Marg McAlister

How could you resist a book called "Am I the Only SANE ONE Working Here?"

I sure couldn't.

A few days ago I had to make a quick flight interstate - there and back in a day. As I always do, I browsed in the bookshop before boarding the plane. A book in the business section caught my eye from some distance away: first because of the title, then the cover art (pretty much at the same time). I plucked it from the shelf and read the back cover blurb... and was finally hooked by the author's friendly, humorous voice when I flicked through the book and skim-read a couple of sections. 

You can see the cover here - arresting: both the image used and the title! And here's the back cover blurb:

Gossipy coworkers, unmanageable managers, and cranky clients have got you pulling your hair out and gnawing your nails down to nubs. From teammates who drop the ball on deadlines to corporate bullies who try to run your show, your work environment can be lethal to your health and your career.

When things get crazy, you may not be able to control how others behave, but you can change how you respond. Al Bernstein shows you how understand the situation, how to keep the craziness from bothering you, how to keep things from getting worse, and how you can make them better.

CHANGE YOUR REACTION, NOT THEIR ACTIONS

• Coworkers who don't like you? Feed them!
• Hidden agendas? Unleash the power of "cc:" mail!
• Unpleasant supervisors? Tell them only what they want to hear!
• Office gossip? Dish out positive gossip about other people!
• Lying coworkers? Buy into their lies and watch what happens!

And ninety-six more!

I guess I'm lucky: most of the people I work with are pleasant and hard-working. Sure, a few have their foibles... but so far there's no sign of a white-collar psychopath. However, I'm sure this book would be a godsend for many, many front-line workers.

Let me quote a few sections so you can see why I not only bought the book, but was engrossed in it throughout the flight (leaving a humorous book by one of my favourite authors nestling, unread, in my capacious handbag!) I won't quote the entire solution to Scenario #2 below, because it's fairly extensive - but I will quote a segment that shows the author's voice.

Survival Scenario 2: Dog-Ate-My-Homework Liars

Joey, the schlemiel from marketing who got assigned to your project team, is supposed to be working on the PowerPoint for the presentation next week. He says it's almost done, but you have your doubts. He's choked in the clutch before.

All he needs to do is tell you in advance if he won't finish it in time, so you can do it yourself. You've done most of the work yourself anyway.

You keep asking how it's going, and he keeps saying "No problemo!"

There is a problemo. Joey is the basic dog-ate-my-homework type of liar, who will say anything to avoid a confrontation. His transparent deceptions, hardly worthy of being called lies, are made up on the spot and seldom thought out in advance. Joey never does anything in advance. Like a ten-year-old, he doesn't stop to think that dissembling now will lead to a much bigger confrontation later on.

When later on comes, he will apologise for messing up and promise that it will never happen again. But it will, and you know it.

Survival Solution 2:

Forget the Dog: Get the Homework

Here are some ideas about how to keep low-skill liars like Joey from driving you crazy:

Recognise that the Problem Is Immaturity, Rather than Deception. At some level, Joey IS a ten-year-old. He lives in the moment, doing whatever comes easiest, and ignoring anything that is difficult. Like the parents of a ten-year-old, you may be tempted to tell him that he will always get into more trouble for lying than he would for not doing the PowerPoint. You did not believe this when you were ten, and neither will he. Immature people have only a hazy conception of cause and effect and almost no ability to predict the future.
Just as with a real ten-year-old, grounding him - or any other form of punishment - will not work; it will only teach him that he is bad or that you are mean. This he already knows.

Get Him to Show Rather than Tell. Don't give Joey a chance to lie about whether the PowerPoint (or anything else) will be done. Demand that he show it to you, and let him make up a story about why it isn't done. This approach will minimise the damage by giving you more usable information, and enough time to do the  job yourself if necessary.

If you want someone like Joey to do his homework, you will have to sit him down at the kitchen table and watch him, just as you would with a recalcitrant ten-year-old. At the office, you'll have to stop by frequently to see that he's doing his work rather than surfing the Net. It will probably be easier to do his work yourself, which is what he's counting on. If it is your misfortune to have to supervise someone like Joey, nothing will work like frequent spot checks.

If You Don't Have Control, Get it by Becoming a Jewish Mother. If a liar like Joey is your peer or even above you in the food chain, you will have to exert some informal power. Learn how to do this from an expert, my mother. Here are some of her secrets...

From the excerpts above, you can see why Albert J. Bernstein's books on dealing with people are so popular. His voice is friendly and humorous, and when you read his books, you feel that you are having a conversation with someone who (a) really understands your problems and (b) has some useful advice to offer!

"Am I the Only SANE ONE Working Here?" is classified as 'Business and Economics/Self-Help'. The Self-Help market is huge and profitable, if you can offer readers good advice presented in an appealing voice.

The 'good advice' part is crucial for this market. If your book is funny but offers no help, it will still appeal to a certain segment of the market - but it is NOT 'self-help'. To help someone, you need to offer solutions.

Bernstein's book is an excellent model. He has divided his book into 101 segments, and the sub-title is '101 Solutions for Surviving Office Insanity'. You read the title, and identify with it immediately - how often have you wondered, when dealing with obstinate, nasty or idiotic coworkers, if you just MIGHT be the only sane one around? And how often have you come home, wrung out by putting in hours of overtime to get projects finished, only to feel like cutting your throat because a few coworkers are dragging the chain? Wouldn't YOU find the idea of '101 solutions' appealing?

Berstein has come up with a killer title, a great cover, an inviting back-cover blurb and the promise of 101 solutions.

But - does he deliver on the solutions?

Let's see how he lays out the content.

Each one of the 101 scenarios he presents consist of the following:

• A short scenario (or case-study) - an example of the problem
• An analysis of what is going on: what these people are doing, and why they do it
• A 'Survival Solution' - what you can do about it to mitigate the damage and/or try to combat it. For each scenario, there are 3-5 sub-headings in this section, showing different things you can do.

What YOU Can Do to Ensure You Come up with Non-Fiction that Works:

1. Scan the shelves of a bookstore, or an online site, with the aim of seeing what catches your eye.
   
2. Take note of the effectiveness of title, the cover art, the back-cover blurb and the index/contents list.
   
3. Check out the way the author has presented the information/'help' sections - are they easily accessible? Can you dip into the book just reading the sections that particularly interest you? If you had to, could you make a list or checklist of 'things to do' that will help you? Is it a page-turner? (That is, do you want to keep reading just because it is entertaining and/or because it offers real solutions, presented in an interesting way?)

You can learn more from analysing successful published books than by reading half a dozen 'how to' books. I recommend you get hold of a copy of the book used as an example here and read it - because it's entertaining, it's educational from a writer's perspective - and last but not least, because it may also be useful to you in the workplace!

Copyright Marg McAlister 2009.