READ

READ ‘EM AND WEEP

In my continuing quest to earn money while sitting at home reading the paper, I’ve decided to write a bestselling management book. Nothing too fancy – just an unlikely concept carried to its extreme and endorsed by Kenneth Blanchard.

Actually, while I’m at it, why don’t I write a whole batch, under different pseudonyms, and sell them all at once? I just need to do use the Modelling technique and reproduce what successful authors before me have done, and the royalties will surely come flooding in.

Here then, is my Spring book catalogue. All orders to the usual address – cash only.

Meat! How to Get Your Team Sizzling by Marcus J. Winkenfalter, Bart D. Nardler and Conradin Von Gugelberg

The authors show how the simple management techniques used by their local butcher can be used to (as they put it) “re-sizzle your team’s sausage”. Chapters include ‘Wield that Chopper’; ‘Tripe Can be Edible Too’ and ‘Some Cuts Need Slower Cooking’. Described by Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager Loses His Watch, as ‘The greatest book ever written based on the management techniques used by a local butcher.”. (Also available in a UK version: Quorn: How to Make Your Team Mildly Interested).

Who Moved My Knitting? By Lucas F. Klaustenhaller, M.D.

The powerful fable of two elderly spinsters sharing a house. Each day, they get up at the same time, and sit in the same chairs knitting jumpers for relatives. One morning, they both find their knitting has disappeared. Ethel cannot cope, has a complete breakdown and ends her days in a secure mental health unit; Elsie, though, sees it as an opportunity to embrace change, and flies round Europe on a home-made micro light aircraft. And the moral? (Rats – I knew I’d forgotten something.) Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager Moves to Italy and Gets a Terrible Shock, says: “No more knit-one-pearl-one living for me.”

Flipchart Magic: How To Make Your Pen Mightier Than Any Sword In The Battle For Participant Enthusiasm by Jack Constable

“You can tell a trainer by his flipcharts,” says internationally renowned flipchart creator Jack Constable in this powerful and stimulating hands-on guide which will (as Jack puts it) ‘flip your flips’. Jack shows you how, with a little practice, even the most artistically challenged training professional can produce audible ‘oooh’s and ‘aaah’s from their course participants. Topics covered include: using different colour pens; drawing a wiggly red line under the title; and, for the more advanced, writing at the same time as you talk. One delighted reader reports: “I spent 30 minutes creating a copy of the Sistine Chapel ceiling on a flipchart, then turned round to find the group had gone into a trance, so overwhelmed were they by the experience.”

The Tao of Filing by Yos Ushi

Do you get angered by boring, repetitive tasks? Then this book is for you. As its author says in the introduction:

“Like the whisper

Of water following its true path

So the whisper

Of a well-oiled filing drawer

Reunited with its contents.

Thus we find balance in the world.”

Chapters include: ‘Being as One With the Index Card’; ‘A Misfiled Letter In Birmingham Causes A Hurricane In Stockton On Tees’ and ‘Your File Is Only As Empty As Your Mind’. Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager is Given 59 Seconds to Live says: “File under ‘Wow!’”

Alan Titchmarsh’s Guide to Management.

Tired of the same old management metaphors? Give your motivational team talks a lift with this thoroughly worked through gardening analogy. Let Alan transform you from a Weed Puller into a Nurturing Gardener. Analyse your and team members’ styles using the handy Plant Personality guide: are you a Rose (attractive but thorny), a Gypsophilia (insipid alone, but useful in a mixed bunch) or one of the other 352 species described in detail?

Once you know what type of plant you’re dealing with, says Alan, then it’s simply a question of getting the right ‘soil’, ‘nutrients’ and ‘light’ (we won’t spoil the book by telling you what these are metaphors for!) Among the book’s many memorable insights are “Climbers can’t climb unless they have something to climb up.” And “If you don’t like getting your hands dirty, wear suitable sturdy gloves.” One satisfied reader reports: “I now realise my team are all vegetables. Thanks Alan.” Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager Alienates all His Colleagues With His Smug Way of Always Getting People Management Absolutely Right, says: “I was convinced this was an existing book about gardening with just a new cover, but when the endorsement cheque arrived I realised how wrong I was.”