We have recently seen stock-markets plunge and governments bail out banks. People have been made redundant, and many others are very worried. Some of the short essays in this collection are part musing and part reaction to the recent economic situation, which hope to dispel nonsense and encourage sense in the world of people management.

Preface
Introduction
What Happens in Troubled Times?
The Management Essentials
Turbulent Times and Change
The Uptake of Innovation
Organisational Change
Factors Associated with Change
Sense and Sensibility in Troubled Times
Essays:
Abusing Staff
Benevolence and Entitlement
Birth Order, Creativity and Leadership
Brains and Beauty
Business Speed Dating
Career Advice
Communication Diets
Compensation Satisfaction
Corporate Affairs
The Criterion Problem
Describing Failure
Decisional Latitude
Disagreeable Leaders
Drinking in the Workplace
Dysfunctional Empathy
Faith at Work
First Impressions
Five Factors of Hubris
Forget Your Weaknesses
Getting to Work and Behaviour at Work
Going the Extra Mile
Happiness and Success
Insight
Inspirational Orators
Integrity Testing at Selection
Joy of Mammon
Listening for Clues
Machiavellian Intelligence
Malleability or Rigidity
Management Tagging
Modern Management Styles
Morale
Mr Niceguy
Onion and Garlic Types
Organisational Prurience
Organisational Shock Absorbers
Organisational Territoriality
Paradoxical Constraint
Paranoia, Perfectionism and Psychopathy
Pathological Ambition
Pay Secrecy
Pedantic, Popularist or Puerile
People Data
Physiology of Leadership
Placebogenic Encounters
Political Tactics at Work
Psycho-logical Marketing
Psychology of Redundancy
The Psychopath in our Midst
Publication Bias in Business
Pushy Parents
Retail Enlightenment
Revisionist Management Theories
Selling Ideology
Service Orientation
Service Sector Strategy
Sex in Management
Spurious Connections
Story Time
Strategies for Talent Management
Subtle Stereotypes
Success
Suppressed Over-functioning Managers
Taking Offence
Talent Retention
Target Setting
Typical and Maximal Performance
Value Re-engineering
Who Learns What from Coaching
Work-life Ethics
Work on your Weaknesses
Common Sense in Troubled Times

ADRIAN FURNHAM is Professor of Psychology at University College, London, UK. He is on the editorial board of a number of journals, has received many awards, and was recognized as the most productive psychologist in the world from 1980 to 1989. He is the author of over 600 journal articles and more than 42 books, including successful, popular management books. He acts as a consultant to a number of bodies including HM Government, British Airways, HBOS and SAP and also a number of multinational corporations. He writes regular columns in the Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times and is a frequent contributor to BBC radio and television.