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About the Author

Dr. Mortimer R. Feinberg, one of the world's leading industrial psychologists, counsels government leaders and the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. John J. Tarrant, a writer and consultant, works closely with Dr. Feinberg in analyzing and solving the riddles of human behavior within organizational mostrar mais situations. mostrar menos

Obras por Mortimer Feinberg

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Data de nascimento
1922-08-26
Data de falecimento
2015-12-10
Sexo
male
Local de nascimento
New York City, New York, USA
Causa da morte
natural causes
Ocupações
Industrial Psychologist

Membros

Críticas

Why do smart people do dumb things? Hubris. A sense of entitlement. The feeling that "things will be different for me," even if they've watched a hundred people go down for the fall before them. Narcissism. And of course, plain old stupidity.

Feinberg and Tarrant use real examples from business and politics to show that not only can it happen to you, it already has to lots of other people. What makes the book doubly interesting, though, is that many of the people who looked like hopeless SCIPIs when the book was written in 1995 (SCIPI stands for "superior cognitive possessing intelligence possessing individual, a.k.a. the smart people who mess up) have come back from their errors and once again have prominent and respected positions in the country. And considering what has passed in the 15 years since the book was written, the follies of many of the others don't look nearly as serious in retrospect.

The beginning of the book details the hubris, narcissism, and other flaws which cause people to fail; the final part of the book is an instruction set on how not to let this happen to you. If some of the authors' points seem obvious, it's only because the premise of the book is that potential flame-outs have drifted so far away from reality that they need a good common sense talking-to.

The book is interesting, an easy read, and a trip down memory lane for anyone old enough to remember the foibles of Gary Hart, Leona Helmsley, New York Judge Sol Wachtler, and Margaret Thatcher. It's a good wake-up call for anyone lucky (or unlucky) enough to have a "position of power" in their work or social life. Worth picking up.
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Assinalado
OliviainNJ | Aug 30, 2010 |

Estatísticas

Obras
7
Membros
94
Popularidade
#199,202
Avaliação
½ 3.3
Críticas
1
ISBN
9
Línguas
1

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