Sep 20, 2005 02:23 PM
3896 Views
(Updated Sep 20, 2005 02:23 PM)
Hi,
I often wondered how people who become CEOs do so? Do they have magic mantra that seems to make top people keep promoting them?
This book answered some fundamental questions and more importantly changed my working habits.
The book gives a look into the minds of senior managers: what characteristics do they look for when promoting someone, how do they identify such people, how these people are tested (usually without the person's knowledge) etc.
I specifically liked the part when he talks about your work attitudes and how they can cause wrong perceptions. For e..g, a great guy is often passed for promotion since he comes to office late and leaves late. While that is fine for many jobs in the company, his plant started at 8:30 and his coming at 11:00 meants that his people had spent most of the productive hours without him!
The chapter on ''political capital'' - goodwill that your boss has to employ to defend you as well the chapter on work life balance is exceptional. This sort of advice will NOT be found in any other book.
Jack writes in an easy to read style - every word has been put there for a specific reason. There are a lot of real-life stories to demonstrate the principles and concepts. The book mirrors today's management thinking: Fast-paced work style coupled with integrity and the ability to learn from mistakes are important. Loyalty, quality at the expense of time, taking it slow and easy - these are good to ensure a job for you if you do good work, but don't expect growth.
Suzy, his wife, gives this book a touch that was missing in ''straight from the gut'' - the ability to look from all angles of a story.
A book that ideally should form the first book in the syllabus of any management course. a book that is worth visiting everytime you feel let down or think you have problems at the workplace.
A drawback, as with his earlier book is that it looks at all the areas from a primarily-GE mindset, although people from other companies have shared their experiences too.
Since this a book worth debating about, any comments would be definitely welcome.
Regards
Sridhar
