Neanderthals at Work

Do you spend half your timne and energy dealing with politics and game playing? Are you forced to work in an unciviluzed atmoshere, created and controlled by tiny brains, narrow minds, and brutish attitudes?

Suffer in silence no more. Now, from the authors of the bestselling Dinosaur Brains, here is a witty, informative, and devilishly perceptive look at the club-wielding, cave-dwelling boneheads who can make life in the office so miserable. With the plain-speaking, success-oriented advice of Neanderthals at Work, you can rise above primitive behavior and take the evolutionary leap into an enlightened and more productive workplace. Once you learn to undo the first rule of Neanderthal thinking — Us vs. Them — you'll quickly identify these stone-age throwbacks and begin to deal with then effectively:

Competitors — To them, if you're not a Winner you're a Loser.

Rebels — Creative innovators, they always avoid the three Ps: paperwork, politics, and people problems.

Believers — They work hard, follow the rules, and never get promoted.

Whether your goal is getting ahead or just coexisting peacefully, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to survive and thrive in the ultra-competitive workplace of the 1990s.

• Part I: The Players
1. "They're Drivimg Me Crazy!": All Those Neanderthals at Work
   Have you ever wondered who decided how things were going to be done at your office? If you've ever felt that everything is rigged, people don't follow the rules and nobody ever tells you what you need to know, there might be some things you don't know about the people who work with you.
2. Joining the Tribe: Rites of Passage, Trials by Fire, and Ancient Secrets Your Boss Knows but You Don't
   With all the rituals and ceremonies, you may wonder how any work gets done — until you see that these rites are a big part of the work. What does it really mean when they say, "That's the way we do things around here"?
• Part II: The Rebels: Corporate Mavericks
3. Breaking All the Rules… Creatively
   Don't come to these mavericks with your political garbage. They've got a job to do. If there's a crisi coming down, though, they are the guys you want on your side. Why everyone, from the shop floor to the CEO has at least a touch of the Rebel inside.
4. Luck, the Big Break, and the the Conspiracy Theory
   Why do some people succeed and others don't? Is it plain old dumb luck, the "Old Boy Network" — or is something else going on? Why you need to look at the things you're reluctant to do, and do them.
5. The Cult of Cool and the Myth of Purity
   Why bravado and disdain help some people cover up their fear. Why your company is full of people who think they're the only ones who know what they're doing — or who are doing things the right way. Everyone else is either a sell-out or just doesn't know what's going on.
• Part III: Innocents at Work: The Believers
6. Believers and the Myth of Motivation
   They do so much work so well, but if they think the secret of success is "Work hard, play by the rules, and do a good job," they'll be rewarded in heaven but disappointed on earth. Unfortunately, business doesn't work that way. The Myth of Motivation is the Catch-22 of the business world.
7. The Need to Measure (and Other Confusing Customs)
   Believer rituals — the Sacred Goals and Objectives, the Solemn Performance Review, the Posting of Rules — measure merit and point the way toward getting ahead. Or do they? Nobody will tell you the rules for success. You have to figure them out for yourself.
8. "My Boss Is Driving Me Crazy!": What to Do about Problems with Misguided Authority Figures
   The unspoken conflict at the heart of most businesses is not over such petty issues as who runs the company. This is the big one. It's about who is right. If you work for the Boss from Hell, rely on strategy rather than exorcism
9. The Myth of the Man-Eating Job
   The Romantic Disorder — the Myth of Burnout — the only disorder named by the people who have it. How to slay the mythical beast and begin taking responsibility for yourself.
• Part IV: Warriors at Work: The Competitors
• 10. The Cult of Winning and the Management Mystique: The Secrets of Competitors' Power
      The beliefs that have stirred the hearts of Competitors from Alexander the Great to your boss. They understand that it's not how hard you work; it's what you work hard at that counts. They know that the way to get things done is through politics. If that fails, armed combat will do nicely.
  11. Founders, Warriors, and Entrepreneurs: Corporate Heroes and Mythical Tales
      From the entrepreneur who started The Greatest Company in The World to the sales rep whose biggest pitch is his own legend, every company is rich with stories about its own breed of hero. There's a message in these myths, but if you take them literally, you may miss it.
  12. Warriors' Codes of Combat
      Ritual behavior among the Competitors. Never mind that a lot of thse things could be done more cheaply and eficiently by cooperating. For Competitors to buy in, every deal has to look like personal combat. No quarter asked or given.
• Part V: The Rules of the Game
• 13. Ogres in the Front Office: "I Don't Have Any Problems with Authority in General. It's Just That My Boss Is an Incompetent, Petty, Horse's Rear End."
      It's almost part of the American way to hate your boss. Analyzing a national pastime.
  14. The Manager as Professor and King: Dealing with Benevolent Dictators and Corporate Royalty
      When Competitor managers see themselves as the only ones in the department who know anything, subordinates seldom see them as a class act; but when their bosses act like royalty, employees think about revolution.
  15. The Language of Management
      You and your boss may be speaking different languages. A handy phrase-book for trips to management country.
  16. Losing Your Corporate Innocence: Understanding the Six Mysteries
      The only real cure for the Believer Blues is discovering what's really going on. In this chapter, we reveal the mysteries. How to learn the hard lessons of the Eleventh Commandment … and begin figuring out your company's first ten.
  17. The Competitors' Ten Commandments — Plus One
      In the world of work, if you have to ask, then somebody is probably going to tell you, "No." To be a Competitor, you have to live by your own decisions and abandon the need for permission. Other trials by fire include Learning to Read the Writing That's Not on the wall, Facing Down the Fear of Failure, and Giving Up the Need for Praise. With initiation requirements like this, it's easy to see why some people choose not to join and those who do attain the ceremonial pinstripes sometimes lose perspective.
  18. A Happy Ending for a Business Book? How It Could Happen
      How our characters fare a few years down the road. What might happen if they take our advice instead of hanging on to their outmoded beliefs. People listen and cooperate. Best of all, business doesn't seem so crazy any more. It could happen for you, too. It's worth a try.

Read something else, as this is typically American in outlook and shallow to be even US-centric. Trash in short.