Crazy Bosses: Fully Revised and Updated (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: disaster hunter, crazy corporation, crazy boss, New York, Bill Clinton, Time Warner (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Bing, who writes Esquire magazine's "Executive Summary" column, analyzes a slice of corporate culture gone mad--the interpersonal dynamics of working with a crazy boss. He first describes the process of a typical initiate entering the corporate world with a general set of perceptions which may be out of sync with the underlying mechanisms that govern the behavior of corporate players. Through the use of anecdotes generalized to portray recurring themes, Bing describes the various kinds of crazy bosses: the boss with the five brains, the bully, the paranoid boss, the narcissist, the "bureaucrazy," and the disaster hunter. Chapter subheadings range from clever to cutesy, making it difficult to refer back to particular sections of his discussion. However, Bing ends each chapter with concrete strategies to cope with each type of crazy boss. Recommended for general business collections.
- Todd Yaeger, West Virginia Univ. Lib., Morgantown
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

Since the latter part of the century just past, Stanley Bing has been exploring the relationship between authority and madness. In one bestselling book after another, reporting from his hot-seat as an insider in a world-renowned multinational corporation, he has tried to understand the inner workings of those who lead us and to inquire why they seem to be powered, much of the time, by demons that make them obnoxious and dangerous, even to themselves.

In What Would Machiavelli Do?, Bing looked at the issue of why mean people do better than nice people, and found that in their particular form of insanity lay incredible power. In Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up, he offered a spiritual path toward managing the unruly executive beast. And in Sun Tzu Was a Sissy, he taught us how to become one of them, and wage war on the playing field that ends in a dream home in Cabo. Now he returns to his roots to offer the last word on the entity that shapes our lives and stomps through—and on—our dreams: The Crazy Boss.

Students of Bing—and there are many, secreted inside tortured organizations, yearning for blunt instruments with which to fight—will note that he has walked this ground before, looking for answers. In 1992, he published the first edition of Crazy Bosses, which was fine, as far as it went. Now, some 15 years and several dozen insane bosses later, he has updated and rethought much of the work. Back in the last century, Bing was a small, trembling creature, looking up at those who made his life miserable and analyzing the mental illness that gave them their power. Today, while still trembling much of the time, he is in fact one of those people his prior work has warned us against. His own hard-won wisdom and now institutionalized dementia make this new edition completely fresh and indispensable to anyone who works for somebody else or lives with somebody else, or would like to.

In short, Bing is back on his home turf in this funny, true, and essential book, peering with his keen and frosty eye at the crazy boss in all his guises: the Bully, the Paranoid, the Narcissist, the Wimp, and the self-destructive Disaster Hunter. If you loved the original, classic Crazy Bosses, you'll be thrilled to plunge back into the new, refurbished pool. If you are new to the book, strap yourself in: it's going to be a crazy ride.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness (May 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060731575
• ISBN-13: 978-0060731571
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #140,146 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I've had my share..., June 30, 2000

By	Quaker Annie "reader" - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Crazy Bosses: Crazy Bosses (Paperback)

....of Crazy Bosses! Not only did I have them, I'm sure I was one, too - there's nothing like a corporate environment to bring out interesting tendencies in anyone. When I received an anonymous e-mail at work, with excerpts from this book, I had to have it!

Easy to read, written with wit and actual substance, this book (predecessor to the very popular "Who Moved My Cheese?" and "When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses") helped get me through some difficult times.

If you can't just stop working to do something you really enjoy -- and not many can, aside from Dilbert's Scott Adams and me -- this book is like an emotional teddy bear with teeth. He defines different "Crazy Bosses" by behavior (most of us are a mix), reasons why they may be that way, and practical ways to work with them, because most of aren't likely to get away from them, even if we change corporations and bosses.

The truth most of us don't want to know is that the insanity of the business world is ours to deal with, not management's to fix. There is no one coming to the rescue - and we each play our own part to the madness, by our own responses. This book is a good aid with suggestions on what to do and what NOT to do, to survive.

We have to rely on our own emotional and physical health, friends, a sense of humor and a sense of our own self-worth (aside from work) so we won't feel like a victim.

The book I found the most helpful throughout my corporate life - and it was great in my real life, too - was M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled." "Life is difficult," and once we figure that out, we can get on with living! If you are feeling like a victim, read these books and start a discussion with a friend or two!

Good luck - and rest assured that there *is* life after work!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A superb graduate class in business, May 21, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Garland, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crazy Bosses: Crazy Bosses (Paperback)

Find this book, read it, keep it tucked under your pillow. It is full of wit, humor, insight . . . and more than a dash of morbid truth. Well-written, it is the kind of book that management professors should have as required reading. This is one of two books that every serious student of business should have in his or her library; the other is "You Can Win at Office Politics," by Dr. Robert Bell. Somehow they are both first-rate writing and first-rate philosophy. Don't say you weren't warned!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars You Know, You Hate, You Are Them...Now Read About Them, October 21, 2000

By	Anthony G Pizza "trivialtony" (FL) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Crazy Bosses: Crazy Bosses (Paperback)

Seemingly written as post-game analysis following an 80s decade of mega mergers, business bungles and greed approval at every level, Stanley Bing's 1992 "Crazy Bosses" was and remains an instructive, if flabbily written and weakly humorous survival guide to dealing with authority's abuse in all forms.

Esquire columnist Bing wears his liberal business and political opinions on his sleeve. References to Nixon, the Reagans, and to candidate Gary Hart abound (the book also features an odd Oliver North analogy). He also name-checks notorious 80s figures like Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Jim Bakker, and even Lou Holtz. While some of Bing's many anonymous testimonials shock and surprise (especially one on an alcoholic boss with a surprise happy ending representing his best writing here) many seem like workplace whining from people you also would not wish to work with, let alone for.

Bing properly blames psychotic boss behavior and its effects (obsessive perfectionism, unfair preferences, inconsistent policies) on need for short-term profits, demand to create and chart corporate culture, sycophants who feed need and ego of the powerful (making converts along the way), which in turn exert it over those beneath by stealing time, thought, and morale. Bing delves into these areas with some humor but often unneeded commentaries after quotes that speak well on their own. Yet his comments on workaholism, which in his chapter "Diaster Hunter" he groups with alcoholism, drug abuse, and sexual harrassment, properly expose that trait for the character and family-breaking flaw it is.

Although Bing's recent "What Would Machiavelli Do?" seems to cover similar subject matter with more pointed humor, "Crazy Bosses," with a 90s rewrite, could remain a useful reference to those needing instruction and reinforcement in the workplace. No employee, whether working for Ebeneezer Scrooge or Al Dunlap, is ever their job. Bing's book reminds its readers of this fact, and is recommended reading where you find it.