The System Made Me Do It: A Life Changing Approach to Office Politics - Softcover

Osborn, Susan M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0965536807 ISBN 13: 9780965536806

Publisher: Lifethread Pubns, 1997

Synopsis

This book tells the story of a woman engaged in a journey from a position where she feels trapped by corporate sandboxes to a life that is aligned with her destiny as a contemporary shapeshifter.

About this title

From the Publisher

Dr. Osborn has a history of providing people with techniques to escape physical and mental boxes. Her platform for system change gives a brand new twist to the nature of business.

From the Author

From the Introduction: Everything came to a head when the Challenger exploded in January, 1986. When this disaster occurred I was employed at the West Coast launch site in California. Unlike many places I had worked, the space shuttle program gave me a sense of being part of something special. And the people with whom I worked shared my dedication to the mission of space exploration.

The death of the astronauts and the destruction of a shuttle triggered a chain reaction of losses. Production was scaled down. Launches from the West Coast were scrubbed. Suddenly, most of the jobs at this site were in jeopardy. Those who would be laid off and unable to find work in other aerospace companies risked the loss of their careers.

The impact of the tragedy was devastating; we went into a collective state of shock. A tightly-knit community of highly motivated professionals degenerated into a collection of individuals who were primarily concerned with earning a livelihood. People who had been friends stopped talking to each other. Neighbors and colleagues began regarding each other as enemies. A feeling of camaraderie was replaced by an attitude based on "Every man for himself." What had been a cooperative culture became fiercely competitive.

Never having been through anything quite like this, I wondered what was going on. Why was a shared tragedy causing us to distance ourselves from each other rather than bringing us closer together?

Only be looking at the whole corporation and its environment was I able to make sense of what was happening. "The system is making us act this way," I concluded. "Each of us is scrambling for the crumbs that are left after the pie is cut into pieces by people in positions of power. We are becoming adversaries because there aren't enough jobs to go around."

For the last ten years I have been researching the subject of system change. I wrote this book to convey my findings and to make contact with others who share my interests. Something that proved tremendously useful was a conceptual framework that identified five kinds of systems. I began using this framework in my writing, in the classes I was teaching, and in my consulting work. Eventually, this conceptual framework grew into a model that sparked the production of this book.

Edition details

• Publisher: Lifethread Pubns
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0965536807
• ISBN 13: 9780965536806
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176