When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses: How to Survive in a Crazy and Dysfunctional Workplace [Paperback]

William Lundin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 1999

How can smart people stay sane and productive when their bosses are toxic, rude, or just plain dumb? Solutions abound in this essential book. William and Kathleen Lundin, featured on National Public Radio's Marketplace, are widely acknowledged as experts on bringing a better quality of life to today's beleaguered workplace. Using the popular co-dependence model, this new paperback edition provides valuable therapeutic/psychological strategies for handling all-too-typical problems and creating a more healthy and functional organization.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Featured in The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company. Real People. Real Problems. Real Solutions. Suffering under an intimidating supervisor? Mistreated by thoughless management? Demeaned by a dictator? Bullied by a lazy boss? Used and abused by heartless company policy? You're not alone. The fact is that such nightmare situations are a way of life for many working people. But help is on the way. William and Kathleen Lundin, renowned corporate "therapists" for dysfunctional organizations, have helped hundreds of employees break the cycle. Through candid interviews with the real people who have endured difficult working conditions, this book offers hope for dealing with those "bosses from hell." When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses brings corporate stupidity out of the closet. Through stories from the sales manager who actually wields a baseball bat to keep his staff "motivated," to the health care supervisor who falunts the fact that his policies are unethical, you will learn practical strategies for coping with any dysfunctional workplace and managing your own "dumb boss."

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Product Details

• Paperback: 185 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (July 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071348085
• ISBN-13: 978-0071348089
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #966,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very misleading, February 20, 2001

By 

Chris Bergstresser (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses: How to Survive in a Crazy and Dysfunctional Workplace (Paperback)

This is a horribly miscategorized book. While the case studies are entertaining, there is absolutely no advice on how to deal with the situations presented. The book is sprinkled with humiliating demotivators like "When dumbness at the top insists on perpetuating itself, a miserable life for everyone else is assured." With no solutions, the book is essentially little more than an extended gripe session, best suited for discussion over a round of drinks at your next pink slip party.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars don't waste your time!, July 25, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses: How to Survive in a Crazy and Dysfunctional Workplace (Paperback)

I bought this book because I saw that there were so many good reviews and the average score was so high.
I got through the first chapter and I think its a complete waste of time. The book doesn't seem to be about what the title suggests. "How to survive in a crazy and dysfunctional workplace". Its just case study after case study with no lessons you can learn from.

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For Those Down on (Corporate) Empowerment, June 27, 2002

By 

Gregory McMahan (Tottori, Japan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses: How to Survive in a Crazy and Dysfunctional Workplace (Hardcover)

In my often turbulent and traumatic travels in the American and international workplace, I have often asked myself, `Just what is it about my superiors that makes them do the stupid things that they do?' This book goes to great length to answer that in plain and simple English. The book is less of a how-to guide to survival in a dysfunctional workplace than a detailed chronicle of truly stupid behavior among middle and upper management in corporate America. The book documents a limited number of instances of dumb behavior, which they define as inexplicably profound error (or what the man on the street would call stupid), and focuses on the new, improved corporate greed that firmly took hold in the nineties. The book is a layman's read on one rarely studied aspect of human behavior. Most other academic and popular books on behavior almost always focus on intelligence and/or truly aberrant, deviant behavior. This book, however, focuses on the stupidity of quasi-normal people (after all, how can anyone who works for corporate/institutional America confidently call themselves sane?), and as such should really be titled, `Why Otherwise Normal Individuals Do Stupid Things'.

The authors offer the workingman and woman a valuable heads up, letting them know that stupidity is rampant in the new, global workplace, and that there is no truly safe haven from the idiotic behavior of the powers that be. The book presents the reader with a succession of harrowing workplace studies, and interprets each by offering a detailed analysis (meaning) and a few terse, common sense lessons to be learned from each experience. I had hoped that the book would offer more in the way of coping strategies for those of us trapped in the daily grind. However, this book did bring to my attention two important things: letting people know that they can't easily use you by standing up for yourself, and being careful to plan your (expedient) exit once you realize that personally harmful workplace stupidity is present and thoroughly entrenched.

The book gives equal treatment to dumb individuals, organizations, and those that must suffer them. The book also indirectly teaches the reader how to recognize the underlying dysfunction in crazy workplaces. Environments rife with mistrust, egomania and insensitivity characterize all dumb organizations. Such organizations allow management to make gross errors in judgment and expend vast resources to shield upper management from the terrible consequences of lower management's mistakes (Bear in mind that this is sometimes done as a prelude to axing a problem individual, department, or division- and is thus diversionary). The dumb organization not only condones, but also encourages counter-productive behavior, openly impedes and squelches alternative courses of action (no matter how convenient or prudent), and the flawed opinions of one individual substitutes for the rational, informed consensus of the group. Dumb individuals, groups, and organizations fail to grow professionally, intellectually and personally over time- they in fact devolve as time progresses. Dumb people and organizations feel that they already know everything there is to know- going forward, they simply fail to learn, period.

While the book bills itself as an anti-dote to the feel-good, New Age, self-help business craze which has swept the corporate arena by storm, in reality, it cleverly rebukes the team-building and empowerment mania that has overcome many workplaces, ultimately revealing it to be a sham. And they are right. Team building requires selflessness and empowerment requires an open, inclusive environment. How can either succeed when selfishness and greed are rewarded (and shamelessly revered), and the organization is closed and exclusive, and outwardly fears creative, initiative-taking employees, all the while vigorously cultivating an environment that strenuously compels allegiance to the whims of the reigning autocrat.

In conclusion, I would like to offer a few words of friendly advice. When asked to cover up for the stupidity of a superior, don't. When asked to clean up the mess upper management has made, don't. When asked by upper management to do the job that your immediate boss should have done or failed to do (while keeping him or her on the job), walk away at the earliest, most convenient opportunity. As long as you perpetuate the stupidity, openly participate in it and condone it, it will always remain and it will taint you. Finally, when your boss who is paid big bucks to think asks you, either directly or implicitly, to do his or her thinking for him or her, think for yourself. Don't let him or her use your brains and get paid for it. If they can't think, then they should not be there in the first place, and more importantly, NEITHER SHOULD YOU.