Danger in the Comfort Zone

In this summary you will learn

• How a general sense of entitlement among the workforce is responsible for a decline in work ethic
• How to build a productive, energized working environment
• How to communicate these changes

getAbstract rating

Why you should read Danger in the Comfort Zone

At first glance, Judith Bardwick’s influential book, first published in the early 90s, seems scarcely relevant in the opening months of the 21st century. After all, the sense of corporate entitlement that she documented was certainly swept away in the layoffs, restructurings and reengineerings of the last decade, right? Of course, anyone working in a large organization today knows that’s not entirely the case. Bloated bureaucracies still exist. But more importantly, Bardwick’s simple observation that external economic environments influence and even create internal workplace environments is just as true today as it was the day she wrote it. So too are her words of advice about managing and harnessing employee fear to motivate a workforce into a productive mindset. That said, not all of Barwick’s observations have aged so well. For example, you’d be hard pressed to make the case today that the work ethic has died in America. Nevertheless, getabstract recommends this book not as a slice of management history, but as a relevant and practical discourse on employee motivation.

About the Author

Judith M. Bardwick  , Ph.D., is a management consultant whose clients include IBM, 3M, U.S. West, Johnson & Johnson, Baltimore Gas & Electric and Hewlett-Packard. She is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and lives in La Jolla, California. Dr. Bardwick is the author of The Plateauing Trap, The Psychology of Women and In Transition.