Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Don't waste your time with this book. It's just an endless group of unfortunate work bosses. There is no insight or help with surviving theses situations. Advice like, "You cannot be doing your job even when you are doing your job if your boss says so" in chapter one is one of the unhelpful tips the book gives. Unfortunately, this catchy title doesn't produce.

And it's new title should be "When smart people read dumb books." I thought it would be a helpful, informative book for those of us who really do work for inadequate leadership, and instead it was a jumble of whiny people complaining about their workplaces. The conversations of employees did not seem to be edited, so a lot of what was said was incomprehensible to the reader, since you couldn't be there to read body language or decipher the situation. The book offers absolutely no help on what to do if you happen to be the victim of a "dumb" boss, and I can't decide why the authors wrote it in the first place. It spends an awful lot of time on workplaces in the health care field and education, leaving anyone else in the dark. Don't buy this useless tome, in fact, don't even borrow it from the library.

I was sorely disappointed in this book. I figured I would learn how to deal with the dummy I've just been assigned to work for, but this is just an endless stream of anecdotes with no advice for folks like me.

In a previous employ, I had put up with "dumb bosses" for nearly nine years before I mustered up enough courage to quit my job. These years really took a toll on me, professionally and emotionally. Had this book been available years ago, my career could be much further along because it spells out very clearly what is a non-healthy working environment. After reading this book, I now know what to expect of bosses and what subordinates should expect of me, and will not make the same mistakes of the past. It defines an environment necessary for maximum productivity, opportunity, advancement and psychological well being. This book is clear and concise and excellent reading for anyone in the workplace, whether or not a "Dumb Boss" exists.

You would be hard-pressed to find a more honest book about business and the often short sighted, un-productive, arbitrary, and just plain stupid decisions made by “dumb” managers and leaders. William and Kathleen Lundin articulately challenge the absurdities of corporate culture and the workplace. In this landmark book, they define “dumb” quite broadly: it applies to the stupid, the egomaniacal, the dictatorial, the scheming, the manipulative, and even the abusive. First-person accounts from leaders and employees illustrate the authors’ journey through the epidemic dumbness of corporate structure, decision-making, and practice. The authors thoroughly and truthfully present these problems, analyze their impact, and offer remedies. However, their conclusions often clearly indicate that if you are mired in a consistently, terminally dumb workplace, leaving is usually your best option. Don’t let the juvenile look of the volume throw you. We ... recommend this book to everyone with a job: it’s that good, like a sharp-witted social commentary delivered by keen observers.

I could not put this book down. This is a must read for all of you who either are a boss or have a boss. "When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses" not only exposes, but offers solutions to the dilemma that is facing the workplace today. Bosses do not know how to manage and those who have a boss are allowing their work product to suffer due to being subjected to a dumb boss. The Lundins have exposed the cancer of the workforce. They have exposed the nerve that is damaging what we find most precious, namely our work life. Today work has transformed into home. We are looking for work to treat us in a certain fashion that will allow us to meet and exceed the expectations of our employer. This book delves into the inability of the work place to allow us to achieve our goals. "When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses" is an educational tool that enables a work place to redesign itself. This book comes at a time when the work place is a disaster. We! need assistance in restructuring and this book gives us that assistance. "When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses" is the means with which a company can change from a place where all employees disdain their daily life, thereby being unproductive, to a place where employees show up ready and willing to give themselves to the company that is giving back to them. It is the must read of our time!!!

Back in the '60s Dr. Laurence Peter discovered the Peter Principle: "in a hierarchy everyone rises to his/her level of incompetence". What made it so revolutionary is that it explained why everything is so screwed up in the business world. It's being run by incompetents. (As if you hadn't noticed.) Now, over three decades later the Lundins have documented the devestating impact these "dumb bosses" have on the workplace. If you now work or have worked for an insensitve, ego driven, individual you need no further explanation of what we're talking about.

But, what's best about this book is that the Lundins offer strategies for survival. Bill Lundin says dumb bossess are here to stay, and unfortunately, he's right. It's the old Peter Principle. Now at least there are some ideas of how to get through the day if you work for an incompetent manager. This is a great read for those whose work life is quietly frustrating and an even better read for managers brave enough to want to discover if they're really as smart as they think they are.

Shel Newman

President-Elect, Chicago Chapter, American Society for Training and Development

shelnewman@worldnet.att.net