Why do our organizations so often seem to be less than the sum of their parts? What undermines effectiveness and morale, and gets in the way of achieving what we set out to do? The Unconscious at Work, Second Edition draws on a body of thinking and practice which has developed over the past 70 years, often referred to as 'the Tavistock approach' or 'systems-psychodynamics'. All the contributors are practising consultants who draw on this framework, bringing it alive and making it useful to any reader – manager, leader or consultant, regardless of whether they have any prior familiarity with the underlying concepts – who is curious about what might be driving the puzzling or stressful situations they find in their workplace. The First Edition was addressed to people working in 'the human services': health, social care and education. Since it was published in 1994, there has been growing interest in the business world, and in understanding more about the 'irrational' side of organizational life. Therefore, this Second Edition includes an entirely new section where the key ideas are revisited and illustrated with case studies from a wide range of business organizations, from large corporations to start-ups and family businesses. The aim, however remains the same: to enlarge readers' existing sense-making 'tool-kits' so that they can look at themselves and their organizations with fresh eyes, deepening the emotional intelligence they bring to bear on the challenges they face and providing new possibilities for action. The Unconscious at Work, Second Edition is for managers, leaders, consultants, and anyone working in organizations who has been puzzled, disturbed or challenged by their experiences at work.

Working in the human services has always been stressful, and the current massive changes in the organization of these services, together with dwindling resources and ever greater demands for cost effectiveness, add to the stresses inherent in the work. Even in the best run and best resourced organizations there are pockets of irrationality where unconscious institutional processes undermine both effectiveness and morale. The contributors to this book use ideas drawn from psychoanalysis, open systems theory, Bion's work with groups, and group relations training to explore the difficulties experienced by managers and staff in a wide range of care settings. Each concept is illustrated with examples from practice to make it recognizable and useful to the reader. Each chapter develops a theme relating to work with a particular client group or setting (including hospitals, schools, day centres, residential units, community services and many others), or explores aspects of work organization (for example, the supervisory relationship, facing cuts and closure, or intergroup collaboration). By describing both the difficulties and their own feelings and thoughts while consulting to these institutions, the authors offer the reader new ways of looking at their own experiences at work which will be both enlightening and helpful.

Workplace Intelligence provides a range of insights into the unconscious processes at play in the workplace and an introduction to a balanced approach to organizations. The book explores key concepts, showing how our emotions and early experiences inform the roles we play at work, as well as how we react to other people. It encourages close observation and reflection and utilization of this knowledge for managing ourselves and others fruitfully. It also provides managers with the methods to intervene and tackle these issues, elaborating on topics from leadership and group dynamics to meetings and work-life balance. The book will be a fascinating read for those in leadership roles, organizational consultants, executive coaches, students of occupational psychology, as well as anyone interested in understanding workplace dynamics in general.

Weaving together state-of-the-art research, theory, and clinical insights, this book provides a new understanding of the unconscious and its centrality in human functioning. The authors review heuristics, implicit memory, implicit learning, attribution theory, implicit motivation, automaticity, affective versus cognitive salience, embodied cognition, and clinical theories of unconscious functioning. They integrate this work with cognitive neuroscience views of the mind to create an empirically supported model of the unconscious. Arguing that widely used psychotherapies--including both psychodynamic and cognitive approaches--have not kept pace with current science, the book identifies promising directions for clinical practice. Winner--American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize (Theory)

Weaving together state-of-the-art research, theory, and clinical insights, this book provides a new understanding of the unconscious and its centrality in human functioning. The authors review heuristics, implicit memory, implicit learning, attribution theory, implicit motivation, automaticity, affective versus cognitive salience, embodied cognition, and clinical theories of unconscious functioning. They integrate this work with cognitive neuroscience views of the mind to create an empirically supported model of the unconscious. Arguing that widely used psychotherapies--including both psychodynamic and cognitive approaches--have not kept pace with current science, the book identifies promising directions for clinical practice. Winner--American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize (Theory)

"The world's leading expert on the unconscious mind reveals the hidden mental processes that secretly govern every aspect of our behavior. For more than three decades, Dr. John Bargh has been conducting revolutionary research into the unconscious mind--not Freud's dark, malevolent unconscious but the new unconscious, a helpful and powerful part of the mind that we can access and understand through experimental science. Now Dr. Bargh presents an engaging and enlightening tour of the influential psychological forces that are at work as we go about our daily lives--checking a dating app, holding a cup of hot coffee, or getting a flu shot. Dr. Bargh takes you into his labs at New York University and Yale where his ingenious experiments have shown how the unconscious guides our actions, goals and motivations in areas like race relations, parenting, business, consumer behavior, and addiction. He reveals the pervasive influence of the unconscious mind on who we choose to date or vote for, what we buy, where we live, how we perform on tests and in job interviews, and much more. Before You Know It is full of surprising and entertaining revelations as well as tricks to help you remember to-do items, shop smarter, and sleep better. Before You Know It will profoundly change the way you understand yourself by introducing you to a fascinating world only recently discovered, the world that exists below the surface of your awareness and yet is the key to unlocking new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving."--Jacket.

Explores the inner world of human experience and suggests that the rhythm of that experience, is vital to individual creativity