The Ape in the Corner Office
How to Make Friends, Win Fights and Work Smarter by Understanding Human Nature
1 of 1 copy available
You’re ambitious and want to get ahead, but what’s the best way to do it? Become the biggest, baddest predator? The proverbial 800-pound gorilla? Or does nature teach you to be more subtle and sophisticated?
Richard Conniff, the acclaimed author of The Natural History of the Rich, has survived savage beasts in the workplace jungle, where he hooted and preened in the corner office as a publishing executive. He’s also spent time studying how animals operate in the real jungles of the Amazon and the African bush.
What he shows in The Ape in the Corner Office is that nature built you to be nice. Doing favors, grooming coworkers with kind words, building coalitions—these tools for getting ahead come straight from the jungle. The stereotypical Darwinian hard-charger supposedly thinks only about accumulating resources. But highly effective apes know it’s often smarter to give them away. That doesn’t mean it’s a peaceable kingdom out there, however. Conniff shows that you can become more effective by understanding how other species negotiate the tricky balance between conflict and cooperation.
Conniff quotes one biologist on a chimpanzee’s obsession with rank: “His attempts to maintain and achieve alpha status are cunning, persistent, energetic, and time-consuming. They affect whom he travels with, whom he grooms, where he glances, how often he scratches, where he goes, what times he gets up in the morning.” Sound familiar? It’s the same behavior you can find written up in any issue of BusinessWeek or The Wall Street Journal.
The Ape in the Corner Office connects with the day-to-day of the workplace because it helps explain what people are really concerned about: How come he got the wing chair with the gold trim? How can I survive as that big ape’s subordinate without becoming a spineless yes-man? Why does being a lone wolf mean being a loser? And, yes, why is it that jerks seem to prosper—at least in the short run?
Also available as a Random House AudioBook and an eBook
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
September 6, 2005 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780739353516
- File size: 381002 KB
- Duration: 13:13:45
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Though the title suggests a focus on workplace aggression, that type of animal-based energy is only a small part of this fascinating, almost encyclopedic, review of human behavior at work. Don Leslie's savvy reading is part of what makes all 13-plus hours flow so well. Listeners curious about these things will become obsessed with hearing it straight through. Every bit of the presentations is positively compelling--the cogent animal vignettes, the brain chemical findings, and especially the familiar corporate stories of power running amuck and organizational types acting in blatantly animalistic ways. An indispensible lesson for anyone trying to navigate in today's corporate jungles. T.W. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine -
Although we like to think ourselves civilized, this audiobook will make you rethink your pecking order in the world of work. Rick Adamson reads this nonfiction business book like a raconteur. His reading flows through information-packed chapters as well as anecdotes. The narration is lively even though it's based on many involved scientific and business research studies. Using information gleaned from the animal world, Richard Conniff entertains and enlightens, while Adamson's pacing delivers an extra punch where needed. This is a great resource for figuring out who's who in your workplace, what motivates individuals, and what role each plays in the office wilderness. D.L.M. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
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