The Dysfunctional Workplace: Theory, Stories, and Practice (Advances in Organizational Psychodynamics)

This book explores the dark, dysfunctional nature of organizations and the experience of working in them. The authors offer dozens of stories of workplace dysfunction and use a psychoanalytically informed perspective to help readers understand why a leader, colleague, or friend behaves in ways that are destructive to others and to the organization.

The work is divided into three parts: theory, stories, and practice. Topics covered in the first section include the value of storytelling, an overview of competing paradigms in analysis, and the value of psychoanalysis and its explanatory power. This is followed by chapters on case stories organized by theme and a conclusion that explores the implications of the research and analytic practice.

The engaging stories are drawn from events the authors have experienced or observed, and from their roles as professional consultants. Subjects range from the consequences egotistical and shortsighted leaders can have on organizations, to details such as the effect a suddenly empty desk has on staff in the office. This fresh scholarship provides the basis for studying the workplace, organizational dynamics, and management. By posing questions and providing analysis, the authors seek to make the reader a “virtual consultant” participating in answering the questions the stories inevitably raise. This is followed by the authors’ own analysis of the case studies, addressing those same questions and offering reflections on how organizations might be managed so as to minimize dysfuction.