What do we sell in business now? What’s the cry of every other dot-com commercial? Information. We sell access. We sell ideas. So what are (motivational speakers) doing? Selling another idea.

The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work

if work has really improved since the beginning of the century or if it is just clothed in fancy terms and done in cleaner, better-lighted places.

It’s about fairness, … not being unmotivated. Issues of fairness such as not being treated with respect, being talked to in a condescending way — these are the things that really bother people at work....

Very often, companies try to get these quick highs instead of fixing the more fundamental questions of fairness and being treated with respect,

The ancients saw work as a necessity and a curse, … The medieval Catholic church bestowed on work a simple dignity; the Renaissance humanist gave it glamour. But the Protestants endowed work with the quest...

Somebody who doesn’t have a lot of self-confidence, … Somebody who feels the need to have some kind of pep talk, who’s not self-motivated.