Summary
A hilarious and tough-minded guide to winning the war of contemporary life.
The Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu taught that readiness is all, that knowledge of oneself and the enemy was the foundation of strength, and that those who fight best are those who are prepared and wise enough not to fight at all. Unfortunately, in the current day, this approach is pretty much horse hockey.
Sun Tzu was a Sissy will transcend all those efforts and teach the reader how to make war, win, and enjoy the plunder in the real world, where those who do not kick, gouge, and grab are left behind at the table to pay the tab. Students of Bing will be taught how to plan and execute battles that hurt other people a lot, and advance their flags and those of their friends.
Summary
Tens a les mans un llibre de receptes senzilles i pràctiques per a fer unes bones presentacions en públic. Tot allò que un estudiant ha de dominar per a fer-se escoltar i defensar amb èxit els seus treballs.
Kirkus Review
Business is war, but does it have to be so deadly serious all the time? Not if you hear Stanley Bing tell it. His standard author bio goes like this: "Stanley Bing is a senior officer at a large multinational corporation whose identity is one of the worst-kept secrets in business." He's quite effective at his job, too, which begs the question: Where does he find the time to thumb his nose at the arena in which he works?. We're glad he does, though, because it's hilarious; he's Dilbert when Dilbert becomes CEO. Here, Bing concedes that Sun Tzu might have been hot stuff back when warriors wore bamboo armor, but today: "We don't really have armies, per se. Like, we have people we fight with, but armies? Sadly, no." The author's ready to shepherd the troops into this new world. Since this is all about succeeding in business, one of the first pieces of advice is: love yourself. Hm? After mastering five "key commitments"--"Eating Well," "Drinking the Good Stuff," "Being Angry All the Time," "Obsession With Getting Your Own Way," and "Using Other People as Tools"--you can start building your army. It's clear by now that Bing's tongue is firmly in cheek. Or not. Some of his advice is unassailable, such as his observation that business wars can last over extended periods of time, which means that "one must learn in the real world to inflict intense Ow on other people while still reserving the right to ride up and down in the elevator with them three or four times a day without incident." Pie charts and bar and line graphs are particularly helpful. And remember: Size Does Matter. Obviously, the author's a pro in the media and hard to schedule for interviews. But at least be sure to feature this book in any of your coverage, business or not. It's an honest-to-god business book that serves double-duty as a holiday gift purchase. You can reach "Stanley Bing" through HarperBusiness; you might also be able to reach him in the corporate-communications office at CBS. Ask for Gil Schwartz. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Sun Tzu Was a Sissy Conquer Your Enemies, Promote Your Friends, and Wage the Real Art of War Chapter One Beyond Yin and Yang: The Secret of Yinyang Fate is both yin and yang. It is ice. It is fire. It is winter and spring, summer and fall, and then winter again. Go with it. Go against it. That is victory. Sun Tzu You can't win if you don't play. Poker aphorism War is hell. War is glory. You've got to have the ability to sustain small losses between major victories. But like it? No. Take it in stride? Only if you're a loser. In battle, attitude is all. And true warriors are united in the fact that they hate to lose even more than they love to win. They're nuts about it. Sometimes that hatred of being on the wrong end of the beefstick makes them do nutty things, of course. It pays to think about that for a moment, before we go on. I don't like to pick on Martha Stewart, because I believe she is, in the end, a teeny newt who has been treated shockingly in comparison to the enormous, gray toads whose crimes far, far outstrip hers and who are now all writing books somewhere waiting for Forbes to do a positive retrospective on them. But Martha had a chance, at the very beginning of her ordeal, to admit that she kind of screwed up, acted rather badly for someone who is both a genius and a former stockbroker, take whatever tepid punishment the pleased, appeased, and publicityhungry Feds were of a mind to dole out, and then, sadder but richer, soldier on. Instead, because she couldn't bear to lose to the press, the Justice Department, or anyone else, she brought herself a world of grief and, even worse, lost a lot of money pursuing her dream of perfection. That's too much Yang. On the other side, there's Jerry Levin of Time Warner, perhaps pound for pound the biggest Tzu-head of the last few decades. So strategic was this teeny warrior that he strategized his entire company out of, like, 60 percent of its value in the merger with AOL. Come on, he told the ragtag bunch of scrabbly Internet dudes who couldn't find a corporate infrastructure with both hands, take us. We're yours. He assumed the position. And it took his proud empire years to undo the damage wrought by his intelligence, foresight, and pure, unadulturated Yin. Yang never drops its sword until death has made its decision who to take. Yin hopes that the other guy will die of a heart attack while he's stabbing you. As you prepare yourself for the eternal struggle that is the life of the warrior, you must cultivate both not consecutively, but in unison. You must reach for both inside yourself and merge the two into the warrior attitude of both strength and flexibility, aggression and strategy, anger and the ability to swallow that anger and make a deal that will enable you to fight another day. Too much Yang makes you stupid. Too much Yin makes you a wuss. What you need is the combo of both. You need Yinyang. Yinyang is the point where the irrational will to power merges sinuously with the willingness to be reasonable. This mix manifests itself in a variety of ways, and is the determinant of success in war. Too much Yang gives you war in Iraq. You get an idea in your head and nobody can turn you off it. It happens to executives all the time. You may work for one of them. If you do, you know what I'm talking about. The kind of guys who said the car would never replace the horse, that cable was a flash in the pan, that it was a good idea to build a nuclear power plant over the largest fault line in the United States or at the east end of Long Island, where it takes two hours to go down the road and buy a blueberry pie on the weekends -- a fact that might have some bearing on evacuation plans? No way. Too much Yang. Next down the chart are the executives who have just a little too much testosterone for their own good. You can be one of those. It means you will win for a while, and then lose playing the game that got you there. At the other end of the scale, right after Time Warner, is Estonia, which has been taken over by every invading army since the invention of beer. And in the middle is Warren Buffett, the perfect mixture of Yin and Yang, the apotheosis of Yinyang. Yinyang is never saying Yes to failure. But never being too proud to listen to reason. Yinyang means in the face of Yes there is no No. In the face of No, there is no Yes. There is only what you are fighting for. But if Maybe appears ... not being too big a stiffy about it to listen. Yinyang is power. Yinyang is money. Yinyang is more than power or money. It is Winning. The feeling ofWinning flowing within you and outside you, mussing your hair, if you have hair, and if you do not, mussing the memory of your hair. But Yinyang is also waiting, patiently, for Winning to come along. It is Oneness, Sureness, Obnoxiousness. It is your warrior attitude. Beyond Yin. Beyond Yang. That's so Old School. It's Yinyang. Get some. Sun Tzu Was a Sissy Conquer Your Enemies, Promote Your Friends, and Wage the Real Art of War . Copyright © by Stanley Bing. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Sun Tzu Was a Sissy: Conquer Your Enemies, Promote Your Friends, and Wage the Real Art of War by Stanley Bing All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
