The Mystic Manager
by
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No matter where I have been or what work I have been engaged in, someone has always been quick to point out that the real world is someplace else. If you think back, you have probably had a similar experience. Consider this: I have over thirty years of varied work experience. However, according to many, none of those experiences qualify as realworld encounters. I have been a college professor and administrator; a middle manager for a Fortune 500 company; a consultant to business, education, and government; a sole proprietor; an artist; a psychologist; and today a seminar co-leader advocating something called Mystic Management. If none of my experiences qualify as realworld, I can't even imagine how challenging the real world must be and how brave the souls must be who claim to have traversed its hard-knocks topography. As a younger man, when the opinions of others influenced me more, I left a very comfortable management faculty position specifically to gain some experience in that real world that everybody was talking about. Thirsting for reality and significance, I entered the corporate milieu. I thought that I might better serve my students with some realworld experience behind me. I could justify temporarily giving up what I loved, teaching, in order to someday go back to the classroom minus the stigma of never having worked in the real world. I wasn't on that new corporate job a week before someone made it very clear that the real world was in a different part of the corporation! It definitely was not where I was. It was in some other department, some other function in some other building. It's fascinating how people are always pointing out where the real world is. And, of course, it's never where you are; or at least it has never been where I am, especially now as ‘The Father of Mystic Management.’ I wonder if other ‘fathers’ had this kind of trouble? Charles Babbage, ‘The Father of the Computer,’ or, perhaps, Frederick Taylor, ‘The Father of Scientific Management,’ or Elton Mayo, ‘The Father of the Human Relations Movement,’ . . . In any event, the real world is always someplace else, someplace where others are or have purportedly been. At the very least, they know intimately someone who's in the real world right now, as we speak. If you're in training, the real action is in sales. If you're in sales, the real action is in some other company. And if you're in sales in that other company, then the action is someplace else altogether . . . and I know a guy who . . . . The implication is always that the real world, a place where I never seem to be, is somehow harder, tougher, more demanding, dangerous, elite, faster, showier, more exciting, more dramatic, and clearly out of my reach. And, of course, when I was younger the real world was even more elusive . . . The result is uncomfortable at best. Our identity and self-esteem suffer in this quest for the elusive real world. The desire to belong, to be a part of some defined special community, the desire to be relevant, distorts our view of our present individual reality. Our world collapses into cloudy confusion. In this confusion much time and energy are spent trying to rid ourselves of the inner ‘shoulds’ and ‘I'm not good enoughs.’ In this quest for inner growth we often become detached from our own reality, whatever that reality is (i.e. college student, teacher, administrator, manager, artist, psychologist, or Mystic Management proponent). Indeed, our individual present moments, the only real world we have, slip right past us and we watch; we watch as if spectators at our own lives.This is a game for which the price of admission is too high. I would profess that wherever you are is real enough. After over thirty years of working in jobs deemed non-real-world by others, I still can't tell the difference in realness between the stresses of tomorrow's mid-term examination, tomorrow's neurotic patient, tomorrow's art show, tomorrow's planning report, tomorrow's cash flow, or for that matter today’s lecture on Mystic Management which I was thinking about yesterday . . . “
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About the Book
The Mystic Manager is a vision for the future and a counterbalance to the disturbing economic times we face - times brought about by greed and misuse of corporate power. The book is personal and a contribution placed into the collective unconscious to do what good it can. Mystic Management is a unique approach to the development of positive corporate culture. The building blocks for this culture are creativity, empowerment, generosity, kindness, integrity, and diversity. The inspiration for this culture evolves through the cosmic linking of two planets, the Planet Eyespell and the Planet Earth. The author promised himself he would never write a typical management textbook. The Mystic Manager is the fulfillment of that promise combining solid management theory with a highly developed sense of community and ethical behavior bound in a fantasy/sci-fi environment. The book fits no genre exactly. It's not fiction, but certainly not non-fiction . . . and therein lies its flavor, unique.
About the Author
Dr. John Cicero has been an educator for more than four decades. He has held administrative and teaching positions from community college to graduate level. He has been a middle manager for a Fortune 500 Company and a psychotherapist providing personal, marriage and family counseling. Dr. Cicero holds both his Ph.D. and M.B.A. degrees from Syracuse University. His Bachelors Degree is from the University of Rochester. The Mystic Manager is Dr. Cicero's vision for the future and a counterbalance to the disturbing economic times we face - times brouht about by greed and misuse of corporate power. The book is personal and a contribution placed into the collective unconscious to do what good it can. Mystic Management is a unique approach to the development of positive corporate culture. The building blocks for this culture are creativity, empowerment, generosity, kindness, integrity, and diversity. The inspiration for this culture evolves through the cosmic linking of two planets, the Planet Eyespell and the Planet Earth. Dr. Cicero promised himself he would never write a typical management textbook. The Mystic Manager is the fulfillment of that promise combining solid management theory with a highly developed sense of community and ethical behavior bound in a fantasy/sci-fi environment. The book fits no genre exactly. It's not fiction, but certainly not non-fiction . . . and therein lies its flavor, unique. Dr. Cicero lives in Redding, California with his wife Christina. He continues to teach full time at the locial community college and has no plans for retirement.