Mastery is the latest management book by Robert Green. The book deals with how talent is developed with reference to Darwin, Einstein, Goethe (author of Faust) and John Coltrane. The message of the book is “the secret of success is working hard for many years”. This not very helpful since if you are not successful either you are not working hard enough or you are not cleaver enough! Much more helpuf are tips in his first book The 48 Laws of power. This is described by the Guardian as a bastard’s handbook of the dirty tricks senior managers and chief executives use. The Laws include Discover each man’s thumbscrew, which I take to mean find a person’s weakness and use it to hurt them and Pose as a friend and work as a spy or get them to confide in you and then use the information against them. The author describes himself as a realist because he claims he writes about what happens in the real world.
Don’t buy it.
www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
