Review
"…It is certainly wacky, irreverent and very funny…" (Professional Manager, May 2003)
"…very amusing and painfully honest look at the foibles and failures of business today…" (Business Executive, April 2003)
"…This is a really interesting and entertaining book…" (Marketing, 5 June 2003)
From the Inside Flap
Will it be some wayward meteor messing up this fragile planet we are spinning on? Or perhaps certain dim-witted Prime Ministers and Presidents, with their fingers placed where they shouldn't be (on shiny red buttons of course)? Well according to Barry Gibbons it's the soulless and unprincipled corporations and businesses that will be decidedly screwing things up and finally putting Earth plc into bankruptcy.
In Warning: May Contain Nuts we are once again pleasantly immersed in the world which is Barry Gibbons. Following on from his best selling Dream Merchants and Howboys, Barry Gibbons, former CEO of Burger King and iconoclast, gives a hilarious and insightful account of how and why businesses get it wrong!
Gibbons takes us on a romp-roaring ride through the next 999 years of corporate mayhem and madness - from the street sweeper to the CEO in his private jet. Because we're not talking about little blips on a profit and loss statement in a poxy sector or some niche industry. Companies can have far more an impact on our daily lives than government or politics. About half of the world's biggest economies are now corporations. From the corporate suicide bombings of the likes of WorldCom and Marconi to business SMEFs (Spontaneous Mass Existence Failures) such as Enron - Gibbons rips into the antics of these once trusted companies.
In a series of 50 droll vignettes, which are the business equivalent of ?sop meeting Billy Connolly meeting Peter Drucker, you will discover:
* the direct descendents of Alexander the Great, Frederick the Great and Alfred the Great. They are called Alexander the Mediocre, Fred the Saddo and Alfred the Cheating Bastard. Find out where they work.
* the lengths you may have to go to if you want to avoid staying in a MacDonald's hotel.
* why 'Ireland' should be taught in Business Schools.
* How GWMs (Girls Who Might) created modern PR.
* How to join S.E.A.L (Senior Executives Against Limos).
So is it all doom and gloom? Are we destined for failure because of the frolicking these companies get up to - at our expense!? Are there any lessons or optimistic quick turn-around plans of action that Gibbons can share with us? Not really. But Warning: May Contain Nuts makes for some highly entertaining reading. And for the clever among us the lessons are implied. Just don't be daft.
