Watercooler Wisdom

February 15, 2006
Bailey and Leland (cofounders, Sterling Consulting Group) administered 20,000 surveys to executives and employees worldwide to assess and explain how people find happiness in their work. They define three areas of workplace stress -change, pressure, and conflict -and chapters are placed under these categories, offering illustrative case studies and proposing strategies such as hearing your inner commentator, finishing small tasks to create energizing closure, and mirroring others - body language to build social rapport. Short, easy to read, and filled with management and self-help quotes, the chapters conclude with useful summaries. Tools like a -Prosperity at Work - self-evaluation and -Mini-Makeovers - to address specific work problems are included, although the remarks on how these actually help come across as rather superficial (e.g., -I feel energized and organized when I walk into my personal work area -). Unfortunately, the authors never really share the raw data from their workplace surveys, furnishing anecdotal advice instead, with cliché d techniques such as reflecting on your work performance and interpreting events more positively. There -s nothing inaccurate or difficult to read here, but there -s nothing particularly new, either. Not recommended." -Sarah Statz Cords, Madison P.L., WI"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.