Corporate Tragedies: Product Tampering, Sabotage, and
Other Catastrophes (New York: Praeger, 1984)
by Ian I. Mitroff and Ralph H. Kilmann
From the Book Jacket (17 Years Before 9/11/01)
The recent Tylenol nightmare (1982) illustrates one type of tragedy faced by corporations in the modern world, where acts of terrorism, sabotage, and psychopathology are now commonplace occurrences.
Corporate Tragedies takes a hard look at the threats and challenges that must be dealt with by governmental, industrial, educational, and health care organizations in modern society. The volume explains why organizational tragedies are more prevalent now than in the past, how business schools have failed to address the issue, and what organizations can do to protect themselves.
Mitroff and Kilmann argue that today's organizations can no longer be managed by the simple methods of the past, and that executives must recognize and face the complexity and uncertainty of today's world. Since corporate tragedies stem from human dynamics that are neither rational nor entirely predictable, it has become necessary to acknowledge this darker aspect of human nature and revise the ways in which we think about organizations. If this is done, the authors feel there there will be fewer surprises and better opportunities to anticipate possible disasters before they occur.
The authors suggest that far more can be done to plan for and deal with such disasters than was previously imagined. They stress that improved education for business managers and the increased use of strategic planning and monitoring are essential, because unthinkable acts that affect organizations must ultimately be managed by them.
Corporate Tragedies covers a topic that is becoming increasingly important in all areas of society, and which now must be faced and dealt with realistically. The volume should be read by leaders in the public and private sectors, by teachers and students in business schools, and by citizens concerned with the welfare of our organizations.
From the Preface
The placing of cyanide in Tylenol did more than disgust and horrify us—it filled us with anger and sadness as well. It was a clear signal: the ways in which most of us have been trained to think are no longer adequate to cope with a world grown increasingly complex, unpredictable, and evil.
Day by day with increasing frequency are accounts in newspapers and magazines, on the radio and TV of actions that boggle the mind. What was once unimaginable and unthinkable seems to happen to executives and organizations on an almost daily basis. Products and services that were produced and provided under the best intentions of doing good become sabotaged and converted into agents of evil. The products, services, and industries, and most basic of all, our beliefs in them, that once guaranteed our economic success now seem to be the very things from which we need protection. We have indeed met the enemy and he is not only the evil threat from without but he is also the evil from within that resides in all of us.
To Order CORPORATE TRAGEDIES
Table of Contents
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Introduction: What Kind of World Is It Where Even Pickles Aren't Safe Anymore?
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Picture Shock: Why Our Images of the World Don't Work Anymore
The Failure of Education: If They Can't be Radically Reformed, Then Business Schools Should be Abolished
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The Loneliness of the Psychopath: What Business Schools Fail to Teach About Human Behavior Can Be Deadly to Your Organization
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Culture Shock: How Cultural Norms Can Keep an Organization in the Dark Even When Everything Else Has Changed
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Coping I: Elementary Coping
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Coping II: Advanced Coping
Essential Lessons
Preface
Index
About the Authors
Book Reviews
AWARDED FIVE STARS BY AMAZON.COM!
Why the Tylenol Crisis Changed America
Reviewer: Joyce Schwarz, Marina Del Rey, CA (March 12, 2005)
Written by two of the top academics and gurus in the business—this book was among their first and shows why the Tylenol Crisis changed how America Companies handle crises.