Articles
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An Interim Report on Motivation in the Workplace
 
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"Following the work of Maslow, Douglas McGregor argued that the conventional view of employees (Theory X) as indolent, lacking ambition, self-centered, and not very bright was inadequate. He advocated an alternative (Theory Y): 'The motivation, the potent
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Remembering NUMMI
 
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"The most remarkable insight I gained at NUMMI came as an answer to a question from a member of the touring group. The person asked what had been learned about the reasons that management/labor conflict had been reduced so much. The tour guide answered, "
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The Trouble with Incentives: They Work
 
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"There may be cases in which incentives work only as intended, but I suspect they are relatively rare. The trouble is that we are usually dealing with complex systems (people and organizations) that may behave not at all like our myths would predict...
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Blind Spots in Learning and Inference
 
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"We all face an onslaught of information daily. We use some of that information to learn and make inferences. As we do so, it helps to know about and avoid potential blind spots. In the following article, I point out some of these blind spots. I will use several examples taken from the reports and analyses of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, not because I wish to criticize the U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), but because information is publicly available about those two events."