Amazon.com
Though not nearly as well known as Ford or Edison, Frederick Winslow Taylor's influence on the modern age is no less significant; management guru Peter Drucker calls Taylor "the most powerful as well as the most lasting contribution America has made to Western thought since the Federalist Papers." Although Taylor's name may have been forgotten by the masses, the management practices he implemented have become the worldwide standard for efficiency. Taylor invented what became known as "Scientific Management," or simply "Taylorism," an approach to organizing factories and offices that placed workers within a rigid system designed for maximum productivity. Taylor broke down the machinery and management of industrialization, measuring each movement with stopwatch precision to deduce how the whole could operate more efficiently. A man perfectly suited to his times, he lived during the peak of the Industrial Revolution, providing him a grand stage for displaying his ideas. Today his legacy may be viewed by some as a sort of curse; the modern workplace he helped to create pits employees in a race against the clock, virtual slaves to a system created nearly a century ago. The One Best Way is a fascinating history of the man who revolutionized the way we do business and, in turn, the way we live.
Book Description
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) was the first efficiency expert, the original time-and-motion man -- the father of scientific management, the inventor of a system that became known, inevitably enough, as Taylorism. "In the past the man has been first. In the future the System will be first," he predicted boldly, and accurately. Taylor bequeathed to us, writes Robert Kanigel in this definitive biography, a clockwork world of tasks timed to the hundredth of a minute. Taylor helped instill in us the obsession with time, order, productivity, and efficiency that marks our age. His influence can be seen in factories, schools, offices, hospitals, libraries, even kitchen design. At the peak of his celebrity in the early twentieth century, Taylor gave lectures around the country and was as famous as Edison or Ford. To organized labor, he was a slave driver; to the bosses, he was an eccentric and a radical. To himself, he was a misunderstood visionary whose "one best way" would bring prosperity to worker and boss alike. Robert Kanigel's compelling chronicle takes Taylor from privileged Philadelphia childhood to factory floor to international fame, telling the story of a paradigmatic American figure whose influence would be felt from the New Deal to Soviet Russia and remains pervasive -- even insidious -- today.
Customer Reviews:
gee, it never gets started.......2007-01-28
200 pages into the book and I was still wondering when he was going to tell us about
what Fred was really known for ( Efficiency theory).
Most of the book seems to be taken with excusing Frederick Winslow Taylor
for not understanding why there was a union movement
in an America of 12 hour days and child labor.
The Japanese think the fellow is just fine and have resurrected him as an Icon.
His downfall seems to have been cursing at a Congressman
in a Congressional hearing on labor practices.
People were dying in factories everywhere in America
during this era of overwork and under pay.
I don't think that "Sloan Technology" is going to be successful in
this hero resurrection. It is just sorry that a good biographer should
have taken this job. His Ramanujan book was really good.
An excellent history about a man who changed the world.......2005-06-20
Frederick Winslow Taylor virtually created some aspects of modern management. His influence was so powerful and so pervasive, that many things we now take for granted were concepts that he pioneered and if you hear about Taylor at all, it's usually with a strong negative judgpment.
Taylor, who did some of the very first efficiency studies, is vilified as the person who tried to turn people into machines. He's seen as the progenitor of the efficiency studies. The first of those assumptions is partially true, and the second is certainly true that needs to be set in context..
What author Robert Kanigal has done is clean up the facts and set Taylor in context.
He does this with an excellent history/biography. We learn that Taylor, who came from a wealthy background, also spent time working in machine shops. We find him learning as much from that process as from formal education; and claiming at times that the practical experience of working in a shop is necessary to understand industry - or at least industry as it was developing when he did his studies.
That time was the late 19th and early 20th Century. Even though the Industrial Revolution had been going on for awhile, factories were still developing into what we know them as today. Taylor showed how individual workers could be more efficient and effective. This was great for production, but not always popular with the workers he studied.
Taylor's studies gave rise to what was called "scientific management" and laid the groundwork for later "efficiency experts" like the Gilbreaths of "Cheaper by the Dozen" fame. His legacy is both positive and negative.
Part of his positive legacy is that Taylor demonstrated that you could actually study the way work was done and make improvements in the process. That's a powerful insight and like most powerful insights, it can be used for good or ill.
One of Taylor's famous studies, for example, tried to determine the most efficient way to shovel coal into steel mill furnaces. Taylor found that the mill could make great improvements in efficiency by changing things like the location of the pile of coal, the design of the shovel, and by allowing the shovellers to take periodic rest breaks.
Lots of folks who owned factories loved things like this. They got the shovels. The located the pile of coal where Taylor suggested. But they often left out things the didn't like, such as those periodic rest breaks.
What Taylor gave the world were powerful methods of analysis that can make factories and shops and offices more effective. In that sense, he would be the grandparent of techniques like operations research, statistical quality control and kaizen.
But, like the rest of us, Taylor was a product of his times, of his breeding, and of his experience. Like the rest of us, he had human flaws. The strength of this book is that it gives you a look at the whole picture.
You get to see just how remarkable Taylor's insights were, and how his life and experience shaped those insights. You get to see how others took what he had to say and used it both for good and for ill. And you get that all in a well-written biography that will hold your attention.
The Most Influential Man of the 21st Century.......2002-06-14
Kanigel illuminates the life and times of both Fred Taylor and the revolution his ideas spawned. Without explicitly understanding how Taylor's ideas have shaped our lives we cannot understand the profound impact this 19th Centruy man continues having on our day-to-day lives. With the often misplaced notion of efficiency so deeply ingrained in the very fabric of our lives, we often ignore the profound impacts of blind quests for efficiency.
Who do you know who can reliably recognize the tipping point where efficiency destroys effectiveness (and with it competitiveness)? Who do you know who would challenge changes in the name of efficiency because the changes would impair quality, effectiveness, morale, or labor relations? Without understanding Fred Taylor and efficiency, how can you avoid mistaken applications of the notion? What will keep a 19th Century man from being the most influential man of both the 20th Century and the 21st Century?
Fredrick Winslow Taylor in context and portrayed honestly.......2002-05-27
This is a wonderful book. You shouldn't reject this book based upon your opinion of its subject. The books is written very well and evokes enough of the times in which Taylor lived to give us a more nuanced portrait of the man within the context of his world.
Nowadays, F.W. Taylor is often portrayed as either a villain who has all but enslaved us or he is defended as not really meaning what he said. Instead, this book shows us Taylor's nineteenth century upper middle-class background and spends a good amount of time on character development and work habits.
Once all this is understood, Taylor's seemingly obsessive goals become more understandable. He did have many important insights in making work efficient. When he began manufacturing was done in thousands of very small shops. It was horribly inefficient. His work did help our economy and helped the average worker become more productive. However, I still can't understand how someone could think having a human body physically haul 47 tons of pig iron per day is a good thing. There is a definite quality of life aspect that still wasn't grasped by these early efficiency experts.
Another extremely valuable topic the author clarifies is that Henry Ford's assembly line had more to do with meatpacking than Taylor's Scientific Management. Taylor's critics have unjustly used Henry Ford's manufacturing techniques as evidence against Taylor's methods when Ford himself made statements denying Taylor's influence. Also, like many original thinkers, Taylor was ill served by many who came after him and used his name but not his methods. This is all clearly laid out in this valuable book.
This isn't a whitewash or a book of simple praise. It paints a complex portrait of Taylor, but gives us enough context to understand him within his time. We get to know something of his character and that helps a great deal. It is a big book but reads short and is surprisingly engaging for a book on manufacturing. This book gave me insights into the early twentieth century that I needed to make certain pieces fall into place. It has a prominent place in my library and I hope a lot of people read it.
600 pages on a guy who had one good idea.......2001-05-14
For anyone who has worked - on an assembly line, as a bureaucrat-in-a-box - the greatest workplace nemesis is a nonexistent ideal: the theoretical person against whom your "efficiency" is measured. Often, not even a boss or office rival is as irritating as this cold standard, the product of stopwatch-wielding efficiency experts and industrial psychologists who claim to have a scientific measure of "average output." In The One Best Way, science writer Robert Kanigel examines the first so-called efficiency expert of them all: Frederick Taylor, the turn-of-the-century engineer and pioneering management consultant.
Taylor's idea was simple: break down all jobs into their smallest component tasks, experiment to determine the best way to accomplish them and how fast they can be performed, and then find the right workers to do them. It was called scientific management, or "Taylorism" -- a formula to maximize the productivity of industrial workers. "The coming of Taylorism," Kanigel writes, took "currents of thought drifting through his own time -- standards, order, production, regularity, efficiency -- and codif[ied] them into a system that defines our age."
Though he had an enormous impact on our everyday lives, today Taylor is little known outside management circles. This is curious: in his own time, Taylor was a world-class celebrity, advocating an organizational revolution that would link harder work to higher wages -- as well as instituting shorter working hours and regular "cigarette breaks." His books and articles were translated into all the major languages and passionately studied, even in the Soviet Union, as guides to a future industrial utopia; he was, in many ways, Stalin's prophet. Yet Taylor was also reviled as a slave driver who devalued skilled labor and despised the common worker, and he was ridiculed as a failure in many of his business undertakings.
Much of Kanigel's book is devoted to descriptions of the shops that Taylor worked in: a ball-bearing factory, a paper mill, and machine-tool plants, to name a few. It's dramatic how different the world he describes is from the work environment of today. Here were no highly educated managers attempting to exercise minute control over relatively unskilled employees. Instead, craftsmen dominated these oily pits -- spinning steel-cutting lathes, constructing elaborate sand molds for machine tools, and maintaining the gigantic leather belts that harnessed the energy of central steam engines. THis was in many ways the most fascinating part of the book for me: I learned what people did in the decaying mills that surrounded my New England home.
To all but the most practiced eye, such a workplace was a chaotic scene. What the craftsmen did -- and what they were capable of -- was largely a mystery to management, which deprived the managers of control and power, leading to a number of stunningly counterproductive practices. If tool and die makers produced jigs beyond a certain threshold, for example, 19th-century foremen would dock (!) their pay per item -- an obvious incentive for them to slow down. And because ball-bearing inspectors in a Fitchburg mill worked slowly and talked too much, they were forced to put in 101/2 -hour days, without breaks.
Taylor witnessed such practices and decided to change them. In one of his most famous experiments, on "Schmidt", he got a common laborer to double the number of bars of pig iron he transported down a plank each day. All he did was pay the man more, linking higher output directly to higher wages -- hardly a revolutionary thought today. His solution for the gossipy ball-bearing inspectors was to separate them, shorten their working hours, increase their pay, and allow them to relax occasionally; in return, they were expected to work harder, and they did.
Once Kanigel establishes that Taylor's method worked well (to a certain extent), the book becomes tough going. Despite his elegant prose, Kanigel's exhaustive treatment of his subject's life and experiments strained my interest. Do we really need to know, for example, that Taylor once spent months alternating the size of coal shovels in the name of furnace-stoking efficiency? Or the entire list of his vacation companions for one summer? Such biographical detail can add spice to a compelling narrative, but to include them only as an exercise in thoroughness, as Kanigel does, is simply tiring. Taylor simply is not interesting as a personality.
Kanigel also glosses over many important issues. Taylorism really did devalue certian kind sof skilled labor, and the costs have been high. The "Taylorized" doctors of the HMO era, for example, must work with administrators peeking over their shoulders, dispensing pills at the expense of empathy and other unmeasurable healing skills. And once factory workers lost their control and even their comprehension of manufacturing processes, many ceased to take pride in their work and stopped making suggestions for improvement. This may be one reason why Japanese and European design is often superior to American. Taylorism also spawned the rise of management consulting, with its sham exercises and goals -- often a huge diversion of managerial talent in the name of efficiency. Kanigel, however, largely ignores this darker side of Taylorism; the true impact of his legacy gets lost in the details. The result is a 600-page profile of a narrow and compulsive man with a single, if influential, idea.
Recommended, but only for scholars and specialists.
Product Description
Biography of Taylor, but real subject is when craftsmanship became efficiency huckstering? Taylor was its king.
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100 Years of Hockey
Brian McFarlane
Manufacturer: Summerhill Pr Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0929091264 |
Average customer rating:
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Brian McFarlane's World of Hockey
Brian McFarlane
Manufacturer: Stoddart
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Biographies
| Sports
| Subjects
| Books
Hockey
| Biographies
| Sports
| Subjects
| Books
History of Sports
| Miscellaneous
| Sports
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Hockey
| Sports
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sports
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0773762469 |
Customer Reviews:
Terrific book.......2001-05-24
One of the best hockey books I've ever read -- and I've read a ton. Highly readable and terrific insight and anecdotes from past and current players as well as officials and team owners. If you are a hockey fan, buy this book!
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X-Rated: The Paranormal Experiences of the Movie Star Greats
Michael Munn
Manufacturer: Robson Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Movies
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| New Age
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Occult
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
Parapsychology
| Occult
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1861052375 |
Book Description
Jamaican dancehall has long been one of the most vital and influential cultural and artistic forces within contemporary global music. Wake the Town and Tell the People presents, for the first time, a lively, nuanced, and comprehensive view of this musical and cultural phenomenon: its growth and historical role within Jamaican society, its economy of star making, its technology of production, its performative practices, and its capacity to channel political beliefs through popular culture in ways that are urgent, tangible, and lasting.
Norman C. Stolzoff brings a fan’s enthusiasm to his broad perspective on dancehall, providing extensive interviews, original photographs, and anthropological analysis from eighteen months of fieldwork in Kingston. Stolzoff argues that this enormously popular musical genre expresses deep conflicts within Jamaican society, not only along lines of class, race, gender, sexuality, and religion but also between different factions struggling to gain control of the island nation’s political culture. Dancehall culture thus remains a key arena where the future of this volatile nation is shaped. As his argument unfolds, Stolzoff traces the history of Jamaican music from its roots in the late eighteenth century to 1945, from the addition of sound systems and technology during the mid-forties to early sixties, and finally through the post-independence years from the early sixties to the present.
Wake the Town and Tell the People offers a general introduction for those interested in dancehall music and culture. For the fan or musicologist, it will serve as a comprehensive reference book.
Customer Reviews:
Comprehensive Dancehall Reference!.......2003-08-27
This is an excellant book, written by a genuinely knowledgeable scholar of dancehall music and Jamaican popular culture. Dr. Stolzoff has done an incredible amount of research for this book and puts it altogether with Wake The Town. A must for all reggae and dancehall afficionados. This book will be a classic for a long time.
Exceptional Research Study.......2001-02-28
I would like to commend Mr. Stolzoff for an in depth and enjoyable study of dancehall reggae. Being a dancehall fan for some time now, it's wonderful to see the music and culture being taken seriously. Ready first hand accounts of artists like the great Tenor Saw was an unexpected and exciting part of the book. Mr. Stolzoff goes indept as he discusses the origins of dancehall back to Africa right up to today with the top artists like Buju Banton, Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Sizzla, etc etc. As Ricky Trooper says in the begining of the book, if you haven't been to the dancehall before, you wouldn't understand it, dancehall it something that you have to experience. Great reading!
A Whole New Insight to Jamaican Music!.......2000-10-06
As a lover of the creative, colorful and very controversial culture known as Jamaican dancehall, I received this book ecstatically, but I wasn't quite sure of what to expect. I mean, this is a world that changes so rapidly that any attempts to document it have felt outdated even before their ink dried. I thought Stolzoff would play it safe and keep his approach as superficial as possible-a nice coffee table book perhaps, filled with eye-pleasing full-color pix of scantily-dressed dancehall queens, posturing dapper dons, maybe even the occasional text paragraph with amusing tidbits like, "Whatever happened to Wayne 'Sleng Teng' Smith?" Instead, I found a meticulously researched study packed with so much detail that several times I had to "wheel back and come again" (re-read pages) in order to digest it all.
Of course, this isn't the first piece of writing to cast a critical eye on dancehall; but past discussions (helmed mostly by staunch roots reggae apologists who make no bones about expressing their view of the subject as an anti-musical ebola responsible for devouring the innards of upright, "real" reggae as exemplified by the likes of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Burning Spear), irrespective of whether they have been pro- or anti-dancehall, have all revolved to varying degrees around the old dancehall "reggae" vs. "traditional" reggae issue.
Stolzoff distinguishes himself from the pack by sidestepping that stumbling block altogether: In (what I think is) a revolutionary move, he posits ALL Jamaican music, in essence, as dancehall-from the creolized drum and fiddle music of 18th century slave frolics to the thundering amplified bass blaring from contemporary Kingston sound systems. In short, he sees dancehall not as a distinct genre of music, but as an interactive method of experiencing music that might be specifically Jamaican.
Stolzoff's an anthropologist, not a rock critic, so rather than examining the music in isolation, he reconstructs the world that is dancehall's context, starting from the beginning with the sound systems, the cornerstone of the Jamaican music world.( Stolzoff scores a major coup by including extensive interviews with sound system pioneers like Hedley Jones, who provide a lot of insight into the Jamaican music experience prior to the birth of the local music industry-all other books on reggae up until this time have summed the whole era up in a sentence or two). Upon that foundation, Stolzoff layers the various social and ideological trends that have shaped the dancehall: rude boys, Rastafar-I, fashion, technology... You come to see that as chaotic as the dancehall universe appears to be, it is a well-ordered cosmology where everything has its place: sexuality, piety, violence, flamboyance, humility... They can all co-exist.
What I really, really love is the "career trajectory" Stolzoff maps out from his observation of the dancehall field. Using many of the aspiring and established dancehall stars he befriended, Stolzoff illustrates the stages of a career as a performer in the dancehall economy-which is an actual economy that employs millions of Jamaicans in various capacities.
I think this is definitely an important book and a complete must-read not only for fans of Jamaican music, but for anybody interested in the way that music and culture intersect with the daily lives of its participants.
The Definitive Book on Dancehall Music.......2000-09-26
This book is too incredible to believe. For those of us who are into dancehall, when we are in the midst of it, study and academia seem so far away. I never thought it was something that someone could record on paper and carry the true vibes of the whole thing. Stolzoff has not only captured the vibes of the dancehall itself, but also the vibes of life for the dancehall community, the economy, and the realities of Jamaica today. For anyone who ever wanted to get away from the tourist fakeries of what you think Jamaica and reggae music are all about, this book is for you. Of course there is nothing like the true experience of the dancehall itself, but outside of that, this book is the next best thing. Buy this book, you won't regret it. Even most of us Jamaicans, can learn a thing or two from it. And for my anthropologists out there, this book is the most gripping, meaningful ethnography since Bourgois' "In Search of Respect : Selling Crack in El Barrio".
Wonderful book for scholars, students and fans.......2000-07-26
As funky, ferocious, and fun as any big beat coming out a sound system in downtown Kingston on a summer night, this book brings Jamaican dancehall to life with some scintillating prose 'riddims'. A sensitive and vivid writer and a longtime student of all things Jamaican, Stolzoff goes everywhere, knows everyone, and brings it all together in the best book on popular culture that I have read in years. A must-read for anyone interested in contemporary music, African-American studies, or the Caribbean. Kudos also to the publisher for creating a beautifully designed book, with many superb photos from Stolzoff's camera. This book will be a classic for many years to come.
Randy Lewis Assistant Professor of American Studies University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma
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The Ryder Gambit Accepted
Eric Schiller
Manufacturer: Chess Enterprises
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0945470576 |
Book Description
The impossible people who make life’s journey so difficult are everywhere—at the office, in restaurants, on airplanes, living next door, members of your own family. They’re . . .
• your “nothing is ever good enough” boss
• the “no price is ever low enough” client
• the next-door neighbor who redefines the meaning of paranoia
• the maître d’ who looks through you as if you don’t exist
• the father-in-law who you know is always thinking about how much better a life his Janey or Joey would have if only married to someone other than you
Ron Shapiro and Mark Jankowski give you a simple and highly effective 4-point plan for dealing with all of them and more—N.I.C.E. Their system shows you how to neutralize your emotions so you don’t just react but act purposefully and wisely. It enables you to identify the type of bully, tyrant, or impossible person you’re facing—the situationally difficult (something has happened that turns an otherwise reasonable person into a temporary terror); the strategically difficult (she has empirical evidence that being difficult is a strategy that gets results); or simply difficult (being difficult is his 24/7 M.O.). Then you’ll learn how to shape the outcome by controlling the encounter and, finally, how to get “unstuck” by exploring your options.
Using colorful stories from all walks of life— “He called me the scum of the earth and it went downhill from there,” “First, lock all your vendors in a small room,” and “The boss from hell”—the authors bring their lessons to life, from business life to family life.
Customer Reviews:
If you deal with "difficult" people, you MUST read this book!.......2007-10-04
BULLIES, TYRANTS & IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE by Ronald M. Shapiro and Mark A.
Jankowski is a book whose title caught my attention . . . when
I then saw the subtitle--HOW TO BEAT THEM WITHOUT JOINING
THEM--I was hooked with the awareness that this something
that I had to read, because I often find myself having to deal
with folks that might well be considered "difficult" only because
I'm trying to be generous here.
The authors, founders of the Shapiro Negotiations Institute,
bring in many examples that can be applied to life, home
and work situations . . . what's best is that these are
real, coming from such diverse fields as sports, politics,
dining out, and personal relationships, to name just a few.
As I was reading, I kept thinking how Shaprio and
Jankowski made difficult situations seem as if they
could all be handled, such as this one example
involving Phil Jackson when he was coaching the
Chicago Bulls:
He recounted in INC. magazine how his players learned that the best
way to overcome someone who is attacking you, emotionally or
otherwise, is to replace the impulse to strike back with the impulse
to become more focused on the game. Jackson recounted that
when the Bulls played the Detroit Pistons in the late 1980s,
Detroit would win because the Pistons were able to incite the Bulls
into fighting back. It was not until the Bulls learned to control
their "strike-back" impulse that they were able to overcome the
Pistons. As Jackson recalled, "Everybody on our team was
slammed around. . . . Players were tackled, tripped, elbowed,
and smacked in the face. But they all laughed it off. The Pistons
didn't know how to respond. We completely disarmed them by not
striking back. At that moment, our players became true champions."
I gained another valuable tidbit of information when I read about how
Shapiro and Jankowski talked about "writing their press release" . . . they
said:
It can be challenging for most of us to come up with solutions
that allow the other side to save face. Because it's hard to step
outside of ourselves and think like the other side. (Hey, they are
the other side. How could they be right?) One technique we
have used to bridge the gap to their foreign territory is the
exercise of "writing the other side's press release." In other words,
as you come up with options they may find attractive, give
yourself the hypothetical assignment of crafting a statement to
the press that explains why the resolution is a "win" for the other
person, as if you are the other person. Forcing yourself to go
through this exercise will ensure that you frame proposals or
options from a point of view that demonstrates benefit to the
other side. It is rare that you will ever be in a situation in which
you are writing a real (not just hypothetical) press release. But
once it did happen to Ron. He did actually write the press release
to announce the other side's "victory" (which, in reality, he had
shaped and defined on behalf of his client). It's a story that
graphically demonstrates why options work and how to employ
them to get out of a maze filled with apparent impasses.
Lastly, I liked the fact that humor was also used throughout
the book, such as in this retelling of a famous anecdote about
executives who worked for the infamous banking baron J. P. Morgan:
Morgan was tyrannical. He demanded endless, thankless work from
his cadre of distinguished, educated, highly skilled business
managers. He was notorious for never complimenting, but always
disparaging their efforts, privately and publicly. But he paid
them huge sums of money. When asked why these men
continued to work for the abusive Morgan, one replied,
"He's got us by our limousines."
I don't know if I'll go quite that far in working with others. . . however,
as a result of reading BULLIES, TYRANTS & IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE,
I will now go out of my way to recommend it to others--particularly
if they deal with such folks on any sort of regular basis.
How to Handle Bullies.......2007-04-03
I purchased this book because I was having problems in my department. My supervisor, a head counselor and a co worker were giving me a hard time (i.e. hacking my computer, harrassing me, etc.) Thanks to this book, I know how to handle them without stressing out. Many of my friends suggested that I pack up and leave without a fight. I thought that was crazy as I have been on the job for 14 years and the main person who caused all the grief have only been with the company for 3 years. I never had a problem standing my ground as I fight back with the above bullies. This book however, teaches you how to mentally fight back and outlast the bullies.
First the book focuses on identifying the bullies. Then it gives you a plan of action for each "type" of bully once you have identified them. It's premise is working to outsmart the bully versus fighting back which I did and it always ended up back to square one. The book also gives you scenarios and different real life cases (both successful and failures) so that you can know how to incorporate the lessons in your life and learn from the author's failures.
You must realize that you cannot keep running from corporate bullies. My sister does and she has had 15 jobs within the past 6 years. Not only did the bullies win, but her job resume reads like a book and makes her appear to be the trouble maker. Once I finish I am going to loan this book to her. I always tell my friends, just because you run from one bully another bully always surfaces, it may not be at work (and sometimes it will like my sister's corporate bullies) it may be in some other area. People...you cannot keep running from these types all of your life. At one point in time you are going to have to stand and face the music. I'm glad that I did...I ended up getting the raise that I fought for 13 years (my co worker is a brown noser and got one immediately, hence I fought back and the bullying started). Plus, now I have piece of mind knowing that I can handle any BULLY that comes my way. This book is a keeper..keep it in your library to refer back to....now, I have another bully to concur...my car dealership...a long story...but I feel confident I can handle the situation.
A MUST read!!!.......2006-08-29
Being in corporate America, raising a family, holding leadership positions within the community- this book arms you with the tools to take on any challenges within those environments. I suggest it to anyone who finds themselves in a "hot" situation. It's a must read again and again!
Excellent book about dealing with difficult people.......2005-09-13
"Bullies, Tyrants, and Impossible People" is an excellent book about dealing with difficult people. We have all had to deal with person that flies into a rage, tries to use unscrupulous tactics to get their way, or is just plain difficult.
Shapiro and Jankowski present the material in an excellent fashion. Each topic they bring up is followed by an example situation that they have experienced and how the technique they used broke down the techniques of the difficult person. They also give instructions to identify what type of difficult person you are dealing with as well as a step by step formula to put you back in control of the situation.
The only negative thing I have to say about this book is that the techniques are easier said than done. The first and most important step for dealing with negative people is learning to control your emotions which is hard to do when you are being yelled at or taken advantage of.
I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn to deal difficult people. It's easy to read, easy to remember, and gives lots of examples. 5 out of 5 stars.
Let's Negotiate........2005-08-17
We've always heard that if you can't 'beat them' to join them. This book has the opposite approach -- do not join in with these weird troublemakers. These authors started their own management aides with the systematic approach to getting what you want: Neutralize your emotions, Identify type, Control the encounter, Explore options. In fact, they wrote a book called THE POWER OF NICE.
From grade school on, we have been exposed to bullies, usually the bigger, richer and fatter kids who bully the smaller ones on the playground. I know someone who was called "Carrot Head" to make fun of his red hair; he asked me, "What were you called on the playground?" I told him I was not singled out to be called anything. I was active, atlethic for someone so small (a regular little tomboy who could play ball and run with the best of them). However, my boys were sometimes bullied twenty-five years later. The older black kids picked on Jeff because he was so much smarter than they, and almost caused him to be hit by a car when he was trying to get away from them on his bicycle.
Zach was sensitive, so he was of the kind who would join so as not to be bullied, and he excelled in sports (for his size) and earned their support and respect. They thought he was a tough guy and so 'cool' with his swagger -- and he was not ashamed of his musical and artistic talents.
Justin became one of the bullies, as he got in with the bigger boys from the wrong side of the tracks. He blended in and became one of them, abandoning his music and the arts for the juvenile antics which get one in big trouble. He will never be a substantial adult as a result.
Tyrants come in all forms and places, not just bosses. I see some of the bus drivers as tyrants as they rant and rave and take out their frustrations on the riders who are their 'bread and butter;' they know that nothing will be done about it, and they will 'get away' with the verbal abuse. We don't have to be a Hitler to be a tyrant. Even a Sunday School teacher can be a tyrant.
About 'impossible people,' I am the expert -- as I sometimes come across to those who don't agree with me as one of those bad, bad stubborn people who won't back down. They see me as one who is not resistant and will do something about the situation. They don't see me as I talk about their antics and bad attitudes and abusive ways to City Council and KTA meetings. Those people don't see me as an 'impossible' person but a concerned citizen. I sat by a nice woman in Sunday School who said "Oh, I have heard your name; you are political." I replied, "No, I am not a Democrat or Republican; I am just verbal and vocal." I stand up for those who can't and don't know how. Whether or not I shall continue is in God's hands.
You learn in this book that if you don't rule your emotions, they will rule you. Know who you're dealing with or you'll never know how to deal with them. What you don't control often runs amok. Ultimatums without options lead to impasses. Fight, Flight or Focus. There are three different kinds of Difficult: Situationally, strategically and simply. Knowing which you have in front of you at the moment makes all the difference in how to deal with them and what the outcome will be. Whether it can be negotiated or simply ignored.
They also teach us how to turn dead ends into detours, why and how options work, "how to engage the other side in exploring options," and ending without escalating. In the beginning, they tell us a grim fairy tale with a happy ending. They tell us about the 'boss from Hell' but not about the husband or son from hell. They use colorful stories from all walks of life, from the 'scum' of the earth to the rich and famous. The authors bring lessons from business life to family life. That's all, folks!
Books:
- The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham: Selected Writings of the Wall Street Legend
- The Vital Few: The Entrepreneur and American Economic Progress (Galaxy Book)
- Underwriting Democracy: Encouraging Free Enterprise and Democratic Reform Among the Soviets and in Eastern Europe
- Unseemly Man
- Untitled
- W.R. Hearst An American Phenomenon
- Wall Street to Main Street: Charles Merrill and Middle-Class Investors
- William and Henry Walters, the Reticent Collectors
- William Marshal, Knight-errant, Baron, and Regent of England (MART: The Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching)
- Winners Make it Happen: Reflections of a Self-Made Man
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Lonely Planet Southeast Asia on a Shoestring
- Getting Started in Personal and Executive Coaching: How to Create a Thriving Coaching Practice
- Miracle at St. Anna
- History: Fiction or Science
- Grindhouse: The Sleaze-filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature
- History: Fiction or Science
- Fossil Collecting in the Mid-Atlantic States: With Localities, Collecting Tips, and Illustrations of
- How to Buy a House in California, 10th Edition
- Little Things -- Big Results: How Small Events Determine Our Fate
- Feeding The Vikings
The Principles of Scientific Management
Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology (Sloan Technology Series)
Frederick W. Taylor: The Father of Scientific Management : Myth and Reality
Visions Of Technology: A Century Of Vital Debate About Machines Systems And The Human World
From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Studies in Industry and Society)
