Best Practice (3b): A List of Must-Reads

FIVE BEST
Books That Deserve a Promotion
An office-life arbiter says these books offer proper advice
By STANLEY BING
May 6, 2006; Page P8


1. The Art of War
By Sun Tzu

Given that, in some sense, the appropriate etiquette in a business situation is to kneecap the person next to you in the elevator on the way to the 34th floor, the best definition of business etiquette may be: the pretense of social rectitude within a barbarous context. Which helps explain why "The Art of War," an ancient Chinese text on military philosophy and strategy, has in many ways taken the place of more contemporary guides to business life. The book's essential message: Ripeness is all. That is, he or she who takes a strategic approach to business life -- who is fit in mind, body and spirit, who is always ready for just about anything -- is the player most likely to win the ongoing war that is life. The true Sun Tzu-nik is so prepared for battle that battle has been rendered unnecessary.


2. The Prince
By Niccolo Machiavelli 1513

Masquerading as a philosophical treatise in support of a strong senior executive, this book is actually a road map for ruthless narcissists -- the kind who do very well because their primary concern at all times is Numero Uno. Machiavelli discovered a central truth that leads to business success: Moral concerns have very little utility in the day-to-day conduct of successful management. No, it's not a nice book. It advises all kinds of pre-emptive murder and destruction of one's enemies and, when necessary, of one's friends. But an embrace of its world view has been at the center of virtually all executive success since the beginning of time. What Machiavelli did was to make the tactics of the big guys available to anybody who cared to consider them. A firm grasp of his tenets creates a business etiquette that is at once cool, polite, thoughtful, strategic and brutal.


3. The Godfather
By Mario Puzo Putnam, 1969

For a primer in the daily challenge of managing other people -- subordinates, peers and superiors alike -- there is no equal to the Corleone family saga. The lessons include: Keep one's friends close but one's enemies closer, and behind every tool like Bruno Tattaglia there is a puppetmaster like Don Emilio Barzini. The novel also shows the moral and ethical distinction between what is personal and what must be done in the line of business, and it offers the insight that the job of management eventually dehumanizes (in some cases monsterizes) the person who sits at the top. Failure to consider the wisdom of this book -- or the movie -- means flirting with turning out like doomed, pathetic Fredo Corleone.


4. Emily Post's the Etiquette Advantage in Business
By Peggy and Peter Post Collins, 2005

Sadly, the princess of politesse has long since departed for a world far more genteel than this one, but we have the benefit of Emily Post's great-grandson and great-grand-daughter-in-law, who are keeping her sweet flame alive. It's all in here: identifying the ethical values to live by, respecting rank and one's peers at the same time, hosting the perfect meeting (pigs-in-blankets are somehow neglected), handling business gifts with aplomb, managing attenuated business conversation without keeling over face-down in the coleslaw, and much more. The message is that success is built not just on philosophy and a basic strategic stance -- although that is the underpinning without which any career will fail. The God of proper behavior is in the details, and the ghost-of-Post is here providing a wealth of those.


5. The Cat in the Hat
By Dr. Seuss Random House, 1957

This little tale, which appears to be a book for children, is actually a clever evocation of what happens to a corporation when a management consultant is hired by absent, clueless senior management to evaluate its organizational structure and to effect change. Beginning slowly, the Cat proceeds to take everything apart, make a total mess and get everybody in potentially the worst trouble in the world -- all at no personal cost to itself. By the time the Cat leaves, it has frightened everybody, and very little has changed except the mind-set of the protagonists, which has been forever disrupted and rattled. Students of business etiquette will draw their own conclusions about the kind of behavioral standard called for in dealing with such situations.

Mr. Bing is the author of "Rome, Inc." and "100 Bull- Jobs ... and How to Get Them," which has just been published.

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