Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
The elephant referred to in this title of this witty, subversive, and joyfully manipulative little book is your boss, the powerful but lumbering and self-involved authority figure that Fortune columnist Stanley Bing believes is comfortably ensconced in your company's corner office. Bing begins his manual on the care and feeding of these "business elephants" with the admonition that people don't get to choose their bosses; like the weather or gravity, bosses exist as laws of nature that exceed the control of the mere mortal mosquitoes that hover about them. If you can't pick your boss, you must then learn to do the second-best thing, which Bing defines as coping with, mollifying, and perhaps even taming the beast to whom your fortunes are tied. And just how is that feat to be managed? What Bing offers is a tongue-in-cheek version of Zen thought that resembles nothing so much as the philosophy Machiavelli would have come up with if he'd meditated under the banyan tree in place of Buddha. Consider this quote from early in the book: "Zen will enable you to take an object of enormous weight and size and mold it in your grasp like a ball of Silly Putty. For senior management is, in truth, the silliest putty of them all." This book is filled with similar comments as well as phony pie charts, chapters with such titles such as "The Six-Petaled Flower of Bogus Atonement," and bar graphs that document the relative inappropriateness of uttering certain words at important meetings ("budget shortfall" is the most heinous topic you can broach, with "earwax" a not too distant second). Without too much effort, Bing manages to skewer new age truisms, PowerPoint presentations, and business culture in general. But beneath the fun, there's a real message here -- your boss matters, and you'd better learn how to deal with that.
Throwing the Elephant is likely to become the kind of book that people start reading because it makes them laugh and end up giving to their friends because there's so much to learn from it. While it's a little lopsided to see the boss/employee dynamic as exclusively a power-based relationship, there's still a lot of wisdom about corporate life packed into Bing's petite book, which, like the "Dilbert" cartoons, succeeds in suggesting aspects of workplace culture that almost everyone can relate to. Now, of course, someone needs to write a book for the elephants, telling them how to deal with those pesky mosquitoes who keep buzzing around them, clamoring for attention and drinking up their lifeblood. (Sunil Sharma)
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Sit down. Breathe deep. This is the last business book you will ever need. For in these pages, Stanley Bing solves the ultimate problem of your working life: How to manage the boss.
The technique is simple . . . as simple as throwing an elephant. All it takes is the proper state of mind, a step-by-step plan, and a great leap of faith. This humble guide provides all these and more. It is Zen that enables one to take an object of enormous weight and size and mold it in one's grasp like a ball of Silly Putty. For senior management, in truth, is the silliest putty of them all.
This comprehensive course walks budding business bodhisattvas through basic skills needed to provide the simple elephant handling that makes everyday life possible, including but not limited to the primary task of following along after the elephant with a little broom and dustpan. Serious students will then move to intermediate steps, from Polishing the Elephant's Tusks to Hiding from the Elephant When It Has Been Drinking and Feels Quite Nasty. Beyond this level lies the land of the practiced Zen masters, culminating in the ability to leverage and then throw the now-weightless elephant—and even play catch with it at corporate retreats.
If What Would Machiavelli Do? was the meanest business book since the Renaissance, Throwing the Elephant provides the yang to that yin. Because sometimes you've got to be selfless, compassionate, and completely empty to get the job done.
Stanley Bing is a columnist for Fortune magazine and the author of What Would Machiavelli Do? and Lloyd: What Happened, a novel. By day, he works for a gigantic multinational conglomeratewhose identity is one of the worst-kept secrets in business.
SYNOPSIS
Sit down. Breathe deep. This is the last business book you will ever need. For in these pages, Stanley Bing solves the ultimate problem of your working life: How to manage the boss.
The technique is simple . . . as simple as throwing an elephant. All it takes is the proper state of mind, a step-by-step plan, and a great leap of faith.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
In a spoof of just about every career advice and management-by-metaphor book ever created, Bing (What Would Machiavelli Do?) delivers a Zen-like guide to managing your boss. The premise? Here's what Buddha would tell you if he were your personal career coach. A book juxtaposing faux-Zen advice with embarrassing corporate situations (e.g., how to handle a drunken boss) is almost guaranteed to be funny. Bing, "an ultra-senior officer at an elephantine corporation," has plenty of firsthand anecdotes to tell, and he supplements them with stories about some of the notoriously toughest bosses on the planet, like Martha Stewart and Citigroup's Sandy Weill. There are chapters on critiquing your boss ("any bitter pill of criticism one offers an elephant must be buried within a vast tub of cream cheese") and "facing the angry elephant" (when you're to blame for your boss's anger, "breathe deeply. Breath is life"). Despite the amusing anecdotes, though, Bing's narrative can become a bit wearying if one reads more than a couple of chapters in one sitting. However, if an employee only breaks out Bing's book when the elephant is having a particularly bad couple of weeks, enlightenment is certain. (Mar. 25) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Bing (What Would Machiavelli Do?) has written a clever book on how to manage elephants, a.k.a. bosses. According to the author, "only the power of Zen contemplation will result in a happy business life for the subordinate who yearns for understanding, control, and enlightenment. It is the practice of Business Zen that will enable you, in the end, after much trial and failure, to throw the elephant who is your boss." Through case studies and guidelines, Bing discusses steps to achieving control over the elephant, with such practical chapters as "Greeting the Elephant," "Rejoicing with the Elephant," and "Getting a Leash on the Elephant." Here, for instance, Bing's advice on greetings: "A quick handshake and formal greeting in an elevator is appropriate. A gushing invocation of lifelong admiration for the elephant is not." Witty and thought-provoking, this imaginative and unique work is recommended for public libraries and practitioners and students of business. Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
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