Managers—Personality and Performance

(Tavist1 Publications, 30s.). So parlous it would seem is the state of British industry that anyone?prefe-, without managerial but with psychological experience, is at liberty to advise patient about his mental health. This book is the latest of a veritable spate Tavistock publications advising the manager about the maladies or misdirections his ego gratification. Dr. (Ph.D.) Rogers, a past manager, a refugee from American industry, 1 now a convert to Freudian psycho-analytical practice, was so enthusiastic about own analysis that he proceeded, needless to say in the name of scientific enquiry' analyse various firms in the electrical products industry. Their successes and failu t are interpreted in all the old jargon terms which make the sturdy British sniggef psychology. Here we really get the lot. Oedipus, nipple-gratification, mother*'' and the rest of it. {i This is what I call a "mumbo-jumbo" book. I do not know who is expected read it, and I cannot see what good it does to tell a firm that its sales force perception of and a wish to serve the mother, but was also affected by wishe5 triumph over the father"! , Psychology has something to offer management, but this naive, open-e*1 (interpretation of open-ended questions and psychological tests will only help confirm the average Briton's contempt for the psychologist. ^ Maybe good salesmen ought not to love their mums, but personally I doubt relevance, because I am sure that there are other more relevant and imp?r, i parameters of their competence. H. B.