How to Grow a Backbone: 10 Strategies for Gaining Power and Influence at Work

by Susan Marshall, Robert K. Cooper (Foreword by)

Overview

To succeed in business today, an individual must be smart, competitive, resilient, tenacious, and fearless. In short, he or she needs a good, old-fashioned backbone. In How to Grow a Backbone, Susan Marshall, a top business consultant and former executive, outlines skills that readers can develop and perfect to become stronger, more confident, and more influential on the job. Using straight talk laced with wry humor, the author draws upon actual business situations from a variety of companies and industries to show how a strong backbone can change not only the outcome of the situation, but also how one is perceived.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780809224944
Publisher:	McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date:	09/01/2000
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Business consultant Susan Marshall has held positions in advertising, marketing, employee development, and general management.

Editorial Reviews

Business consultant Marshall shares her advice from working with numerous businesses striving to improve their management structure. Focusing on the difficulties in today's business environment, she wants to help listeners learn how to succeed by building a stronger backbone, defined as a firm and resolute character, and the courage to make and stand by unpopular decisions. After a sound explanation of the three components of backbone competence, confidence, and the ability to take risks the author further develops these elements in her ten backbone-building strategies (e.g., turn meetings into discovery sessions, associate with others on purpose, determine the power sources, and decide and say what you think). The unique exercises strengthen this surprisingly refreshing addition to the overly burdened management genre. The steady narration by Anna Fields slows the pace at times and dulls the attention span, so look for the hard copy to be requested. Recommended for public libraries. Dale Farris, Groves, TX Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Backbone--it’s that elusive quality that drives business success; it's the guts to speak up and to do things out of the box. Marshall’s program is subtitled "10 Strategies for Gaining Power and Influence at Work." She laments ineffective meetings and lack of support from colleagues, and recommends taking notes and asking questions. Despite a valiant effort to add variation to her tone, Anna Fields, reading the script at an even, slow pace, fails to enliven a dull, drawn-out subject, although she improves some by the second half. A much shorter audio and a more animated narrator would greatly improve this book. A.G.H. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

FEB/MAR 02 - AudioFile