Record with controversy

Last summer, Barry Bonds got the home run’ record: 756!!!
He got the last one against Washington Nationals, playing at home.

Hank Aaron is not number one anymore, Mr. Bonds has taken his place.

He’s the new baseball hero. His crown is beyond doubt. But… what happens with his honesty?

In spite of his new record, I’m afraid steroids have tarnished his whole career, staining his name. Apart from the exception of San Francisco Giants’ supporters, he’s used to hear a murmur of disapproval when playing on the road.

Even no congratulations from the White House… suspicious. Of course, Tony Snow tried to dissociate the absence of congratulations from this reason.

Straight to the point

The following text is a write-up I found last week when trying to find out which is the best management book written ever. Obviously this is not one of the candidates:

"It is strange how so many businesspeople I meet tend to be right-wing, anti-communist and great believers in personal freedom, yet run their businesses like Stalin's Russia. Workers are motivated by a mixture of fear and ambition and any individual opinion taht deviates from the party line is seen as a threat.

I'm a manager. All I ask of my staff is that they're honest, work hard and treat everyone with respect. That's it. For my part I give them a clear idea of what I expect and make sure that they have the tools to do their job and receive recognition of their achievements. What I don't do is mess with their heads.

This book is symptomatic of trend in management culture where it is not enough to ask people to do their jobs well; we now have to re-engineer their souls. The aim of this book is to motivate staff with "fun" activities in staff training sessions, but the reality is intrusive and patronising. One game invites workers to mention a childhood achievement that they were particulary proud of and then get other members of the team to discuss it. Well, I believe in personal freedom and a part of that is not feeling obliged to talk about personal things in a work setting.

Chairman Mao had his "Cultural Revolution" and this smacks of the same attitude. It's not enough for people to do as they're told, they now have to have the right attitude and if they're not willing to be team players, they're out. It's like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

Buy this book to find out how emotionally dysfunctional people struggle to motivate teams and get it horribly wrong."

For me, the most striking feature of this review is its spontaneity. I mean, lots of people use to participate and discuss about books, but this one gets straight to the point.