APE IN THE CORNER OFFICE, THE(ISBN=) 英文原版

　　Tired of swimming with the sharks? Fed up with that big ape
down the hall? Real animals can teach us better ways to thrive in
the workplace jungle.
　　
　　You’re ambitious and want to get ahead, but what’s the best way
to do it? Become the biggest, baddest predator? The proverbial
800-pound gorilla? Or does nature teach you to be more subtle and
sophisticated?
　　
　　Richard Conniff, the acclaimed author of The Natural History of
the Rich, has survived savage beasts in the workplace jungle, where
he hooted and preened in the corner office as a publishing
executive. He’s also spent time studying how animals operate in the
real jungles of the Amazon and the African bush.
　　
　　What he shows in The Ape in the Corner Office is that nature
built you to be nice. Doing favors, grooming coworkers with kind
words, building coalitions—these tools for getting ahead come
straight from the jungle. The stereotypical Darwinian hard-charger
supposedly thinks only about accumulating resources. But highly
effective apes know it’s often smarter to give them away. That
doesn’t mean it’s a peaceable kingdom out there, however. Conniff
shows that you can become more effective by understanding how other
species negotiate the tricky balance between conflict and
cooperation.
　　
　　Conniff quotes one biologist on a chimpanzee’s obsession with
rank: “His attempts to maintain and achieve alpha status are
cunning, persistent, energetic, and time-consuming. They affect
whom he travels with, whom he grooms, where he glances, how often
he scratches, where he goes, what times he gets up in the morning.”
Sound familiar? It’s the same behavior you can find written up in
any issue of BusinessWeek or The Wall Street Journal.
　　
　　The Ape in the Corner Office connects with the day-to-day of the
workplace because it helps explain what people are really concerned
about: How come he got the wing chair with the gold trim? How can I
survive as that big ape’s subordinate without becoming a spineless
yes-man? Why does being a lone wolf mean being a loser? And, yes,
why is it that jerks seem to prosper—at least in the short
run?
　　
　　
　　Also available as a Random House AudioBook and an eBook
　　
　　
　　From the Hardcover edition.