Synopsis
Thompson Barton s work has been focused on our fear of one another and the impact that has on our lives and in our work spaces. Make no mistake, fear is alive and well and rests on our usual agreement: Please lie to me. This agreement is informal, unconscious, and non-verbal. It is also self-perpetuating. As a result, we continue to live in fear and mistrust of one another. This is no one s fault and everyone s problem. Please Lie to Me makes unflinching eye contact with fear. Please Lie to Me defines what it takes to liberate you, your workforce, and your organization from being hostage to fear. Please Lie to Me takes on fear in the workplace by using a New Agreement to replace business as usual. Implementing this New Agreement establishes Accountable Consciousness, which transforms the culture and the business. Please Lie to Me challenges business owners and leaders to take back the control of their cultures and organizations. In so doing, employees become fully engaged and the organization will reach currently unattainable heights of effectiveness and productivity.
About the Author
THOMPSON BARTON was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. He attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. As a student, he began to realize that the answer to his questions about human beings required serious self-inquiry as well. The focus of his quest turned from why are they frightened to noticing his own fears and judgments. During this time, Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in downtown Memphis and the Vietnam War was raging. Barton s initial plans for law school faded as an interest in the education field continued to grow. In 1967 he began teaching at a rural high school in Missouri. In 1968, Barton participated in his first encounter group, led by Huston Smith, the scholar of world religions from MIT. The three-day experience was profound and illuminating. Barton knew he had found his path, and that self-awareness was the portal. The encounter group called for a transparency that was as foreign to him as it was deeply compelling. From that point on, he began feeling his way along in life rather than engineering a career. He chose to trust his calling and pursue what fed his sense of aliveness and curiosity about fear in our lives. In 1970, Barton cofounded a small manufacturing business that continues to thrive. In 1982, he received an M.A. in Holistic Psychology from Antioch University West, San Francisco, California. From 1986-1989 he was a trainer and consultant in the San Francisco office of Drake Beam Morin, Inc., an organizational development firm. In 1990 he worked as a course designer and trainer for SportsMind, Inc., a firm that specialized in team building. In 1991 he co-founded Barton White Associates with Don White. DON WHITE, a 1963 Naval Academy graduate, joined Procter & Gamble s manufacturing division in 1967. During his 26-year career at the Baltimore soap plant, he held nearly every management position in the plant, both line and staff. This was a time of transition for the 50-year-old plant. This traditionally managed plant was struggling to compete with P&G s newer, high-performance, non-union facilities. In the course of leading this transition, Don discovered material developed by Dr. Will Schutz, an eminent psychologist, designed to develop individuals and teams in organizations. This material and the associated applications proved pivotal in turning the plant from a traditional, highly conflicted, rigidly structured factory with marginal results into a high-performance plant which competed successfully with the best of P&G s newer, non-union facilities. Don used his remaining years at P&G to spread the technology that had proved so successful in Baltimore to other P&G locations, and in 1990 he began consulting with Thompson Barton. In 1993 he retired from P&G and joined Barton White Associates, Inc. full time. His clients have included: The Coca-Cola Company, Dial Corporation, Procter & Gamble, Shell Oil Company, James River Corporation, Fort James Corporation, Ivex Packaging Corporation, Microsoft, Mini-Grip/Zip-Pak, Drill Doctor, Barcodes West, Printpack, Rexam Metallizing, Garlock Sealing Technologies, Multicolor Corporation, Barclay Dean Construction, Allpak Container, Rhinelander Paper Company, Raytheon Aircraft Company, Raytheon Aircraft Service, and Packaging Dynamics Corporation. In addition to providing initial training in Accountable Communication Technology workshops, Don provides follow-up coaching at all levels in the organizations, from the CEO to the hourly teams.
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