Customer Reviews

Naked Management: Bare Essentials For Motivating The X-Generation At Work (St Lucie)

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As a GenX manager at a "DotCom" company, I expected this book to be full of insight into my employees. The major problem is that this book is hopelessly outdated!

I says that it was published in 1996, but I imagine the research was done way before that. The entire first chapter is devoted to the terrible job market and how GenX'ers do not have the opportunities their parents had, and ad nauseum. The main point of the book is interesting, but common sense: Treat your employees like adults, not children and they won't throw tantrums.

Also, I found it very annoying that everything had to do with X. "X'ercises" at the end of each chapter, being "over X-tended". How trite can you get?

As a GenX'er, I actually felt a bit insulted by this book. There isn't any real difference between our generations and other; they are really only perceived, and propagated by books like this one!

Buy this book if you have absolutely no people skills or knowledge of how to deal with people. Then again, should you really be in management if you don't?

When I look back at my first book - Naked Management - I realize what a difference this book helped make in the evolution of research on the multi-generational workplace. The study of generational issues has gone from Generation X to Generation Y and now to a more holistic view of generational issues in the modern workplace. This book is a great primer to see what the originating issues of Generation X studies were all about and how that has been manifested into a prioritized organizational focus today. As a Generation Xer myself, I am proud to say that the original image of my generation as "the most pathetic cohort in history" has dissipated and it is now clear that many of the key advancements in leadership theory today are a product of Generation X refusing to follow the myths of lifetime employment and job security. I will tell you that the publisher is a bit off the deep end with the jacked up price, this book originally sold for under $20 and should remain so today.