on the basis of how smart they sound, and particularly on their ability to find problems or fault with ideas. These are dangerous people. They are smart enough to stop things from happening, but not action oriented enough to find ways of overcoming the problems they have identified.

like the BMW mechanic who handed Robert Sutton a survey and pleaded for a five on a five-point scale, because otherwise he would get in trouble).

For instance, "For men, prolonged exposure to work-related stress has been linked to an increased likelihood of lung, colon, rectal, and stomach cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma."36 Moreover, we are increasingly understanding the mechanisms linking stress to disease.

Indirect costs from things such as disengagement, being physically present but not feeling well enough to do one's best, and being distracted by stress are typically estimated to be about five times as large as the direct medical costs, an issue I return to toward the end of this chapter.

We don't reject informal talk, formal presentations, and quantitative analysis. These are often important precursors to intelligent action. It's just that they are not substitutes for action.

In a world of conceptual frameworks, fancy graphics presentations, and, in general, lots of words, there is much too little appreciation for the power, and indeed the necessity, of not just talking and thinking but of doing—and this includes explaining and teaching—as a way of knowing. Rajat

we are predisposed to trust and have an evolutionary need to do so. Therefore, people are motivated to overlook a violation of trust

A review of some 113 published studies concluded that there was good evidence for a relationship between health and productivity

career prospects of employees who report corporate malfeasance are so dismal that it is surprising that people whistleblow at all.

My overall recommendation: for decades corporate policy manuals and HR departments have told people they are responsible for their own careers. It's about time people really heeded those warnings.

Your most important task as a leader is to teach people how to think and ask the right questions so that the world doesn't go to hell if you take a day off.

Being memorable equals getting picked.

a large body of empirical research conducted over decades suggests that student evaluations are more than unhelpful; instead, they are likely to change the behaviors of presenters in ways that make learning and personal growth less likely. That is one reason why Armstrong concluded that "teacher ratings are detrimental to students.

The sun's rays, focused, are much more powerful than they are without focus. The same is true for people seeking power.

When two people always agree, one of them is unnecessary.

Deming argued that if there are performance problems and quality defects, one needs to understand how those problems arise almost naturally as a consequence of how a system has been designed—and then fix those design flaws. Put simply, attack the problems by fixing the system, not scapegoating the necessarily fallible human beings working in and operating that system—whether or not they deserved it.

Michael Schrage is right: "A collaboration of incompetents, no matter how diligent or well-meaning, cannot be successful.

Thinking is very hard work. And management fashions are a wonderful substitute for thinking.

Using both experiments and field data, a recent study found that economic insecurity was associated with increased consumption of painkillers and produced actual physical pain and reduced pain tolerance, with the absence of control providing one mechanism explaining these results.

companies with high levels of workplace trust enjoy higher stock market returns.