Is management any more than common sense? Do employers really know how to recruit the best people for their firms? How important is training to employee development? Which management techniques motivate employees best? Is money the best motivator? These are key questions which every ambitious organisation should be asking about itself and the way it operates. Or do they simply represent the latest fashionable management fads promoted by trendy consultants?

A surprisingly large number of people claim to have worked for a manager who was clearly incompetent. Some people even believe, that in certain sectors, the incompetent outnumber the competent.

This book looks at when, why and how managers become incompetent and what to do about it. It does so with both science and humour by reviewing what we know about competences, about personality theory and about various salient psychiatric disorders.

So many management books are unrealistically optimistic. They portray management as a simple task once one has absorbed the magic silver bullet message of the book. But managing people is, and will remain difficult as any manager knows. Management is about ability and skills, attitude and values, knowledge and understanding, but also about personality and mental stability.

This text investigates normal and abnormal incompetence. The former is where people have a poor fit between themselves (personality and ability) and the job. Through post selection, inadequate training, changes in the job or unwise promotion misfits occur which leads to incompetence.

The longest chapter in the book looks at abnormal incompetence and what are called personality disorders. Well-known psychiatric disorders are described in detail and how to spot these in managers. Thus, the paranoid or sociopathic, narcissistic or passive-aggressive types are described in everyday language as well as how to deal with them. More importantly, the book considers how the pathologically incompetent managers influence organizations and groups to fulfil their often bizarre needs and wishes. The final section of the book attempts to help the reader correctly diagnoseincompetence. It also offers various possible cures: the emphasis is that cure follows correct diagnoses. Some cures for incompetence actually accentuate it.

The book is both serious and funny. The incompetent manager is no laughing matter for those managed by them. But the sort of thing some incompetent managers believe and do can be, at least for the onlooker, very funny indeed.

It is argued that the incidence of mental illness in the workplace is more common than many realize, ranging from stress to schizophrenia. In this book leading psychologists Adrian Furnham and Mary-Clare Race explore the psychiatric classification of illness and how symptoms can be identified to help develop mental health literate organizations.

Resilient people are happier, healthier, and more productive. Psychologist and business writer Adrian Furnham takes a sideways and entertaining look at the challenges of being a leader, demonstrating how resilience can be honed, developed, and used as a personal life raft to keep afloat in the face of adversity.

Resilient people are happier, healthier, and more productive. Psychologist and business writer Adrian Furnham takes a sideways and entertaining look at the challenges of being a leader, demonstrating how resilience can be honed, developed, and used as a personal life raft to keep afloat in the face of adversity.

In this new collection of articles on managing and being managed, Adrian Furnham, author of Bad Apples, offers an engaging and witty look into the world of being an engaging manager. Based on strong research this book offers a substantial introduction to the joy of management.

Contextualising humanitarian work in history, justice, methods and professional ethics, this book articulates process skills for transformational partnerships between diverse organizations, motivating education, organizational learning and selecting the disaster workforce.

Contextualizing Humanitarian work in history, justice, methods and professional ethics, this book articulates process skills for transformational partnerships between diverse organizations, motivating education, organisational learning and selecting the disaster workforce.

In a difficult economic climate it is more important than ever to manage bad behaviour in the workplace and minimize the damage negative and destructive employees can have on an organization. This book looks at the problems companies can face but also shows how to resolve these issues and work towards a positive outcome.

This innovative new work clarifies the misconceptions around body language while providing a scientific approach to understanding non-verbal communication at work. The authors explain why it is so important to understand body language in business, combining hard research evidence with unambiguous tips and practical applications.

This book from the acclaimed management writer Adrian Furnham, explores the dark side of leadership and how and why leaders can have a negative impact upon their companies and organisations. It asks why too often people do not speak out but instead ignore the problems they are causing.

This book from the acclaimed management writer Adrian Furnham, explores the dark side of leadership and how and why leaders can have a negative impact upon their companies and organizations. It asks why too often people do not speak out, but instead ignore the problems they are causing.
http: //adrianfurnham.com/

We have recently seen stock-markets plunge and governments bail out banks. People have been made redundant, and many others are very worried. Some of the short essays in this collection are part musing and part reaction to the recent economic situation, which hope to dispel nonsense and encourage sense in the world of people management.

In this volume, contributors from a range of perspectives - evolutionary psychology to anthropology, sociology to cognitive and motivational psychology - explore questions of what our attractiveness preferences are and why we find certain others physically attractive, offering a fresh perspective to understanding the perception of attractiveness.

This new book from Professor of Psychology, Adrian Furnham, is about how the heart can rule the head; logic and emotion, cognition and affect. Are they inextricably linked or separate systems? Most managers are ignorant of, and not even very interested in, human behaviour. Yet good mangers are like good teachers, they understand the human condition and human needs. They understand the complexity of human motivation, and that, frequently, the heart rules the head, and what this can mean for the business organization. There are nearly 100 'thought-pieces' on the world of management and sales in this book. Each essay address an old issue in a new, provocative and amusing way. It is an ideal book to 'dip into' on many occasions.

Bestselling author and psychologist Adrian Furnham takes a critical and challenging view of the jargon and current fads in management contained in manifestos, mantras and mission statements and shows how these often obscure and mystify. In this latest book he turns his skeptical attention to such topics as atmospherics, blame culture, compulsory training, fundamentalist gurus, integrity tests, networming, personality of organizations, and uncertainty avoidance.

Coaching, training, mentoring and development are all about helping staff to learn, whether it is new knowledge, skills or adapting to the cultural attitudes of the organization. This book critically analyzes the methods and instruments available for those who want to learn and those who want to encourage their employees to learn. It avoids jargon and aims to make the theory and practice of learning more easily understood and therefore accomplished.

It is often said that business is people. The bestselling author, Adrian Furnham, draws upon psychological reflections to present a critical and challenging account of perceived wisdom and management fads. In this book he scrutinises such subjects and themes as Anxiety Management, Authenticity, the Dark Side of Gift-Giving, Modern Management Styles, Performance Appraisal Systems and Work Life Balance

Corporations of every size have experience of employees who are guilty of lying, stealing, sabotage, hacking, destruction of files and data, and more than a few corporations have been, and continue to be, devastated by the activities of whistleblowers. Profits, secrets and staff morale are all threatened. This book provides a background to the psychology of deviance and offers practical advice about identifying the causes of and prescriptions for reversing disloyalty.

The third book of Adrian Furnham's "The Incompetent Manager" trilogy. It takes the form of short essays on managerial dilemmas arranged as in a dictionary. The text has multiple messages: it does not belong to the silver bullet, magic formula school of business books. Rather it is a series of anthropological observations about business and business people by a psychologist settled comfortably in his ivory tower. The essays are opinionated in the best sense of the word. They are strident, funny and valid. Some people aspire to management and others have it thrust upon them sometimes as a reward, sometimes as a punishment. It is therefore not uncommon to come across managers who can't manage and who are a liability to themselves, their staff and their companies. This text is for those who deal with them.

All in the Mind: Psychology for the Curious, Third Edition covers important, topical, and sometimes controversial subjects in the field of Psychology in an engaging alternative or supplement to traditional student textbooks. The third edition of a successful and uniquely readable textbook includes more than two thirds brand new material, with all retained material thoroughly revised and updated. All in the Mind, 3rd Edition offers a new and engaging way to consider key theories and approaches in psychology; providing an original alternative or supplement to traditional teaching textbooks.

In a difficult economic climate it is more important than ever to manage bad behaviour in the workplace and minimize the damage negative and destructive employees can have on an organization. This book looks at the problems companies can face but also shows how to resolve these issues and work towards a positive outcome.

All in the Mind: Psychology for the Curious, Third Edition covers important, topical, and sometimes controversial subjects in the field of Psychology in an engaging alternative or supplement to traditional student textbooks. The third edition of a successful and uniquely readable textbook includes more than two thirds brand new material, with all retained material thoroughly revised and updated. All in the Mind, 3rd Edition offers a new and engaging way to consider key theories and approaches in psychology; providing an original alternative or supplement to traditional teaching textbooks.

Adrian Furnham takes a sideways glance at management in this book of short essays. The essays are like tablets: to be taken a few at a time. They are designed to cure hangovers, reduce blood pressure and lighten the mood. They are also meant to be prophylactics against managerial madness. Take two, then call Adrian in the morning.

In this volume, contributors from a range of perspectives - evolutionary psychology to anthropology, sociology to cognitive and motivational psychology - explore questions of what our attractiveness preferences are and why we find certain others physically attractive, offering a fresh perspective to understanding the perception of attractiveness.