The Greatest Business Blunders -- How They Happened, and How They Could Have Been Prevented.

While intelligence does count, you can be too smart for your own good. Your success can be sabotaged -- not necessarily by rivals or circumstances -- but rather by your own intellect. As author Mortimer Feinberg states, "strong intelligence tends to subvert itself."

Culled from business headlines and corporate files, Why Smart People Do Dumb Things is an in-depth examination of the ultimate in boardroom break down -- a postmortem of the mega-mistakes made by highly regarded leaders in business and public life. From the "New Coke" debacle to the poor subscription showing of the Olympic Triplecast to the swirling controversy of Whitewater, Feinberg describes how strong minds can misuse their power, and why bright people often seize upon -- and advocate brilliantly -- ideas that others recognize as ridiculous.

Fortunately, this process can be curbed. The preventative measures presented in Why Smart People Do Dumb Things will help those plagued by the tendency to self-destruct -- as well as offer advice to their bosses and colleagues. You'll learn how to avoid colossal errors, whether you're in your first job or at the top of the ladder. Feinberg's sharp, specific recommendations let you get the most out of your IQ without being betrayed by it.

From one of the foremost authorities on the subject, this is the definitive book on the conflict between career and family.

Everyone admires someone who is top dog in his field -- the aggressive achiever in relentless pursuit of a successful career. But as Dr. Feinberg demonstrates, this person, though valuable to the corporation, often undermines an American institution that is the cornerstone of our society: the family, "I am thoroughly convinced the family unit must be preserved at all costs -- at stake is our mental health, nationality and individually, as well as the future security of our offspring."

In this ground-breaking book, Dr. Feinberg encourages the corporate bigamist to apply managerial expertise to life at home -- to treat the family with as much care as a multi-million-dollar contract. He provides prescriptions for a better domestic bottom-line and source of ideas for analyzing problems, creating family solutions, and avoiding common pitfalls in married family life. Along the way Dr. Feinberg illustrates his points with stories culled from the great and powerful, from presidents of major corporations to Presidents of our country. Their solutions to the conflict between career and family offer entertaining lessons for the troubled corporate family.

Addressing corporate bigamists, male and female, and their beleaguered spouses, Dr. Feinberg shows the way to living together happily and constructively without sacrificing the career drive so important to the successful executive.

Getting Fired | Retirement | Divorce | Leaving Home | Dealing with Loneliness | Death of Loved Ones | The Corporate Move | The Empty Nest

Leavetaking is the universal experience. From birth to death we face a continuum of partings. How well we handle leavetaking determines to a considerable extent whether we are happy or unhappy, integrated or fragmented.

The authors help you to understand the difference between object loss and role lossvand how the confusion between the two can lead to unnecessary pain.cc We still miss what is gone/' they tell you, "but we begin to think, too, about the effect of the loss on our functioning ... we become aware of all the ways in which the routine of our life has been geared to what is no longer with us."

Leavetaking is a book of incalculable value to all who have found it difficult to deal with life's many partings. It shows the way to growth and fulfillment by specifically confronting the problems of leavetaking and making them work positively.

Here are some of the latest findings in behavioral psychology -- analyzed and broken down into practical, realistic management techniques that meet the needs of the modern executive and supervisor. You will find some of the problems you could up against analyzed and solved. As a result, you have the combined knowledge and experience of three leading management experts right at your finger tips.

Topics Include: Make Yourself a Manager Workers Will Follow; Establish Your Leadership Style; Motivating Workers; Maintaining High Productivity Among Your People; Understanding People's Actions; Develop Your Relationship with Your Boss and other Influential People; Making the Right Decisions About People; Managerial Crises; Using the New Psychology on Your Customers; Techniques for Dealing with Problem People

Contains practical, down-to-earth techniques that can be put to work effectively in day-to-day personal and business relations. A helpful working tool for the hands that hold the reins of management. Tells just how to coach, motivate, counsel, persuade and criticize others in order to get lasting results while at the same time earning the respect of subordinates. If your personal success is dependent on getting others to work as hard as you do, you can't afford not to read this book.

The manager of today needs to know a tremendous amount of information about himself if he is to set himself up as leader, counselor and coach of others. It is to this purpose that this book was written. It draws on my experience as a practicing management consultant to suggest ways of improving your own management techniques. It will teach you how to better counsel and coach the people who work for you -- your assistants, your staff, your employees. These are the people who form the foundation of your success. Without their help, you cannot succeed.

Much of the material in this book is quoted or adapted from articles and reports for management which I originally wrote for publication by the Research Institute of America. I was chief psychologist at the Research Institute for five years, and it was during that period that I learned how to translate psychological insights into practical management recommendations. To all at the Institute, a tremendous debt is owed.

In addition, some chapters of the book are actually expanded versions or adaptations of articles which first appeared in the following business magazines: Business Management, Nations Business, Supervisory Management, and Duns Review and Modern Industry. To the editors of those publications, my sincere thanks for their help.

Pillsbury Mills want to develop training guidance for their various operations. Although the training literature available at the time was extensive, PM could find nothing that embodied everything they needed. They needed something that spanned from the theory of learning to the practice of role-playing, expressed in a way that could be readily grasped and put to use by non-specialized people.

Initially the authors were commissioned to develop a training manual and it was successfully utilized for more than a year. It has been read and reread and used as a reference for determining training needs, and to evaluate training results by those who are serving as trainers in the Pillsbury Mills plants.

The authors herein have now adapted the manual for a more general industrial audience. This book should earn a place on the desk of all men and women responsible for the training of others.