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Judith M Bardwick

Judith M Bardwick Books

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“In truth, it's usually failure, disappointment, and frustration that motivate people to reexamine that which they've taken for granted. It's rare to find big change without significant bad news. ... In that sense, the pain of failure creates the largest opportunities for progress.”

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Book:Danger in the Comfort Zone: From Boardroom to Mailroom--how to Break the Entitlement Habit That's Killing American Business
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“Credibility is lost when there are big discrepancies between what leaders say and what they do. ... Increasing credibility requires openness. Hidden agendas will destroy trust.”

BigsLostLeadershipLeaderAgendasOpennessCredibilityDiscrepanciesDiscrepancies Between
Book:Danger in the Comfort Zone: From Boardroom to Mailroom--how to Break the Entitlement Habit That's Killing American Business
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“The message to organizations is this: You have to increase the number of categories of contributing, or the types of career paths, which people can experience as successful. You cannot restrict esteem to the fewer and fewer who will be climbing up the management ladder. You need to have the majority of your people feeling like winners.”

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Author:Judith M Bardwick
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“motivation is highest when the probability of success is 50 percent: We don't get involved if the task is too easy or too hard.”

IfsHardMotivationEasyInvolvedHighestPercentTasksProbabilityGet Involved
Book:Danger in the Comfort Zone: From Boardroom to Mailroom--how to Break the Entitlement Habit That's Killing American Business
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“When people in organizations feel too secure, it's because there aren't any significant outcomes as a result of what they do. Whatever you do, nothing much different happens. This also means there are no important pay-offs if you risk by innovating. As there are no rewards for taking risks, then there's no sense of push in that institution's culture.”

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Author:Judith M Bardwick
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“If the mood is overly anxious, then anxiety must be reduced by lowering uncertainty. Very simply, uncertainty is reduced when people are told what's going on and what will happen to them. In the vacuum of no news, people imagine the worst. Since disappointment is much easier to handle than anxiety, then, good news or bad, honesty is honestly the best policy.”

PeopleIfsHappensImagineWorstHonestyPolicyEasierAnxietyNewsDisappointmentHonestlyMoodHandleUncertaintyAnxiousGood NewsVacuums
Author:Judith M Bardwick
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“In organizations where nothing much happens regardless of whether you do something exceptional or just show up in the morning, the best people lose heart and motivation is reduced near the lowest common denominator.”

PeopleHeartShowsHappensMotivationLosesCommonMorningOrganizationLowestExceptionalCommon DenominatorLowest Common Denominator
Book:Danger in the Comfort Zone: From Boardroom to Mailroom--how to Break the Entitlement Habit That's Killing American Business
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“... we know that productivity suffers when uncertainty is high. But we've failed to realize the equally destructive effects of too little anxiety. ... By protecting people from risk, we destroy their self-esteem. We rob them of the opportunity to become strong, competent people.”

PeopleKnowsLittlesSelfSufferingOpportunityStrongRealizingRiskEffectsSelf EsteemAnxietyProductivityEsteemUncertaintyDestructiveCompetent
Book:Danger in the Comfort Zone: From Boardroom to Mailroom--how to Break the Entitlement Habit That's Killing American Business
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“I think the characteristics of really effective leaders when people are frightened and depressed are the same qualities that leaders need when people are optimistic. The difference is when people are frightened the need for these few qualities becomes much stronger because frightened people are desperate to have someone they can trust and believe in and who seems to be able to create a better future.”

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Author:Judith M Bardwick
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“Nothing motivates like success. While academics, consultants and gurus are preoccupied with coming up with great insights and seminal ideas, usually they don't realize that making things happen, achieving operational excellence, moving the organization from uncertainty to clarity, from red ink to black, is what really creates hope for a better future. Therefore, great leadership always involves great ideas and real actions that reinforce a strong belief in the excellence of the decision makers and in the viability of the organization itself.”

RealActionMovingBeliefStrongBlackRealizingDecisionAchieveExcellenceInsightThings HappenClarityUncertaintyGuruGreat LeaderGreat Idea
Author:Judith M Bardwick
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“Trust is perhaps the most critical single building block underlying effectiveness. Without trust leaders do not have followers. Without trust, leaders are impotent despite great rhetoric or splendid ideas. Trust rests on the belief among followers that the leader is transparent: What you see is what there is. Trust means followers believe there is no duplicity; no manipulation just to satisfy the leader's ego. Very simply: The effective leader is transparent; that's why that person is trusted.”

BelieveMeanBeliefLeaderBuildingEgoBlockManipulationTrustedRhetoricTrust MeWithout Trust
Author:Judith M Bardwick
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“The best worst example of making people feel unappreciated today lies in the casualness, indeed indifference with regard to massive lay-offs even when there isn't a financial crisis. That is a message to employees that they are expendable, interchangeable, easily dismissed and replaced, often by younger, less experienced and cheaper employees. The essential message being conveyed to people is, You are worthless. What an incredibly dumb thing that is for management to say!”

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Author:Judith M Bardwick
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“The ways in which management can express appreciation for an employee's contribution are without end; the key is to act in ways that communicate Thanks! That was a great job! We can really count on you! It's great having you here! While some people love having plaques to hang on their personal Wall of Fame and they adore being acknowledged at a formal Recognition Banquet and some people are only interested in money, I find the most effective forms of recognition are personal and either spontaneous or very close in time to a significant accomplishment.”

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“For most women being other-directed, focused on how other people feel and nurturing them, was (and can still be) a quality that girls were (are) heavily pressured to become. The unselfish or Self-less woman was (is) seen as ideal. The realization and articulation that the cultural ideal of the perfect woman was someone who had no sense of Self and was a key part of the angry energy that drove Feminism to its swift success.”

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“There are still many women - and their spouses and children - who view a reflected self - I'm Mrs. Smith, not Mary Smith - as psychologically healthy. Those people are not motivated to change. But it is really dangerous to live through others'. What ever your circumstances, it is not a good idea to be wholly dependent on responses from others to like, respect or love yourself. Your children will grow up and start their own families; the divorce rate has remained at 50 percent for decades.”

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Author:Judith M Bardwick
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“The Psychological Recession is the cluster of feelings that the present is really scary and the future will likely be worse. It comes from the sense you have no control over what's happening to you and you don't see a way to get your life back under control. It's the feeling that life is unfair; you paid your dues, you worked hard, and you ended up naked and vulnerable. There is no comfort to be found in the dismissal of the Psychological Recession as being just an idea; it is a real phenomenon with real consequences, all of them bad.”

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Author:Judith M Bardwick
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“I was appalled at how children had become the focus and gravitational center of the nuclear family around which parents orbited instead of the traditional arrangement in which children orbited around their parents. This is a huge change because a critical job in early childhood is to get children weaned away from the total narcissism normal to infancy. With the children as the center of the family's actions and decisions, narcissism is at a minimum prolonged and may never significantly decline.”

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Author:Judith M Bardwick
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