Book on Networking by Wharton Professor: Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?
08-16-2014, 01:46 AM![[Image: 9781101622841_p0_v2_s260x420.JPG]](http://img2.imagesbn.com/p/9781101622841_p0_v2_s260x420.JPG)
In reading reviews of this book, ask yourself whether it is the book being reviewed, or is it the premise (concept) of the book. I re-read the reviews that enticed me into reading this book and found that, under a critical reading, they seemed to be predominantly the latter. And when you encounter a review that lauds the book as "new", "revolutionary"... while also contrarily reporting its content as "well-known", "proven" or an established part of the reviewer's professional life, be skeptical.*
My background: I am in my 60s and I now read this category of book not for myself, but to assist in my mentoring of others. I spent my career in high tech, 30 years in Silicon Valley.
At the core of my negative reaction to this book is a difference in world view. The book claims that "givers are a rare breed of people" (inside of jacket). My experience is that they are hardly rare**, and there are daily reminders of that -- for example the response to the recent Boston Marathon bombing. What you see are many people who are _reflexively_ givers (no pause for calculation). Note: I am not denying the existence of "takers" and "matchers", but take issue with the book's estimates of their numbers as being too high.
The book's subtitle "A Revolutionary Approach to Success" reveals how divorced from reality it is. The characteristics of the "giver" have long been taught in a wide range of leadership courses -- the only thing new here is the name. The "Servant Model" of Christianity (and other religions) is often invoked in these leadership courses, including some by the US military.
The book even argues against itself: It opens with a study claiming that "givers" dominate the group of most successful people and later argues that this is not invisible. No matter -- much of the rest of the book is spent using examples to argue for the existence of such people. And much of what this book highlights as making someone a giver is misdirected -- in my experience, those actions are side-effects or peripheral to the core. Although working on this periphery might help with the core, my experience is that it is not very effective (analogy: Forcing a smile can somewhat improve your mood, but actually being happy is better).
The book seems to come from within a bubble where the "me first" culture is seen as normal and pervasive.[6] Speculation: The author may be wrongly projecting what he sees in his MBA students as being representative of the business world and wider society. If you don't reside in such a bubble, much of what is in this book is tediously obvious.
The book is dominated by inept parables -- the type you might sit uncomfortably through during a church sermon from a mediocre preacher (except they are from the business world rather than the Bible). These parables have little instructive content other than "It is good to be a giver" and "Givers can be winners",[5] but this comes only after plodding through a page or two or more of mostly irrelevant biographic detail. Many parables use such extreme cases that they can be regarded as only motivational. The parables didn't cover anything about leadership and character that I hadn't learned before going off to college, but then I grew up in the days when supervised youth activities were the exception and thus we had abundant opportunities to observe and practice.
