Good Work
When Excellence and Ethics Meet
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
What does it mean to carry out "good work"? What strategies allow people to maintain moral and ethical standards at a time when market forces have unprecedented power and work life is being radically altered by technological innovation? These questions lie at the heart of this eagerly awaited new book. Focusing on genetics and journalism-two fields that generate and manipulate information and thus affect our lives in myriad ways-the authors show how in their quest to build meaningful careers successful professionals exhibit "humane creativity," high-level performance coupled with social responsibility. Over the last five years the authors have interviewed over 100 people in each field who are engaged in cutting-edge work, probing their goals and visions, their obstacles and fears, and how they pass on their most cherished practices and values. They found sharp contrasts between the two fields. Until now, geneticists' values have not been seriously challenged by the demands of their work world, while journalists are deeply disillusioned by the conflict between commerce and ethics. The dilemmas these professionals face and the strategies they choose in their search for a moral compass offer valuable guidance on how all persons can transform their professions and their lives. Enlivened with stories of real people facing hard decisions, Good Work offers powerful insight into one of the most important issues of our time and, indeed, into the future course of science, technology, and communication.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In their previous highly regarded research, psychologists Gardner (Multiple Intelligences), Csikszentmihalyi (Flow) and Damon (The Moral Child) have found that "if the fundamentals of good work excellence and ethics are in harmony, we lead a personally fulfilling and socially rewarded life." Their latest, somewhat bloated tome posits that today's market forces, industry consolidations and rapid technological change exert unrelenting pressure on every enterprise. The authors investigate two sample professions, genetics and journalism, striving under pressure to do excellent work that still benefits society. From interviews with prominent practitioners, they have assembled an immense, if unwieldy, fund of data on perspectives within each profession. Although certain survey results may seem bland or obvious (82% of geneticists interviewed emphasize their responsibility to society; many journalists feel democracy requires open access to all the news for everyone, and 51% disapprove of changes in the news media), the authors deftly contrast current working conditions in the two professions. They argue that whether a profession is in a self-identified golden age like genetics or a self-critical, transitional stage like journalism, the same "five levers for good work" can apply: creating new institutions, expanding functions of existing institutions, reconfiguring existing institutions' membership and reaffirming their values, and taking personal stands. They advocate continually revisiting "the traditions of the domain" that initially attracted us, to fortify our integrity and commitment to the mission of our profession. Unfortunately, the unsurprising research results, unquestioning reporting and plodding prose don't live up to previous work by these prestigious psychologists.
