Lion Taming: Working Successfully with Leaders, Bosses and Other Tough Customers [Paperback]

Steven Katz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2005

"This original, innovative and memorable book that will give you insights on how to work with leaders and executives." --John Glenn, United States Senator and former astronaut

Do you feel that you need a whip and a chair to work effectively with your boss, client, customers, or others? You know the dangers-a growl if you throw them a compliment and a roar if you ever look for thanks!

Lions are the people in all organizations who wield power and influence. They act differently because they think differently. But that doesn't mean that they have to be difficulty to work with! Lion Taming will help you get inside their minds, so you can communicate and work more effectively together.

Based on in-depth interviews and research into real lion tamers as well as the experiences of numerous people at all levels of the workplace, Steven L Katz shows how the secrets of the center ring can lead to a great performance in the office.

Prey, the Enemy or Ignored: Lions make an instinctive calculation the minute any living thing comes into view: You are either prey, the enemy, or ignored. Lion Taming shows you how to avoid all three of these and earn a place in the pride.

The Lion's Four Senses: Every lion in the workplace views things through four senses: Dominance, Territory, Social Standing, and Survival. Understanding these senses, and how to make use of them, will give you a leg up in working with your lion.

Sticking Your Head in the Lion's Mouth: Lion Taming shows you how people stick their heads into the lion's mouth in the office, why it shouldn't be done, and how to avoid it yourself.

Lion Taming Is Really Lion Teaming!: Ultimately, the purpose of lion taming is not just to survive. Lion tamers and lions work together to achieve something that neither could achieve alone. Together, you can leap through the hoop of fire!

Lion Taming also contains more than 75 secrets of the lions tamers and numerous strategies for working with the lions in your workplace, such as:

o Approaching the lions so the lions will approach you
o Closing the gap between attention getting and attention using
o Establishing trust and rapport
o Building the Lion Team in your office!

Lion Taming is the ultimate guide to everyone's "real" job: working successfully and achieving results with leaders, bosses, and other tough customers!

LION TAMING HAS THE STRATEGIES AND SECRETS YOU NEED TO:
o Establish your presence, authenticity and credibility in the eyes of leaders, bosses, and other tough customers
o Identify the lions around you, and separate the good ones from the bad ones
o Get inside the lion's skull by learning about The Lion's Four Senses and The Lion's Instinctive Identity
o Decode the lion's social worlds: the hierarchy and the pride
o Avoid being the prey, enemy or ignored, and become a very influential member of the pride or organization!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Katz, formerly adviser to four U.S. senators and a staffer in the Clinton White House, has seen his share of "lions" in the government and Fortune 500 companies. These people, he maintains, are the ones who make everyone miserable because they rule their own "jungles" and play by their own rules. Since these lions will not alter their behavior patterns, it is up to their colleagues to learn essential office "taming" techniques: "The lion establishes the territory, but the lion tamer... must maximize the display of the lion's strengths, while managing the risks associated with their possible weaknesses," explains Katz. The author uses anecdotes about business lions along with techniques from both the corporate world and that of actual lion tamers. Rather than fighting the lion in the office, people must learn various strategies to keep the lion happy. These techniques include continually providing a stream of information to the lion, showing off their skills in public so the lion sees their strengths and helping the lion to feel comfortable in the office. Although the author clearly explains his approach to difficult corporate types and some of his strategies seem quite sound, this is a tough book to follow. The jargon related to lion taming slows the reader and sometimes overwhelms the practical advice. Even so, employees who are comfortable with business profiles and management theory may benefit from some of Katz's techniques.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Publisher

Why is LION TAMING important?

LION TAMING: Working Successfully with Leaders Bosses, and Other Tough Customers is the first book to recognize that everyone's real job includes the need to understand the people who wield power and influence and have strategies at their fingertips to communicate and work more effectively with them. It does so through the use of a metaphor that is already in people's minds. Lion taming is an identity and a role that you can step into whatever your actual job, position, title, or occupation may be. From executive assistant to CEO - there is always a bigger lion.

Most books that explain leadership, management, and organizations are written with the goal of having the top executives identify with the story and tell everyone around them to read the book. LION TAMING is the book everyone else will read but they won't tell the boss they are reading it!

LION TAMING: Working Successfully with Leaders Bosses, and Other Tough Customers uses both the metaphor of being a lion and of being a lion tamer to enable readers to read their own experiences into the book and create a strategy that fits their own personality and position. Being a lion is personal in a way that makes people in the workplace unique in the eyes of others -- and so is being a lion tamer!

How will LION TAMING benefit its readers/affect their lives?

* Establish your own presence, authenticity, and credibility in the eyes of leaders, bosses, and other tough customers
* Learn to identify the lions all around you, and separate the good ones from the bad ones.
* Get inside the lion's skull by learning these tools:
o The Lion's Four Senses
o The Lion's Instinctive Identity
* Understand that lions in the work place live in two social worlds:
o The hierarchy -- the world in which they establish they are a lion
o The pride or organization that supports and enables their role as a lion
* Learn that if you compete with or threaten the lions in your office, they will assume you are challenging their place in the hierarchy. But if you show that you are supporting their status, role, and objectives, you can be a very influential member of the pride or organization!
* Lion Taming contains more than 75 secrets of the lions tamers
* Lion Taming contains specific strategies that come directly from the methods that real lion tamers use to:
* Enable lion tamers and lions to adjust to each other
* Approach the lions so the lions will approach you
* Close the gap between attention getting and attention using -- and do it on cue!
* Lion Taming Is Really Lion Teaming: Spark the kind of communication and behavior with the people who are the lions and others around you by using the golden nugget of lion taming wisdom: by building rapport, trust, confidence, and respect, Lion Taming Is Really Lion Teaming!

What are three words that you feel best describe LION TAMING?

Roaring with Insights! (Insightful, Dynamic, Witty)

How is LION TAMING unique? Does it use a different approach to its subject?

LION TAMING: Working Successfully with Leaders Bosses, and Other Tough Customers is unique because it successfully taps into an image in everyone's mind and translates it into experiences, secrets, and strategies that apply to virtually every job. Lion Taming is not a theory, but a role that you step into, and it can be done whether you are an executive assistant or the CEO. There is always a bigger lion!

In addressing everyone's need to strengthen personal awareness, communication, and behavior when working with people of power and influence-a subject sometimes addressed in the context of "managing up"-the metaphor of being a lion tamer provides readers with new and personal identity that also makes them feel stronger and more capable. The metaphor and the stories about both lion taming and business experiences blend together to enable readers to visualize their own experiences, their own lions, and their own opportunities to begin to work as a lion tamer!

The majority of business and worklife books tell a story from the standpoint or experiences of a well-known or accomplished leader, such as Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric. However, very few people can arrive at work and step into the shoes of someone like Welch or any other CEO who books are written about. As a result, such people are really metaphors themselves, but ones of very narrow value and use to others.

LION TAMING: Working Successfully with Leaders Bosses, and Other Tough Customers fills an unmet need for books that establish that there is an art to working with leaders, executives, clients, and customers-and that the art is in the nature of the understanding, relationship, and behavior between you and them. LION TAMING opens your eyes and provides the secrets and strategies to those important links to success. As one reader commented - "Finally, a book for the rest of us!" --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc. (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402205902
• ISBN-13: 978-1402205903
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #776,582 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Katz has it right -- a fun read and very insightful, July 20, 2004

By 

Kenneth Prillaman "Management Consultant with... (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lion Taming: Working Successfully with Leaders, Bosses, and Other Tough Customers (Hardcover)

Steve Katz has written a very interesting and insightful book about how to work successfully with high-powered executives. He's clearly been in the lion's den and lived to tell about it. And his lion analogies are both fun and thought provoking. This is a great read for both lions (to understand themselves and each other) and for anyone who works for or with them.

As a management consultant to a wide range of governmental, corporate, and not-for-profit clients, I see the characteristics he describes every day. He clearly understands what is important to powerful people and how the rest of us need to approach them. I particularly liked his theory that execs (and lions) are driven by dominance, territory, social standing, and survival -- and that they see the people around them as either part of the pride, prey, an enemy, or someone to be ignored. I think he's dead on, and those of us who need to influence these people definitely want to be part of the pride rather than lunch.

A great book with lots of useful examples. I highly recommend it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What They Forget To Teach Me In Business School & On The Job, June 7, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Lion Taming: Working Successfully with Leaders, Bosses, and Other Tough Customers (Hardcover)

¯
This book was fun to read and it was a fast read!

I was never taught the kinds of things this book talks about when I was in business school; I've never before read any books or articles about these things (and I've read a lot on management); none of my mentors talked to me about these things; and I didn't learn these things on the job on my own. But at least once in every chapter, the following thought went through my mind: "Wow! I never noticed that before, but it seems rather obvious now that it's been pointed out."

The metaphor of lion taming has made it really easy for me to organize my thoughts about my relationships with bosses and other people who have authority relationships with me, and I think the lion taming metaphor will make it easier for me to actually use what I've learned, and to use it fast and powerfully on my feet (or should I say in the arena?).

Where was this book 15 years ago when I had more bosses than I could count!?!?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read!, September 13, 2005

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lion Taming: Working Successfully with Leaders, Bosses, and Other Tough Customers (Hardcover)

Imagine these scenarios: Your corporate leaders are always "difficult." You butt heads with your superiors and even your clients. As a middle manager, you have trouble figuring out what the boss wants. You seem to fight too much with your spouse. If any of these examples are familiar, you need to learn how to tame the "lions" in your life. Using analogies from training actual lions in the circus ring, author Steven L. Katz shows you how to work with human lions - people who demand dominance and control - from a bossy supervisor to a stubborn spouse. This is intended to be a textbook for the study of human psychology and interaction. Though you might wish it were a little deeper, the jungle beast analogy keeps it interesting. We recommend it to those who want to learn how to stand their ground in business, politics or modern day culture.