Unobjectionable but unimpressive. From what I have heard, when this book is required reading at a workplace, the people who most desperately need to address their own self-deception love this book but think it applies to everyone else except for them. The people who already function compassionately, honestly and competently don't really need this in the first place. Good intentions alone don't make good interventions: I would really like to see any independent evaluation of how this material helps groups.

Better books perhaps for understanding "bad" leadership/management:
Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life
Mastery
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Detroit: An American Autopsy
Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud
n  n
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The more I thought about this book, the less I liked it. Despite a handful of powerful observations, its analytical strength is undermined by a failure to move beyond the interpersonal and consider structural and power issues when it comes to "self-deception". I found its business fable format fairly grating from the start, and it didn't become less so. As others have noted, there's also some unhelpful jargon (particularly about boxes) that can obscure the central point for the authors which is that businesses succeed better when the people who work in them aren't self-centred jerks and treat other people with frank respect.

The book's key strength is its extended examination of our tendency to deceive ourselves, making allowances for our own failings, or blaming others for our problems while failing to extend towards them any empathetic sense that they, like us, might be people attempting to do the best they can.

So, yeah. If you weren't sure about any of that, it's probably great. Encouraging people to develop some self-awareness and to speak compassionately and honestly to others is great and I'm all for more of that.

Its greatest weakness, to my mind, is that it basically fails to consider more systemic or structural issues that act at the individual workplace level, or on a more economy- or society-wide basis to very much force people "into their boxes" and keep them there. Because if your job and livelihood requires you to go along with or submit to one or another form of corporate psychopathy, many people don't find themselves with a whole lot of choice these days.

I enjoyed the principles taught, but stop dramatizing a conference room meeting.

· Just re-read it for work. Still too dramatic.

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