The Inner Game of Work: Focus, Learning, Pleasure, and Mobility in the Workplace - Softcover

Gallwey, W. Timothy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375758178 ISBN 13: 9780375758171

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2001

Synopsis

This groundbreaking book tells you how to overcome the inner obstacles that sabotage your efforts to be your best on the job.

Timothy Gallwey burst upon the scene twenty years ago with his revolutionary approach to excellence in sports. His bestselling books The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf, with over one million copies in print, changed the way we think about learning and coaching. But the Inner Game that Gallwey discovered on the tennis court is about more than learning a better backhand; it is about learning how to learn, a critical skill that, in this case, separates the productive, satisfied employee from the rest of the pack. For the past twenty years Gallwey has taken his Inner Game expertise to many of America's top companies, including AT&T, Coca-Cola, Apple, and IBM, to teach their managers and employees how to gain better access to their own internal resources.

What inner obstacles is Gallwey talking about? Fear of failure, resistance to change, procrastination, stagnation, doubt, and boredom, to name a few. Gallwey shows you how to tap into your natural potential for learning, performance, and enjoyment so that any job, no matter how long you've been doing it or how little you think there is to learn about it, can become an opportunity to sharpen skills, increase pleasure, and heighten awareness. And if your work environment has been turned on its ear by Internet technology, reorganization, and rapidly accelerating change, this book offers a way to steer a confident course while navigating your way toward personal and professional goals.

The Inner Game of Work teaches you the difference between a rote performance and a rewarding one. It teaches you how to stop working in the conformity mode and start working in the mobility mode. It shows how having a great coach can make as much difference in the boardroom as on the basketball court-- and Gallwey teaches you how to find that coach and, equally important, how to become one. The Inner Game of Work challenges you to reexamine your fundamental motivations for going to work in the morning and your definitions of work once you're there. It will ask you to reassess the way you make changes and teach you to look at work in a radically new way.

"Ever since The Inner Game of Tennis, I've been fascinated and have personally benefitted by the incredibly empowering insights flowing out of Gallwey's self-one/self-two analysis. This latest book applies this liberating analogy to work inspiring all of us to relax and trust our true self."
--Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

About this title

Review:

Since the publication some two decades ago of his bestselling The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf, Timothy Gallwey has come to believe that those books' overriding principle--eliminate negative internal interference to bring about positive self-change--is applicable to virtually any activity. Now, in The Inner Game of Work, he applies that principle to the arena where the biggest turn-of-the-millennium game of all is being played. "We are constantly told that we live in an age of change," Gallwey writes, "and nowhere are we told more frequently that we have to change than in the workplace." As on the court and the course, he contends, those changes necessary to survive and thrive can be effectively realized by quieting our inner doubts and learning to rely on our own natural instincts and behavior.

How does Gallwey suggest we do this? His method is twofold: "focus of attention ... the quintessential component of superior performance in every activity" and "clarity of desire behind the focus." Through example and clear instruction, he shows how to minimize self-distracting thoughts that serve to undermine our confidence in the workplace and similar settings, and subsequently to begin "playing in the zone" like elite athletes who have learned to visualize their goals unerringly and proceed unremittingly (and almost unconsciously) in their pursuit. It will take no small amount of dedication to put these ideas into practice, but those who do should find that Gallwey's advice relates as well to the working world as it does to the sporting world. --Howard Rothman

From the Inside Flap:

Do you think it's possible to truly enjoy your job? No matter what it is or where you are? Timothy Gallwey does, and in this groundbreaking book he tells you how to overcome the inner obstacles that sabotage your efforts to be your best on the job.
Timothy Gallwey burst upon the scene twenty years ago with his revolutionary approach to excellence in sports. His bestselling books "The Inner Game of Tennis and "The Inner Game of Golf, with over one million copies in print, changed the way we think about learning and coaching. But the Inner Game that Gallwey discovered on the tennis court is about more than learning a better backhand; it is about learning how to learn, a critical skill that, in this case, separates the productive, satisfied employee from the rest of the pack. For the past twenty years Gallwey has taken his Inner Game expertise to many of America's top companies, including AT&T, Coca-Cola, Apple, and IBM, to teach their managers and employees how to gain better access to their own internal resources.
What inner obstacles is Gallwey talking about? Fear of failure, resistance to change, procrastination, stagnation, doubt, and boredom, to name a few. Gallwey shows you how to tap into your natural potential for learning, performance, and enjoyment so that any job, no matter how long you've been doing it or how little you think there is to learn about it, can become an opportunity to sharpen skills, increase pleasure, and heighten awareness. And if your work environment has been turned on its ear by Internet technology, reorganization, and rapidly accelerating change, this book offers a way to steer a confident course while navigating your way toward personal andprofessional goals.
"The Inner Game of Work teaches you the difference between a rote performance and a rewarding one. It teaches you how to stop working in the conformity mode and start working in the mobility mode. It shows how having a great coach can make as much difference in the boardroom as on the basketball court-- and Gallwey teaches you how to find that coach and, equally important, how to become one. "The Inner Game of Work challenges you to reexamine your fundamental motivations for going to work in the morning and your definitions of work once you're there. It will ask you to reassess the way you make changes and teach you to look at work in a radically new way.
"Ever since "The Inner Game of Tennis, I've been fascinated and have personally benefitted by the incredibly empowering insights flowing out of Gallwey's self-one/self-two analysis. This latest book applies this liberating analogy to work inspiring all of us to relax and trust our true self."
--Stephen R. Covey, author of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0375758178
• ISBN 13: 9780375758171
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256