Ultra-Solutions: How to Fail Most Successfully (English and German Edition) - Hardcover

Watzlawick, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393025144 ISBN 13: 9780393025149

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1988

Synopsis

FROM THE DUST JACKET: "ULTRA-SOLUTIONS: HOW TO FAIL MOST SUCCESSFULLY...NOW IN A NEW VOLUME, (AUTHOR PAUL WATZLAWICK) ..TURNS TO OUR STRIVINGS FOR ULTRA-SOLUTIONS--THOSE FINAL SOLUTIONS THAT DO AWAY WITH THE PROBLEM AND JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE. (A PERFECT ULTRA-SOLUTION LIES IN THAT OLD MEDICAL JOKE: 'THE OPERATION WAS SUCCESSFUL, BUT THE PATIENT DIED.') AS HE BEGINS THIS BOOK, THE AUTHOR MUSES ABOUT THE FATE OF MACBETH AT THE HANDS OF THE THREE WITCHES. THEIR STRATEGIES LED TO HIS DOWNFALL, AND--THOUGH MUCH REFINED DUE TO MODERN TECHNOLOGY--ARE IN FORCE TODAY. THE URGE FOR ULTRA-SOLUTIONS HAS BEEN WITH US SINCE UNRECORDED TIME, AND THE WITCHES ARE ALWAYS THERE TO OFFER SINISTER ENCOURAGEMENT." INCLUDES: TABLE OF CONTENTS AUTHOR'S NOTE 1. SECURITY IS MORTALS' CHIEFEST ENEMY 2. TWICE AS MUCH IS NOT NECESSARILY TWICE AS GOOD 3. GOOD CAN BE BAD 4. THE (ALLEGEDLY) EXCLUDED MIDDLE 5. A 'CHAIN REACTION' OF KINDNESS? 6. NONZERO-SUM GAMES 7. BRAVE DIGITALIZED WORLD 8. 'I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOUA RE THINKING' 9. DISORDER AND ORDER 10. HUMANITY, DIVINITY, BESTIALITY 11. GLOOMY SUNDAY 12. IS IT THIS? BIBLIOGRAPHY

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English, German (translation)

From Publishers Weekly:

Communication maven Watzlawick takes aim at muddled problem-solvers whose strategies only make matters worse. He warns readers to be wary of arguers who assume they know exactly what an adversary is thinking and to steer clear of utopian system-wreckers scornful of the small steps that make change possible. He targets zero-sum playersin the Pentagon and the corporate boardroommistakenly convinced that winning or losing are the only attainable outcomes. Other common pitfalls examined here by the author of The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious are assuming that the opposite of bad must be good and asking rigid questions that demand either a "yes" or "no" answer. In this brief assemblage of fables and allegories, Watzlawick tends to pontificate, as when he diagnoses the numbing effects of television or the tensions between East and West. Macmillan Book Club selection.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0393025144
• ISBN 13: 9780393025149
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 118