Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up
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What Would Machiavelli Do? and Throwing the Elephant. Fortune's Stanley Bing has written two very different but complementary survival guides for today's business world. Inspired by the Florentine master, Bing offers (in Machiavelli) a way of seeing colleagues and rivals from 50,000 feet -- as teeny-tiny ants you can squish. When this method doesn't work (e.g., you have a boss), Bing counsels a Zen approach (in Elephant) that will allow you to render the elephant (i.e., your boss) weightless -- and throw and play catch with it at corporate retreats.Sit down. Breathe deep. This is the last business book you will ever need. For in these pages, acclaimed business humorist Stanley Bing solves the ultimate problem of your working life: How to manage the boss.
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I've considered this book on two levels, and it's bad on both of them. Initially this book was recommended to me as a handbook for managing one's managers, at a time when I was dissatisfied with my boss. (Thankfully, I've changed jobs since then.) It doesn't seem to be that, containing virtually no actionable advice. So I recalibrated my expectations.
It seems to be meant as business humor. Unfortunately, the author is not very funny. Decent jokes are few and far between, and mostly the reader wades through smarmy little wisecracks about expense accounts and the like. It's bland pap by an author with nothing to say for middle managers to feel smug about themselves.
I'm not sure how the author has had several books published. Don't waste your time.
