Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

¯
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!?!?

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.

While reading this book, I was faced with a situation involving the president of our professional society and several other officers. Our "lions" were quickly "tamed" by using the insights in this wonderful book, and now everyone (including the lions) is happier (and more effective).

The book is lively and easy to read. As an educator, I appreciate the instant summaries in each chapter and the pithy quotes from "real lion tamers" scattered generously throughout each chapter.

The "lion taming" metaphor is an apt one for dealing with all kinds of situations with bosses, leaders, colleagues, mentors, . . . just about anyone we deal with professionally. And Katz applies the metaphor masterfully, weaving in his own considerable experience "in the arena" with some interesting and occasionally intractable "lions" in business and government.

LION TAMING is certainly going to be the next "big thing" in management circles!

My boss is a self made, powerful person. He roars, he eats people and their ideas alive and he intimidates everyone just by walking into a room. Around him. I used to feel ill at ease. I was always in a hurry to get away from him and I felt helpless to get him to sign off on any of my ideas.
Then I got lucky. I read a copy of Lion Taming: Working Successfully with Leaders, Bosses, and Other Tough Customers by Steve Katz and learned how to tame the beast that is my boss. I know where to sit when I am with him, how to keep him focused on what I am saying and how to get him to respond in a timely fashion. It's amazing, the techniques that real liontamers know and their value in the work place.
If you want to know how to get your boss to treat you with respect - this book has what you need.

It's not difficult to imagine yourself as a lion tamer, equipped with the traditional whip and chair, matching wits with lions like leaders, bosses, and customers. You have to keep your wits about you in your relationships with these cats. It's a lot like real-life lion taming. And yes, the consequences of angering a lion in business can be comparatively just as devastating as angering a lion in the circus cage.

OK, cute analogy. It shouldn't be that difficult to draw a few analogies and crank out a clever book. Perhaps, but Steven Katz went further...much further. It's obvious as you turn page after tempting page that this author did his homework. The lion tamers he consulted and learned from are named in the acknowledgements, and their influence is felt throughout the book. Whether the topic is the big cats with four feet or two, the lessons are plentiful, clear, and appropriate. The transition back and forth between lions and humans is smooth and natural. Learning Katz's lessons is comfortable, not forced.

We're surrounded by lions. "Being a lion is not a specific position, it is a state of being." It's essential to understand that lions have four senses beyond sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell: dominance, territory, survival, and social standing. You'll gain a deep appreciation of these elements in the three sections of this fast-moving paperback: Lions are Never Tame, The Art of Lion Taming, and Lion Taming is Really Lion Teaming. You can see the flow just from those section titles.

The book is filled with lessons that apply the fundamentals of lion taming to leadership, management, and other relationships. Conveniently, the lessons are all listed at the end of the book to pull it all together. Well worth the time to curl up with this book cover-to-cover.

LIONTAMING is an entertaining "users manual" for igniting leadership at all levels of an organization. Through the lens of an analogy as powerful as Aslan in Narnia, author Steve Katz boldly takes you on a journey into the workplace as a lions den. Unlike Dilbert's facetious approach to Catbert, Dogbert and other "manajerks", Steve ratchets the risk up a notch and deals with the ferocious realities of the King of the Jungle himself. Drawing on years of experience with leaders at the highest levels of government, Steve explores the role of office staff way beyond merely managing their managers or following their leaders by bringing fresh insights into workplace survival tactics. After Steve's presentation at American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation, I promptly bought his book and featured him at both an Interagency Regulatory Forum and the US-EPAs Transformational Leadership Conversations series. If you enjoy reading LIONTAMING, you'll be amazed at how it can come alive in a discussion.

Steve Katz's "Lion Taming" fills a real void in the literature on management, which focuses primarily on leadership, strategy, and implementation of change. His focus is on the close, personal advisors to powerful decision makers within corporations, government, and nonprofit entities. His purpose is to identify the principles by which such key staffers can increase their effectiveness while retaining their integrity. His analogies to "lion taming" are not a stretch. As I read Steve Katz's book, I relived whole episodes in my own career and suddenly perceived how they fit together into a broad and comprehensive analytical pattern. I am just sorry that this book wasn't available thirty years ago when I was a freshly-minted MBA!

Other titles tell how to get along generally in the workplace; Steven L. Katz's Lion Taming: Working Successfully With Leaders, Bosses, And Other Tough Customers narrows the focus to how to work with difficult bosses, leaders, and other problem people - including customers and clients. 'Lions' are here defined as the people who wield power and influence. Chapters explore how to establish credibility with a boss, separate the 'good' from the 'bad' lions in the workplace, and understand the 'lion' personality's drive for dominance, territory, social standing and survival.

I think Steve Katz in really onto something with this book. Although I was skeptical at first about the usefulness of comparing people to lions, after reading the book I realized that I knew and worked with quite a few lion/executive types everyday in my office. I also learned something about lion "taming" -- that it is not a matter of scaring the lion into submission (which would be impossible), but rather it is respectfully letting the lion act in his own natural manner and working cooperatively on a goal with the trainer. I have been amazed at how apt these metaphors are in explaining many real-world office "clashes."

Since then I've had fun using some of these "lion" concepts and vocabulary to describe and work out situations among co-workers. They always seem to "get it" rather instantly. I would really recommend this book to anyone who works with strong personalities. (And who doesn't?) It is well written and presented and the amazing lion trainer stories keep the read entertaining. This is really a breakthrough concept.