Customer Reviews

Sun Tzu Was a Sissy : Conquer Your Enemies, Promote Your Friends, and Wage the Real Art of War

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Sophomoric analysis without investigation or understanding to support position(s) as presented. Thinly veiled rant against conservative attitudes, wrapped in an "Art of War" review. The best parts of the book happen to be quotes by other people. Most of the authors attempts at humor fall short of the original statements made by people he quotes. I rate it two stars only because there is a good book to be written along these lines somewhere, if only a real author would do the work. Don't waste your money.

The author was right ..... writing this book gives him the opportunity to poke fun at and rant and rave at old actual and perceived wrongs perpetrated on him through his lifetime.


First of all, the book is pushed as light reading and thought provoking ... well for sure it's light reading, but the only thought that it provoked in me was why would anyone wnat to buy this book.


The book is divided up into nine parts and each part has a several chapters with specific anecdotal stories by the author and how Sun Tzu's philosophising would tie into real life today. As well the book is sprinkled with numerous pie charts and 3D graphs ostensibly to support the authors view of the world ..... These graphs and tables I found were the most aggravating, I felt they talked down to me and most are not only outright silly but meaningless .....


It's not light reading I would rate it as struggle reading .....

In this clever little book that is intended as a reality check on a thousand years of the history of war, the author gives a point-by-point refutation of many of Sun Tzu's most famous aphorisms, about the not so gentle art of persuasion. With great verve and cleverness, Mr. Bing shows us the proper way to go about overthrowing a thousand years of "place mat" and "fortune cookie" level wisdom: It is best done with a hefty dose of reality from the zero-sum game (the Hobbesian jungle) of the Harvard School of Business and the "modern American way of war." As a result, here in this volume there are to be found both funny and serious retorts and vignettes. But the funny ones are not very serious, and the serious ones are not very funny. And in either case, whether funny or serious, they should not be allowed to trump what is left of our humanity?

By the way, I know first hand that they teach Sun Tzu at the National War college (where presumably there are a bunch of staff officer level sissies); and there they do not see strategy as a "throw away" category as this author seems to suggest, but see it as one of the most serious subjects in the officer's preparatory curriculum.

In short, cleverness and funniness aside, one cannot miss the point that beneath all the elbowing, scratching, gouging, growling and the kicking and grabbing of scrotums that characterizes Bing's version of the new ethos of American business and war, the student of these "revised ways" is also most assuredly stripped of everything else: his dignity, his honor, his morals, his pride, his soul and most of all his humanity.

So what is the point of booty won without these intangibles? Is it unfair to ask: what kind of world is left in the wake of such a brutal (soulless, and uncivilized) updating of Sun Tzu's timeless wisdom? Without these intangibles indeed how can any value at all be placed on the booty won itself? What about the grace, skill, honor and pride of a warrior? Are they to be just a cheap ideological rationalization after the fact, as say we were forced to do in the invasion of Granada? Recognizing that the author's "tongue is firmly in cheek," somehow one gets the impression that even during Sun Tzu's, arguably more barbaric times, sacrificing dignity, morals, soul, pride, honor and humanity were not intended to be a part of the formula?

In the more modern "kill or be killed" world of today's American business specifically, and the American business of war more generally, some of us continue to tell ourselves that we are still representatives of the highest form of civilization? But maybe what the author is really trying to tell us is that we have been terribly mistaken in this self-serving miscalculation? Throughout history, we humans somehow have striven to leave a modicum of our humanity intact and on the record - as well as on the battlefield (otherwise of what value is it?). This book, with a healthy dose of "dog-eat-dog" reality backing it up, is an appeal to do no such thing. Its ethos is: "The dirtier we fight, the sweeter is the taste of the booty?"

Beneath all the cleverness, it seems that all this author is trying to say here is that in the world of American business and war, no matter what cards we hold, a kick in the nuts, is always our best play; that our dignity, morals (not to mention pride and honor) -- indeed our whole humanity - is a "fungible" commodity. And like everything else, it too is perishable and is always to be sacrificed in the heat of battle. Humanity, pride, dignity, honor, and soul-searching are all for sissies, period. In this preamble to the new "modern order of battle," everything is existential, and thus is to be left on the battlefield, no matter at what cost. In short, our humanity is to be spent, used-up completely, for no other reason than to "demonstrate" prowess or "superiority" of the ego in battle. With a mindless inhumane illogic and ethos such as this, it is easy to explain why we are falling seriously behind the Chinese and Indians; and explains how our Kabuki democracy, questionable decisions in war, and our business practices are slowly sliding us into the abyss of second rateness? (Remember Granada? Panama? Vietnam? Afghanistan? The Indian wars? No sissies in those wars, right?) Two stars

This book is very funny, although as I read it, I was not always able to gauge when the author was trying to make a serious point. Therefore, I read it as if it was a satire throughout and completed it in a day. Sun Tzu was a Chinese general who lived sometime around 500 BC and his classic text, "The Art of War", is still used to train military leaders. However, it is as much a text of philosophy as it is of battlefield tactics, so many have adapted his principles to other facets of life.
Bing uses the business world as his backdrop, placing everything into a military context. Of course it is all a joke, there are chapters on the adversarial qualities of short people, tall people, fat people and skinny people. All in good clean fun, although like all humor, someone somewhere will take offence. Puns are scattered throughout, many based on using the "tz" prefix as a substitute for an "s". For example, on page 150, there is the sentence: "If the enemy is unprepared, you may reveal yourself and attack, Tzays Tzu, and there is a good possibility of Tzuccess. If, . . . engagement without success immediately renders battle Tzummarily impossible . . " I wonder why the title of the book wasn't, "Sun Tzu Was a Tzissy."
My favorite pun is on page 145. Shih is an ancient Chinese philosophical notion defined as, "shih was the elegance of knowledge, the insight and skill to organize knowledge into meaningful patterns." Bing explains what shih is, relates it to the modern business world and then has the classic line, "Face it. You're full of shih." I roared with laughter at that one.
If you want some serious fun to be poked at modern business methods with an occasional jab by a sharpened prod straight to your pompous essentials, then this is the book for you. It may not help your business, but it is guaranteed to help your disposition.

If you're expecting business strategy or something thought provoking, you will find it here, but don't expect it to be presented in any serious context. The book is full of puns and dark humor that not everyone will appreciate. The book is extremely easy to read cover to cover if you have the time. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and put it on my book shelf right next to the original art of war by Sun Tzu.

The most infamous chapter in the book is "Finding your Button". Like some Lucas Arts movie, tap into to Dark Side mentality. Use your anger to win Bing wants you to promote your anger, mangify it into unstoppable rage! He advocates using alcohol Vodka, Gin and scotch to enhance your anger. I found Bings book appalling and histerical.

In my youth I had some martial arts training and to tell you the truth, I would gladly take on an rage induced drunk any day over a cool headed calculating killer. If the purpose of this chapter was ment to induce rage induced laughter... Bing has accomplished his goal, hahahaha

This book reflect the business enviroment and the leader with emotional inteligence or not (this is the latest fasion aboout management), still has the same brutal essence. Stanley Bing gives a look with humour and laughting about it.

I think the one-star reviewers are missing the joke here. For those of us who read the back page of Fortune first, Gil Schwartz's Stanley Bing is the thing. His irreverent brand of humor is always spot on. His writing is crisp and well-constructed (you expected anything less from CBS' Head of PR?). His humor is biting, yet very smart, witty and delightfully unexpected.

Here's one example of many from the book - one of Bing's stock-in-trade tricks are his faux charts and tables. In one table, he reviews Warriors and their Actions. The table starts off like this:

Warrior - Action
------------------------
Moses - Parted Red Sea, made flood

Pharaoh - Drove into the flood

Howell Raines - Flooded the Zone

That's just a wonderfully witty free-association getting from Moses to Howell Raines. The book is filled with brilliant set pieces like that. If you love the Bing columns, you'll love the book. Think of them as extended columns. Bing fans are legion. His books deliver the goods.

This book is very enlightening and cool. Stanley Bing says it like it is. If you wait long enough your enemies will float down river!

Another bonehead who knows all about war but never actually spent a minute actually fighting one.