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I know I need to compromise. This book was too "Working Girl" for me--very 1980-90's. Not every man thinks like this or participated in sports. I am in the medical profession. Very type A and wanted to make sure I could work with others. She uses many of these analogies and it just did not help me. I think it helped me work with women better.
Only 1 of these persons was a male. I was one of 3 team leads on a large project and we were just getting started. I first read this book in 1993. He got just as much out of it as the women. This is straight, no nonsense talk. Within 3 months, the other 2 team leads read it as well as the project lead, the project manager, our division administrative assistant and our pruchasing agent. My extremely well-worn copy gets perused at least once a year. This is a must read for both genders.
However, there is a great body of research that shows that the way people are *most* successful is to capitalize on their natural strengths and talents. I enjoyed this book and have recommended it to my executive coaching clients-- both men and women who have also benefited from it. My concern is that women may become focused on how to play hardball (i.e., act differently than how they have been socialized to act) and neglect to harness their true inherent or learned strengths. As a psychologist I appreciate the thorough research references and developmental lifespan approach (the authors discuss how difference communication and behavior patterns are formed based on how girls and boys play).The only reason that I gave the book 4 instead of 5 stars is that it had a slight flavor of how to be more like men to be successful in the corporate world. I believe that it is important to be aware of cultural variables and how they impact the way you are perceived and your power in the workplace. We as women need to focus more on how we can use our house and doll lessons to our advantage instead of always focusing on how to play hardball. That said, this is an excellent book that every business person needs to read.
OK, so I'm pretty secure in my masculinity -- I eat woman-specific Luna Bars and think they're delicious. This book could equally be titled "How to Play Hardball," as the truly woman-specific sections on dress and biology are few and far between.As someone coming into a management role from a male-dominated but "softball" field (engineering academia/research), I needed to understand what the game *was* and how to play it right. This book is especially worthwhile for men if you don't have a childhood background in competitive sports or you're a man more inclined towards collaboration than competition.
This book points out a lot of things women might be aware of but don't really think about. It really changed my perspective and the whole office politic games. I bought this book are a couple of women friends in management and would recommend this to anyone in a supervisor position.
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