Your Boss Is Not Your Mother: Creating Autonomy, Respect, and Success at Work

Drawing comparisons between the workplace and a playground at recess, a family therapist and management consultant shows how to resolve irreconcilable differences by not blaming individuals and by understanding how families and offices function as their own entities.

Seattle family therapist and management consultant DesRoches here applies "the dynamic, proven principles of family systems therapy" to the workplace. Identifying through case histories such family role models as the superachiever, victim, martyr, rebel, rescuer and oppressor, the author shows how these patterns can carry over into adult life and, thus, to workplaces, which "function just like families." Says one client: "In every job I've had, I've ended up feeling like a bad kid." Others feel frustrated that they help out their peers but get none of the credit for results. The author offers a self-analysis program of questionnaires and diagrams for facing up to workplace realities: covert power games, hidden management agendas or ruthless rivalry, for example, involving sarcasm, innuendos, "emotional bribery" and so on. DesRoches makes no claim to easy problem solving, but his therapeutic approach combined with experience gleaned from actual business settings should improve readers' understanding of problems on the job.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Statistic after statistic, survey after survey, demonstrates that the primary reason for firings, resignations, and other instant unemployment is the failure of at least one major relationship in the workplace. Yet all the current emphasis on creating one's own job and adapting to the new rules of the workplace seems misplaced, since some wise person needs to guide us out of dysfunctional work relationships first. Therapist DesRoches puts together a practical, no-jargon-allowed plan of action for resolving work conflicts. He uses the "one big happy family" business myth as a platform, showing that many problems indeed stem from our individual family patterns. Self-questionnaires, exercises, copious lists, and disguised case histories lead readers to solutions, as well as arm them with some very powerful tools that will help with all aspects of life. A quietly delivered but important message on the road to empowerment at work and at home. Barbara Jacobs

A family therapist and consultant, DesRoches shows that people in work situations frequently behave in the same ways they behaved with their families as children. Using an extended case study, DesRoches presents a program of exercises aimed at changing these dysfunctional behavior patterns. His approach is apparently similar to the one he has used with his clients. DesRoches here suggests that fundamental behavior changes can be made without counseling or group support. Perhaps this is possible, but it is most likely accomplished by a strong, determined person who is already fairly self-aware. This approach also lends itself to stereotyping; so-and-so is a "victim," and somebody else is a "rebel." Dysfunctional workplaces are common enough, however, to create significant demand for this type of material.
Sue McKimm, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.