How to Lose Friends & Infuriate People: Leadership in the Networked World [Hardcover]

Jonar C. Nader (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 13, 2000

This book is the most explosive text in decades! You will feel liberated and fulfilled when you say what needs to be said, fight for what needs to be won, and do what must be done -- even if in the process you too might have to lose friends and infuriate people.

This controversial book is about personal achievement, management, and leadership in the new millennium. It is presented in three parts because we trend to live our lives in three ways: 1. We live as private individuals who have to deal with the world from our own point of view; 2. We have to live and interact with others, whether they be friends, family, or colleagues; and 3. Together we have to live within this modern world, and find ways to survive it.

For these reasons, Part One of this book highlights some of the challenges facing people at home, at work, and within society. It covers important subjects that need to be understood by those who desire to fly higher --subjects that in themselves are taken for granted, but are often the root to many personal failures. They include motivation, inspiration, belief and conviction, self control, brain power, creativity, and one's perception of the world.

Part Two delves into how people can work together, and how the leader can create synergy. This is important because we live in a world in which people must work better together, but unlike bees and ants, we are not as well coordinated. We need to learn about human behavior, how to interact, and how to work in teams. Chapters 8 to 13 explore the areas of leadership, teamwork, empowerment, and staff reward systems.

Part Three examines some of the pressing issues that organizations and individuals will face in the new millennium. Advice is given about what can be done to pre-empt (and succeed in) the new environment. Although each chapter in this book can, in itself, fill hundreds of pages, the pertinent points have been highlighted for you to explore.

In a nutshell, what this book is about:

Leadership, management, and self-development principles are taught at hundreds of colleges to thousands of students who read millions of books. Yet companies collapse, businesses blunder, and friendships fail, while individuals and organizations are enslaved to inefficiency, inaccuracy, and instability.

Why is it that so many popular techniques have a higher propensity to fail than to succeed? All this, despite the groundwork set by "gurus" who urged us to: go on a quest in search of excellence; win friends and influence people; engage in serious creativity; capture moments of truth; and develop the seven habits of highly effective people.

Beyond the hype, the real issues have been too controversial to communicate, too tough to tackle, and too risky to raise.

Despite the efforts of commercialized gurus, it appears that individuals have not been properly guided in their pursuits. Misguided enthusiasts can be as menacing as non-believers. This results in a multitude of irritating graduates from "The Textbook School Of Bluffers".

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jonar Nader knows his thoughts on business and leadership won't appeal to everyone. But this writer-consultant-speaker-philosopher, who grandiosely calls himself a Post-Tentative Virtual Surrealist, certainly doesn't lack for ideas. Between one section on skills for today ("life management" and creativity) and another on those for the future (management trends and customer service), he addresses broad topics like leadership and teamwork and how they can more effectively enable people to coexist. Some comments seem intentionally inflammatory ("stop the insatiable urge to survey everything that moves" and "diplomacy is a waste of time"), but many are tied to proposals for personal and corporate advancement that are truly intriguing, even if they have little chance of widespread adoption. Case in point: his proposition for "fluid shares," a compensatory plan in which everyone is paid equally and rewarded or penalized equally according to profits. Personnel at the top obviously won't like this, but Nader brushes aside this objection, claiming it's for the general good. "Those who are infuriated (should) resign gracefully because their selfish attitude is the one that has been conflicting with the organization for a long time," he writes. Few will find such notions truly feasible, but open-minded readers may appreciate where he's going and perhaps even develop some ideas for shaking things up on their own. --Howard Rothman

From the Publisher

The title, "How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People", is about the fact that anyone who applies what is endorsed in this book is likely to do just that. It is envisaged that this book (and its supporters) will be ripped to shreds by supposed experts who among them think that they possess the collective wisdom of the universe.

Critics of this book will start to raise all manner of irrelevant and superfluous questions that will do nothing more than unequivocally prove the need for such a book. These critics are called hindsight experts. They are the kind of folk who would have naively: jailed Galileo for suggesting that the world was not flat; banned Pythagoras from enlisting mathematics enthusiasts into his club; ridiculed Alexander Graham Bell for his "contraption"; and told Henry Ford that his invention would never sell, except to "the rich and idle".

If you find truth in this book, do not let the critics intimidate you. Critics are those whose rich and condemning vocabulary largely consists of words like: never; impossible; not done; can't be achieved; unreasonable; unrealistic; will never happen. They have the audacity to place limits on the future. They encourage censorship and promote the "banning" of all sorts of things. They prize legislation and love thought-control, promoting themselves as mind-guards. Furthermore, they hide behind empty meaningless words which they do not understand -- like morals, social standards, ethics, social behavior, and political correctness. They have the gall to intimidate women, Jews, Christians, socialists, communists, capitalists, those of differing lifestyles, and those of atypical sexual desires.

Righteousness. It is a timeless word that belongs to everyone. It is too bad it does not unite with "tolerance" and dance with "individuality" and blend with "acceptability" and stay away from "justice" -- an obscure word that has legitimacy to the one who applies it, and no useful function to the one to whom it is being applied.

Majority versus minority

The majority-rule society has produced nothing more than heartache and intolerance. Throughout the majority-rule period, members of the minority have made an impact. For better or for worse, it is the daring few who have shaped this so-called majority-rule society.

Inventors, pioneers, radicals, and visionaries have ventured from the lonely and costly camp of "minority" only to be obstructed by majority-rule concepts that tolerate inferiority, hinder progress, harbor injustice, and pose limits within the decaying status quo.

What is sad and insulting is that the majority basks in the benefits and riches that were originally afforded by individuals who sacrificed their sanity, their freedom, and their lives. When you start your journey of leadership in the modern world, you too might have to make some sacrifices.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Plutonium Press (March 13, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0957716540
• ISBN-13: 978-0957716544
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,577,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Clever Title, shame about the content, February 17, 2002

By 

Richard Spaans (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Lose Friends & Infuriate People: Leadership in the Networked World (Hardcover)

Mr Nader certainly is opinionated. He can succintly mock management fads, criticize spineless leaders and spot organisation problems with great success. However I think many of his solutions are just as bad as the original problems.

He has lots of "I told you so" examples where he has been in an organisation, said something was crap and sure enough it turned out to be that way. However there are no examples of people who have implemented his ideas with great success.

Perhaps that is because most of his ideas are completely unworkable: Get every citizen to vote on every issue, pay everyone in the company the same, allow managers complete control and just be a leader.

He had an example of how during a presentation of a bad idea he just burst out laughing for a couple of minutes. It just makes this guy sound arrogant and immature, not a revolutionary thinker.

There was a lot of hype throughout the book. Of course if you don't agree with him you're obviously not a thinker. Well its hard to agree when many of his examples didn't really back up his arguments.

There are a couple of good points, reduce the amount of time you waste, get rid of beauracracy, leadership is important, but these are hardly revolutionary.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This book sure did infuriate me!, January 25, 2003

By 

obediah (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Lose Friends & Infuriate People: Leadership in the Networked World (Hardcover)

I was drawn to this book by the interesting title. Unfortunately, the text left me rather unfulfilled. Nader is a self proclaimed "Post Tentative Virtual Surrealist". This is a rather pompous and meaningless title that is never explained.

The book is full of vague concepts that requirement further elaboration. Nader talk about logicitivity and loosely describes it as a combination of logic and creativity. No practical guidelines are given has to how to develop this skill. He seems to spend a lot of time arguing semantics. He spends a chapter talking about the difference between a "leader" and "leadership". By the end of the chapter, he hasn't really made any valid contribution or furthered his argument in any way. He states that "Supreme leadership must do what is necessary to remove these barriers for the benefit of those who are unable to fend for themselve". This sounds like a definition of a good Samaritan rather than a good leader.

Another chapter is spent discussing "attitude" and "atmosphere". Once again his discussion trails into nothing. Some of his points are factually incorrect. He states that the statistic of "50 per cent" is "meaningless because it only applies to situtations that can be simulated at least ten times". This is incorrect project success can be estimated using historical data. Bookmakers must do this all the time when estimating the probability for events that will only ever occur once.

There were some aspects of the book that I liked. He had a "rule of halves", whereby you make an effort to halve the time you spend on trivial and frivolous tasks. He also takes a realistic approach to business, stating that the goal is profit and not customer service. Customer service is simply a means to profit and is not the prime objective.

All in all I think the book is a thorough waste of time. There are a few gems but it's really not worth the effort of pouring through this whole tome in order to separate the wheat from the chaff. My recommendation is to avoid it completely the only person it will infuriate is the reader!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, May 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: How to Lose Friends & Infuriate People: Leadership in the Networked World (Hardcover)

This has some eye-opening helpful info and advice. I would liked to have had some real life examples of his ideas working (i.e. "And when this business structure was implemented at Apple Computers, profits soured 50%" or like that). You have to take it on faith that his ideas will work. And the parts of the book could have meshed together better. But the writing is lively, and clear, and the ideas are certainly worth pursuing. I bought this book after hearing Nader interviewed on Johnny Rotten's radio show, and Nader impressed me with his lively personality and sense of humor. And that personlity comes across on the page. This is a book well worth reading.