Category: Thoughts on Books

Ever since I wrote The No Asshole Rule, I get a lot of requests to write endorsements,
or “blurbs” as they call them, for the jackets of book. This is somewhat ironic as, of the four books
I wrote, only The No Asshole Rule has no blurbs, yet it is has outsold all my other books combined. And having gone
through the process getting endorsements multiple times, one of the weirdest
things that happens is that my editors and literary agents always tell me “They
don’t matter for sales, but you have to have them anyway.” So even the people who want these things
think they are suspect.

Regardless of the effect on sales, I do
enjoy being asked to write blurbs. I turn down most of the requests as I only
endorse books that I like a lot. Of the half-dozen book or so I’ve endorsed in the past year, perhaps the best is Pamela
Skillings’ brand new Escape
from Corporate America. This lovely book blends tools to help you
decide if you ready to make your escape, great advice about to how to implement
it, and compelling stories about people who have made the escape.  I also love the cover. 

I think the book especially resonates with me
because I seem to be surrounded with so many people who have made the escape.  My wife Marina did so after 25 years at her
law firm and is wildly happy in her new job as CEO of the Northern California
Girl Scouts.
I also do a lot of teaching at the
d.school with Debra
Dunn and Michael
Dearing, both of whom have made recent escapes – from HP and eBay in their
cases. And Pam wrote this book — her
first book – because she made her own escape and it made her curious to learn
more. In my blurb, I said it is the best
career book I’ve read – and that is still how I feel about it.

Check out Pam’s blog as it is filled with information.  Also, as I learned from ARSE, everyone loves quizzes,
so here is Pam’s quiz, which I found unusually useful

QUIZ: ARE YOU A CORPORATE CASUALTY?

From ESCAPE FROM CORPORATE AMERICA by
Pamela Skillings

Do you really need this book? Are you just
having a bad week or are you at the end of your rope?  Take this quiz to
find out if you need to make an escape from Corporate America.

1. Rate your general job satisfaction:

a. I love what I do.

b. I have more good days than bad days.

c. It could be worse, I suppose.

d. I hate my job.

2. If you won or inherited a million
dollars tomorrow, would you continue on the same career path?

a. Definitely.  I’d take a great
vacation and buy a few toys, then get back to work.

b. Probably not.  With a financial
cushion, I would likely take the time to explore my options.

c. Hell, no!  Are you crazy?

3. Which statement best expresses your
feelings toward your job?

a. I enjoy what I do for the most part.

b. Sometimes I fantasize about quitting to
do something else.

c. I am actively exploring other career
options.

d. I only stay in my job for the paycheck.
If money weren’t an issue, I would leave.

4. What are your long-term career goals?

a. I am on a good career path, and my
current job is a step along that path.

b. I feel a bit stuck and unsatisfied, but
I’m not sure what I want to do instead.

c. The idea of staying on my current career
path for the rest of my life gives me the cold sweats.

5. Are you pursuing your dream career?

a. Yes.

b. I’m not sure.

c. No.

6. Do you get the Sunday-night blues?

a. Not really.

b. Sometimes.

c. I get the every-night blues.

7. How do you feel at the end of an average
workday?

a. Proud and happy.

b. Tired, but satisfied.

c. What was the point?

d. Miserable.

8. Where do you see yourself in five years?

a. In a bigger job at my current company or
at a similar firm.

b. On a different career path within the
corporate world.

c. I am actively exploring other career
options.

d. I only stay in my job for the paycheck.
If money weren’t an issue, I would leave.

9. Do you feel energetic and positive at
work?

a. Most of the time.

b. Occasionally, but not as much as I’d
like.

c. Rarely or never.

10. Which of the following are among the
positive aspects of your current job?  Check all that apply.

__ Interesting work.

__ Growth opportunities.

__ Great boss.

__ Pleasant co-workers.

__ Fair pay.

__ Good benefits.

__ Flexibility.

__ Fulfillment.

__ Pride in what I do.

__ A company that cares about me and/or
treats me well.

11. Which of the following are among the
negative aspects of your job?  Check all that apply.

__ I spend excessive amounts of time in
meetings, documenting meetings, and scheduling follow-up meetings.

__ I can’t remember the last time I felt
truly excited about a work project.

__ I put in long hours mostly because of
other people’s ego trips.  This includes face time, cleaning up messes, or
staying late because others screw up or delay decisions.

__ I need at least two levels of approval
on any decision.

__ Knowledge and ability are less important
than who I know and how well I can BS.

__ I’m not quite sure what my job
accomplishes, aside from making money for shareholders and senior management.

__ I don’t feel passionate about anything I
do at work.  It feels like I’m putting in time for a paycheck.

__ I dread going to work most mornings and
come home exhausted.

__ I don’t see a future that I can get
excited about.

__ I have been a victim of or a witness to
bullying or blatantly unfair treatment.

Calculating Your Score:

* For questions 1-9, give yourself 3 points
for every A answer, 2 points for every B answer, 1 point for every C answer,
and 0 points for every D answer.

* For question 10, give yourself 1 point
for every item you checked.

* For question 11, deduct 1 point for every
item you checked. Deduct 2 points each for checking either of the last two
items.

What Your Score Means:

28-37 You are ridiculously satisfied.
Against all odds, you love your corporate job.  You might want to
read on for a true appreciation of just how good you’ve got it.

17-27 You are on the fence.  Your
corporate job is okay, but something is missing.  If your current career
isn’t your true calling, what is? This book can help you explore your options.

6-16  You are disgruntled.  You
don’t like your corporate job, but you’re trying to make it work.
Unfortunately, your feelings of frustration and rage may be starting to
take a toll on your personal life.  Read on for some solutions.

Less than 5  You need an intervention.
Stat.  Your corporate job is making you miserable.  You desperately
need to read this book and figure out your escape plan.

I just took the quiz, and I
scored 32. I better count my blessings.
I complain about Stanford now and then and even tried to escape to UC
Berkeley once. It was a most instructive failure, as I realized that the Stanford
Engineering School was a much more flexible and open-minded place than the Haas
Business School at Berkeley. I also learned to ignore my salary, and
especially, to not use it as an indicator of my self-worth. I took a huge
(about 35%) pay cut when I returned to Stanford (because business schools pay a
lot more than engineering schools). I’ve
always said that it was one of the best decisions I ever made and Pam’s book and quiz reinforces
the point.  Also, in my exit interview, I told the Berkeley dean that one of the reasons that I was leaving the UC Berkeley was BECAUSE of the pay system. They had one of the most dysfunctional pay systems I have ever seen (it wasn’t her fault, that is how the entire university operated), as it seemed to mostly reward people for going out to other schools and getting large offers — which it often matched, or failing that, at least gave faculty big raises. As such, the smartest faculty, or at least those most motivated by money (or perhaps those who were massively underpaid) seemed to devote huge chunks of their time to looking for jobs in other places rather than devoting energy to helping their home institution. Stanford is sensitive to the market, but is much better about rewarding people for giving back to the institution and NOT rewarding people who are constantly trying to game the system with external offers. I think everyone — including the students –win as a result.

Back to Pam’s book — I think it is going to a best-seller, at least it deserves to be one. I also think the timing is good as lots of people are being forced out of jobs and, even for those who aren’t, things can be lot less fun as companies push to cut costs and salaries and to squeeze ever more of every employee.

P.S. If you buy the book and love
it as much as I do, please write Pam a 5 star review on Amazon or Barnes &
Noble. When a book is brand new, especially
for a first-time author like Pam, those kinds of things really help.

I did a little online interview this morning with Jason Alba over at JibberJobber about the process of writing and publishing books.  It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes about the writing process, from Ernest Hemingway.

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof
shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have
had it."

It stands the test of time well.

I
was listening to a great show on the other day on Fresh Air, where Terry Gross
interviewed Bob Sullivan, the author of Gotcha Capitalism.
I started getting quite agitated
by the interview, as Sullivan talked about all the ways that credit card
companies, hotels, and especially, cell phone companies “get us” with hidden
charges and related sleazy practices (listen to it here).

It
also reminded me of the time that my wife accepted an offer that was being pushed by Verizon
salespeople for text messaging that sounded like a great deal. She was assured
by the salespeople that this deal was good for as long the contract held. But after accepting the offer, my wife went
online and read the terms of the offer on their website, which said it was a short-term deal
that would revert to very high texting charges after (as I recall) three
months. When she called back to cancel the deal and explain why, they resisted
doing so and also kept accusing her of getting the facts wrong (even though she
was reading them the contract, they didn’t believe her). So I think that Mr. Sullivan is onto to
something (Indeed, one of the things I loved about Tranquilo Bay, the lovely  little eco-resort we went to in Panama, is
there were no hidden charges, it was all inclusive, including the drinks).

Mr.
Sullivan not only gave a great interview, it got me thinking about how
important book titles are to the success of a book. I love the title “Gotcha Capitalism,” as it captures the emotion so well. Perhaps I have a jaded view, but my two most
successful books had titles that we decided on at the outset, and that we had
to fight for to get past book marketing people. My co-author, Jeff Pfeffer, had a huge battle with the people from
Harvard Business School Press about The
Knowing-Doing Gap, the title that we used from the first day we started
writing the book. They kept insisting that we call it “Louder Than Words.” And we
almost rolled over (in fact, I have a framed copy of the Louder Than Words book jacket in my office). Then after Jeff talked
to the CEO of another publishing company and he talked to Suzy Wetlaufer
(then the deeply talented editor of the Harvard
Business Review, now Suzy Welch, Jack’s wife), and both pressed
Jeff to fight for the book title. And he fought hard, and won. 

And,
as Guy Kawasaki has written,
as much as I love working with the people at Harvard Business School Press
(despite the occasional disagreement), I decided to walk away and go to another
publisher when they didn’t want to call it The
No Asshole Rule. At the time, I commented
that the title would likely be good for book sales, but I understood completely
why they didn’t want to have a book with that title. Indeed, as I told them at the time, if I was
them, I wouldn’t want the title either because it would be bad for their very respectable
brand. But I couldn’t imagine, and still can’t imagine, that anything else
would have grabbed attention so well.

Of
course, this is the kind of thing that Chip and Dan Heath write about in their
great book Made to
Stick.  Picking a “sticky” book title isn’t easy as
you want to have one that describes what the book is about, that surprises the
reader a little, that provokes vivid images, and that readers will pick-up to
look at, and will remember. I thought of
a few of my favorites:

Randy
Komisar’s The Monk
and the Riddle. A great title
for this “anti-greed” book that appeared at the height of the dotcom boom.

Timothy
Ferriss’ The
4-Hour Workweek. I confess I haven’t
read the book, but it sounds good to me!

Gordon
MacKenzie’s Orbiting
the Giant Hairball.  As I have
said many times here, the best corporate creativity book ever written.

Harry
Frankfurt’s On
Bullshit. A title that clearly
attracted attention, and without it, The
No Asshole Rule would never have been published. Frankfurt paved the way
for books with dirty titles that were written by professors from fancy universities
(he is a retired Princeton philosopher).

Arianna
Huffington’s  Pigs
at the Trough. I never read it, but what a great title!

Jared
Diamond’s Guns,
Germs, and Steel. Great book and
great title.

David
McCullough’s The Path
Between the Seas. On the building of the Panama Canal. One of
the best books I have ever read on anything. An astounding tale of human weakness
and strength, and the power of sheer will. Wonderfully researched, and as good a story about the best and the worst
features of the American character as you can find. Also, a reminder that some
of the greatest innovations in history have been funded and implemented by
governments.  The pyramids are another
example! And, yes, both entailed
exploiting a lot of people.

I
would love to hear some of your favorite titles as well.  And some of the stinkers too. One of the worst titles I’ve seen in recent
years is The
Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design.  Somehow, everything about it seems wrong. It sounds like a parody, but is not.

P.S. As I said, I love the title of Gotcha Capitalism, but I am less enthusiastic about the cover design. Those colors a little bit too much for me, and also something about it undermines the seriousness of the subject.  On the other hand, if the goal was to design a cover that would stand-out, they succeeded.