Most Popular Books by Stanley Bing

A sly send-up of the successful What Would Jesus Do? books, here is a satisfyingly mean light-hearted approach to business success—the Machiavellian way. Machiavellians may not get to heaven, but on earth they have a definite edge on the competition. In this pithy and discretely vicious guide, Stanley Bing shows how the Florentine master statesman and political thinker would handle today’s myriad corporate challenges, seize the future by the throat, and make it cough up money, power, and superior office space. So, what exactly would Machiavelli do? He would exploit himself only slightly less than he exploits others. He would be in love with his destiny. He would, for the most part, be a paranoid freak. He would always be at war. He would cultivate a few well-loved enemies. He would have a couple of good friends, too. He would acquire his neighbor. He would think BIG. He would move forward like a great shark, eating as he goes. And much, much more. More than a road map to success, this hands-on guide will help anyone get what they want, whether or not they deserve it.

“A masterful curmudgeon who causes laugh-out-loud moments.”—USA Today “Bing delivers his works smoothly, projecting tones of deadpan sarcasm and animated mockery befitting the often irreverent content.” —Publishers Weekly From celebrated business writer and Fortune columnist Stanley Bing, the bestselling author of What Would Machiavelli Do?, Throwing The Elephant, Sun Tzu is a Sissy, and more, comes a collection of playful fables poking fun at corporate archetypes while imparting useful and humorous lessons for anyone striving to make it big in big business. Illustrated throughout by New Yorker artist Steve Brodner, Bingsop’s Fables is the perfect addition to any executive bookshelf in need of a little humor—and a lot of excellent advice.

A mandatory addition to the library of everyone who works for a living (or would like to). For twenty years, Stanley Bing has offered insight, wisdom, and advice from inside the belly of one of the great corporate beasts. In one essential volume, here is all you need to know to master your career, your life, and, when necessary, other weaker life forms. Bing knows whereof he speaks. He has lived the last two decades working inside a gigantic multinational corporation, kicking and screaming all the way up the ladder. During that time, he has seen it all -- mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, the death of the three-martini lunch -- and has himself been painfully reengineered a number of times. He has made a million friends and seen many of them prosper and grow, and sadly seen others sink into consultancy. He has eaten and drunk way too much, stayed in hotels far too good for him, waited for limousines in the pouring rain, and enjoyed it all. Sort of. Most important, Bing has seen management at its best and worst, and he has practiced both as he made the transition from an inexperienced player who hated pompous senior management to a polished strategist who kind of sees its point of view now and then. Bing''s many fans from his days at Esquire and those who enjoy his current column in Fortune know that his take on the workplace is pure storytelling at its best -- sophisticated, amusing, and driven by the kind of insight that only a true insider can possess. The Big Bing provides a corporate mole''s-eye view of the society in which we all live and toil, creating one of the most entertaining, thought-provoking, and just plain funny bodies of work in contemporary letters.

Robert Harbert, the Executive Vice President in charge of Total Quality, a position of great power and prestige at a large corporation, finds his personal life and professional career unraveling when his rise to the top begins to stall, his position becomes vulnerable, and his long-time assistant, CarolAnne, launches a charge of sexual harassment against him. Reprint.

"The story of an artificial human being named Gene who discovers he''s been created to provide a fresh new body for the consciousness of an aging business titan. Determined to maintain his autonomy, Gene rebels"--

Stanley Bing follows his enormously successful What Would Machiavelli Do? with another subversively humorous exploration of how work would be different—if the Buddha were your personal consultant. What would the Buddha do—if he had to deal with a rampaging elephant of a boss every day? That is the premise of Stanley Bing’s wickedly funny guide to finding inner peace in the face of relentlessly obnoxious, huge, and sometimes smelly bosses. Taking the concept of managing up to a new cosmic plateau, Bing urges no less than a revolution of the spirit in the American workplace, turning overwrought, oppressed, stressed-out employees into models of Zen-like powers of concentration, able to take their elephant-like bosses and grey, lumbering companies and twirl them around the little finger of their consciousness. In Bing’s unique tradition of social criticism cum business self-help, Throwing the Elephant presents Four Truths (or possibly Five), a Ninefold Path, and one useful, hilarious guide to workplace sanity, success, and enlightenment that surpasses all understanding, survival.

The scholarly discipline of Bullshit Studies has blossomed in the last several years, fertilized by a number of critical works on the subject and the growing importance of the issue across a wide range of professions. Now, best-selling author and lifelong practitioner Stanley Bing enters the field with a comprehensive look at the many attractive jobs now available to those who are serious about their bullshit and prepared to dedicate their working life to it. What, Bing inquires, do a feng shui consultant, new media executive, wine steward, department store greeter, and Vice President of the United States have in common? What, too, are the actual duties performed by a McKinsey consultant? Other than sitting around making people nervous? Could that possibly be his core function? Likewise, what does an aromatherapist actually do, per se? Sniff things and rub them on people, for big fragrant bucks? Is that all? The answer in all cases is "Yes." They all have bullshit jobs. These few, of course, are just the beginning. Across the length and breadth of this shrinking globe, skillful bullshit artists have secured pleasant, lucrative employment, and are enjoying themselves more than you are. In virtually every occupation, from Advertising to Yoga Franchising, lucky individuals who "work" in these coveted positions enjoy the best lives imaginable -- they are paid well, they rarely break a sweat, and their professions are highly respected, because nobody really knows what they do. At once funny, useful, and tolerably philosophical, this groundbreaking work takes a close look at 100 bullshit jobs -- the money they bring with them, the actual tasks and activities involved (if any), and famous and successful examples of each position, who will provide the neophyte with inspiration. Most crucially, Bing goes on to offer what others so far have not--a clear, concise strategy to help job-seekers at every level reach for that brass ring, knowing full well that it may be attached to the nose of a bull.

From the mind of the ultimate corporate gunslinger comes this no-nonsense, real-world curriculum, designed to augment—if not replace—the more traditional path to achieving mastery of the business universe. Conquer this sharp, practical and often amusing course of study and save $250,000 of wasted business school tuition. Unlike those august, Ivy-encrusted factories that churn out masterful business administrators, The Curriculum will teach you the art of business, employing a smart, tactical battle plan that will prove infinitely more awesome as you make your way in the world. We begin, in the Core Curriculum, with the acquisition and maintenance of Power. Included are such essentials as Not Appearing Stupid (an early career requirement), Fabricating A Sustainable Business Personality, and the arts of Management and Selling. The Advanced Curriculum hones the skills that are required to seize Success by the throat and shake it until valuable prizes fall out of its pockets, including fundamentals on Strategic Thinking, Self-Branding, mastering Electronic Communications, and dealing with Crazy People. Tutorials and Electives, which students may pursue as their interest or discretion advises, include lessons on Giving an Effective Presentation, Business Drinking, and the Care and Feeding of Ultra-Senior Officers. Lavishly enhanced with numerous charts, graphs, and other illuminating business illustrations, and backed up by years of study from Mr. Bing’s proprietary research organization (The National Association of Serious Studies), The Curriculum will occupy a place of pride on any bookshelf dedicated to the study of business, how it works, and how it can be used against those who don’t know how it works.

People in the high flush of a successful but sometimes frenetic business career often look with envy at those who have entered their golden years. Ah! they think. To be retired! Free to wake when you wish, to have the time to reflect on the deeper things in life, play golf or quoits, or just go fishin'' in the middle of the day. The stressed-out mind boggles at the prospect, and the lip cannot help but tremble and drool. At the same time, you may not be emotionally–or financially–ready to hang it all up. Which is why, whether you''re a withered graybeard or a teeny young future hotshot in leather jodhpurs, you need Stanley Bing''s global positioning system for a sane and pleasantly successful life: Executricks, or How to Retire While You''re Still Working. Bing is the ultimate corporate insider, one who has attained nosebleed altitude and worked long and hard enough to lose his desire to work long and hard enough. Over time, he has watched the power players who have made their jobs into a waking festival of indolence and fun, and gleaned a vast range of executricks they have developed over the years, based around several core concepts: Delegation, or getting other people to do the stuff you don''t want to Absence, or the ability to get "work" done while not being physically on the scene Abuse of status Acting visionary when confused Intense engagement (used only in crisis) A wellspring of executricks flow from these simple precepts, including: The use of the cell phone and BlackBerry to establish a permanent state of simultaneous Omniscience and Not-Presence Roping off mealtimes as zones of defensible entitlement Travel as an alternative to work The art of the nap Golf–the ultimate dodge Philanthropy and social activism, a pleasant parallel universe Executricks is the most precious of resources for those who work hard but would rather be hardly working: a secret handbook that lays bare the stratagems of those who have already ascended to the pinnacles of power. No office, home, or backpack should be without a dog-eared copy. Early adopters earn extra points.

“Nobody pricks corporate balloons better than Stanley Bing.” – New York Post The ultimate satirist of corporate America, bestselling author Stanley Bing (Sun Tzu Was a Sissy, Crazy Bosses) now offers an outrageous survival guide to the new workplace with How to Relax Without Getting the Axe—an eminently useful handbook that shows you how to retire on the job while still taking up (window) office space and drawing a huge salary. Succeeding in business without really trying is easy when you listen to Bing.

Jam-packed with new anecdotes, updated references, and modernized jokes, Stanley Bing’s seminal investigation of what makes bosses crazy is now revised for a new generation. Fans of television’s The Office and the cult film Office Space will love this classic guide to the universal workplace phenomenon of crazy bosses, now updated for a new century’s worth of insane supervisors. Bestselling author and business guru Stanley Bing’s Crazy Bosses identifies the various types of crazy bosses—the boss with the five brains, the bully, the paranoid boss, the narcissist, the “bureaucrazy,” and the disaster hunter—and offers readers concrete strategies on how to cope, and, most importantly, how not to become crazy bosses themselves.

A hilarious and tough-minded guide to winning the war of contemporary life. We live in a vicious, highly competitive workplace environment, and things aren′t getting any better. Jobs are few and far between, and people aren′t any nicer now than they were when Ghengis Khan ran around in big furs killing people in unfriendly acquisitions. For thousands of years, people have been reading the writings of the deeply wise, but also extremely dead Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu, who was perhaps the first to look on the waging of war as a strategic art that could be taught to people who wished to be warlords and other kinds of senior managers. In a nutshell, Sun Tzu taught that readiness is all, that knowledge of oneself and the enemy was the foundation of strength and that those who fight best are those who are prepared and wise enough not to fight at all. Unfortunately, in the current day, this approach is pretty much horse hockey, a fact that has not been recognized by the bloated, tree-hugging Sun Tzu industry, which churns out mushy-gushy pseudo-philosophy for business school types who want to make war and keep their hands clean. Sun Tzu was a Sissy will transcend all those efforts and teach the reader how to make war, win and enjoy the plunder in the real world, where those who do not kick, gouge and grab are left behind at the table to pay the tab. Students of Bing will be taught how to plan and execute battles that hurt other people a lot, and advance their flags and those of their friends, if possible. All military strategies will be explored, from mustering, equipping, organizing, plotting, scheming, rampaging, squashing and reaping spoils. Every other book on The Art of War bows low to Sun Tzu. We′re going to tell him to get lost and inform our readers how real war is currently conducted on the battlefield of life.

A satirical novel on the corporate world as it tries to get fewer people to do more for less money. The hero is Lloyd, a corporate flunkey preparing a merger that will cost thousands of workers their job, some of whom are his friends. A first novel.

Si tienes que nadar entre tiburones, debes saber cómo piensan. Y si quieres ser uno de ellos, también... Stanley Bing se vale del humor para explicarnos cómo piensan los que llegan al poder, y cómo hacen para mantenerse allí. Pese a que dice inspirarse en el maestro florentino, hay en este libro muy poco de Maquiavelo y mucho de la filosofía de los tiburones de los negocios. Aunque no pretendamos llegar a ser ricos y poderosos, siempre tendremos que nadar entre tiburones... y para defendernos de ellos lo primero es entender cómo piensan.

Roma Imparatorlugu''nun uzun tarihini dev bir cokuluslu sirketin tarihi gibi okuyabilir miyiz? Stanley Bing Roma AS''de bunu yapiyor. Dunya tarihinin gelmis gecmis en buyuk ve en uzun omurlu imparatorlugunun yukselis ve cokus hikayesini modern zamanlarda yukselen ve cokuse gecen dev bir sirketin hikayesiymis gibi anlatiyor: Imparatorlarin CEO, diger devletlerin rakip sirket, saraylarin da holding binasi rolunu oynadigi heyecanli ve mizahi bir hikaye. "Buyuk samata... Antik cagda macerali bir yolculuk." -Financial Times "Keskin gozlemlerle dolu... Cok komik... Bing''in Roma''nin cokusunu anlattigi yerler ozellikle etkileyici." -The New York Times "Gibbon''in [Roma tarihinin] yoneticiler icin eglenceli bir ozeti... Zekice." -Kirkus Reviews"