The Impacts of Childish Behavior in the Workplace

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Author: Nick McCormick

His previous book, Lead Well and Prosper was a big hit with me and I’ve used it for training several people in my workplace on good management and leadership behaviors that are easy to implement and measure.  This led me to be really excited about McCormick’s new book.  So, this book is a look at many of the actions that employees often carry out in the workplace, that really stem from childish behaviors.  They are examples of some of the low level thinking that goes on in the workplace not for the best possibility for the organization, but typically for some behavior learned long ago and still carried into the workplace years later.

Overall, I think McCormick has a nack for making things in the workplace a lot simpler than many people first realize and he has done this again very well with his outline of a behavior in each chapter.  The chapters and content cover the majority of the poor things you might see in a typical office where behavior is something not managed well or where there is truly a lot of dysfunction and little positive teamwork and accountability.  I have the joy to say I just don’t have to face many of these in my work and so, ready through them, I really had my doubts if these are typical in business or not, the text certainly says so and I hear it all the time from friends at other work environments.  I’ll continue to have that luxury in my work and enjoy the lack of these childish behaviors.  For that reason, I lowered my star rating as I personally just didn’t find much value here, and it seems to highlight behavior that I can’t believe is more easily eliminated before getting the level often written about in the book.  The cartoons, while amusing add to the childish message and I thought they were over the top, losing some of the credible seriousness a business book should have.

So, keeping that in mind, there are certainly a lot of things to learn from if you have a workplace or work environment where people do act childish, there is fighting between people and groups, and where the power plays and politicking resort to childish levels.  Excuses and blame games are two of the topics, another is covering up mistakes, as well as taking more than your share.  All of these childish things are described in a work context but as the childish act and story.

McCormick has 14 short chapters in the book, one per topic and at the end of each, he outlines very clear dos and don’ts, similarly to his last book, which I really like.  These do reinforce his points in each chapter and make the book very easy to learn from and actions to take away.  So, its a very short and easy read, and simple to understand so if you face childish behavior in your workplace, then perhaps this book is the perfect guide for you (and maybe for some of the others acting childish as well!).

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  4. Book Review: The Progress Principle
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