Cleaning out my computer archives, I found this summary which I find enlightening, and in sync with the premises and solutions of the book that Ken Utech and I wrote together:
Rationality May Not be on the Job Description
Diane L. Coutu with Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries*
"If you study executives, you quickly see that they don't behave rationally all the time. Indeed, irrational behavior is common in organizational life. It was my realization of this-and my desire to understand that irrationality-that led me into the fields of psychiatry and psychoanalysis.
Once I started, I found that business leaders were much more complex than the subjects most psychologists studied. People in mental hospitals are actually easy to understand because they suffer from extreme conditions.
The mental health of senior executives is much more subtle. They can't be too crazy or they generally don't make it to senior positions, but they are nonetheless extremely driven people. And when I analyze them,
I usually find that their drives spring from childhood patterns and experiences that have carried over into adulthood. Executives don't like to hear this; they like to think they're totally in control. They're insulted to hear that certain things in their minds are unconscious.
But like it or not, people have blind spots, and the nonrational personality needs of decision makers can seriously affect the management process."
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