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Blood, Sweat and Tears is the outcome of
Richard Donkin’s own search for purpose and meaning in his
work. When he made the decision to write Blood, Sweat and
Tears, he reports having to choose between taking a year’s
unpaid leave - a costly option - or writing in his spare
time, outside of working hours. He chose to take an unpaid
leave.
"I thought of it as paying for a year
of my life. It was the best move I ever made - not only
did I enjoy this year more than any other, I have probably
worked harder than at any time of my career," Donkin
says. But the work was focused, organized, fun and never
became so burdensome that it dominated his every waking
moment. He read books, travelled and learned.
"Work became a joy - so much so that
it no longer seemed like work. The difference was - and
people who are self-employed will understand this - I was
setting my own pace," he notes.
About the book:
Observing the growing number of frazzled,
drained and dissatisfied workers in today's workplace, Donkin
recalls the wisdom of noted psychologist Abraham Maslow:
"to do some idiotic job very well is certainly not
real achievement." He then asks how we have arrived
at the point where The Dilbert Principle is one of the world's
most popular business books. In his quest to show that cubical
cynicism and alienation from one's work are comparatively
recent phenomena, Donkin cuts a wide swath through economic
and social history. Ranging from Stone Age butchering of
livestock in Germany to Abraham Darby's 1709 development
of the coking forge (which Donkin believes was the inception
of the job "as a constant source of employment and
income packaged by the parameter of time"), he brings
an engaging spirit of curiosity and an encyclopedic bent
to his study. Donkin charts the age-old conflict between
the employer`s need to develop a worker as a productive
resource versus the urge to control and restrict the worker's
contribution, arguing that the latter tendency lies at the
root of the current workplace malaise. Yet he is optimistic,
viewing new business models of self-management as opportunities
to acknowledge workers' value, redefine attitudes toward
work and to recalibrate work and leisure in a manner that
makes life worth living.
"The aim of this book is to examine,
using a historical perspective, the evolution of work from
the earliest times and the impact of great watersheds of
development. It will look at early societies, slavery, the
guilds, the creation of trade secrets, and the influence
of religion on work; it will look at where we have been
and where we are going. " - Richard Donkin Blood,
Sweat and Tears
Reviews:
"There are a lot of books about work
and employment. Richard Donkin has written a book that stands
apart from the rest. Blood, Sweat & Tears is engaging
and intelligent reading, rooted in both historical and personal
understanding and insight." - Jeffrey Pfeffer,
professor, Stanford Business School and author of The Human
Equation: Building Profit by Putting People First
"Blood, Sweat & Tears’ review
of how society has viewed work is an excellent primer on
the human dynamics and great possibilities of the new economy."
- Don Tapscott, chair of Itemus Inc. and coauthor of
Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs
"We all work - paid employment, voluntary
work, household chores -- because we make work part of our
identity. To lead a satisfactory life we need to understand
what work means to us, and to do this we need to understand
the nature of work, what it was and how it is changing.
Richard Donkin, in this lucid and compelling book, provides
us with the means for such understanding." - Dorothy
Rowe, consultant Psychologist, author of The Real Meaning
of Money
"This book is huge. In every good
sense of the word. It certainly belongs on the bookshelf
of every leader and every scholar in the area of management
and organizational life." - From the Foreword by
Warren Bennis
"His book is a pleasantly meandering
history of work from the Stone Age to the present, rich
with engaging vignettes." - The New York Times
"Donkin takes readers through thousands
of years of history, examining how work, and more particularly
the management of work, has changed." - The Washington
Post
"Richard Donkin, a journalist, has
written an ambitious, wide-ranging history of the changing
nature of work, and not just in America....Mr. Donkin’s
hope is that a new kind of company will in future blur the
line between work and leisure, making labor in essence a
form of fun." - The Economist
"...the book succeeds because it focuses
on people and their relationships at work...Our challenge
is to move down the high-trust road with relationships built
on respect and dignity. Donkin’s splendid book can only
help" - John Monks writing in the Financial Times
"In Donkin’s view, we are now at a
stage where there is more work than ever, the work ethic
remains deeply embedded in the Western psyche and our identities
continue to be framed by who employs us and how we earn
a living." - Time magazine
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