More on Fiction and Workplace Wisdom

Execupundit blogger Michael Wade published a delightful column in the June 20th US News and World Report Careers: Outside Voices, Workplace Wisdom Found In Fiction: You can read the Management-Flavor-of-the-Month bestselling biz books and not pick up the insight found in many works of fiction.

Great list of qualities. Great list of books. Great idea. Regrets? Not a chick among them.

And so my stab, with some new categories, chicks and others.


Small Business Dos and Donts: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers. Dos: Protagonist Amelia opens café that serves as a meeting place and helps town develop a sense of community. Donts: Involve love triangle.

Ethics: The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Pulitzer-prize winning post-apocalyptic father-son journey which explores the father's dilemma around whether he would kill his son if need be rather than have him be captured by roving cannibalistic bands, and questions (everything paraphrased here because I'm too lazy to go find the book) asked repeatedly by the son: We're the good guys, right? What makes them the bad guys? We're the good guys because we don't eat people, right? Also includes dark, dark nod to planning (and perhaps the ONLY bit of comic relief in the novel) when, trudging through the desolate wasteland the US has become for a seemingly purposeless (well, other than sheer survival) trip to the Pacific coast, the son asks father out of the blue, What are our long term plans?

Global Partner Management: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. British-American translations are easy. Flat=apartment. Lift=elevator (have you prepared your "lift speech?") British child tirelessly repeating "Are we nearly there?" in adorable Yorkshire accent on train from Liverpool to London=American child in family car on long trip tirelessly repeating the somehow less charming "Are we there yet?"

Expansive Kikonga from the Congo where bangala=poisonwood tree=most precious=most insufferable is not so simple. Brings Chaos=disorder AND opportunity to new level.

Take nzolo, an expansively defined word on which the saga's themes turn:

"We worried over 'nzolo'--it means 'dearly beloved'; or a white grub used for fish bait; or a special fetish against dysentery; or little potatoes. 'Nzole' is the double-sized pagne that wraps around two people at once. Finally I see how these things are related. In a marriage ceremony, husband and wife stand tightly bound by their 'nzole' and hold one another to be the most precious:'nzolani'. As precious as the first potatoes of the season, small and sweet like Georgia peanuts. Precious as the fattest grubs turned up from the soil, which catch the largest fish. And the fetish most treasured by mothers, against dysentery, contains a particles of all the things invoked by the word 'nzolo': you must dig and dry the grub and potatoes, bind them with a thread from your wedding cloth, and have them blessed in a fire by the nganga doctor."

Eccentricity: The Man In My Basement by Walter Mosley. Exploration of good and evil that I still can't shake. Wow, eccentric characters much? "Anniston Bennett, a wealthy, 57-year-old WASP, appears at Charles' doorstep and offers $50,000 to rent his basement for the summer. But there are a few conditions: As a kind of self-punishment, Bennett transforms the basement into a locked cage. And an experimental relationship unfolds with Bennett playing the role of a white prisoner, with Blakey as his black jailer." -- Cheryl Corley, NPR website

Power plays: The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk. Protagonist musician/warrior Bird (a guy), turns prevailing post-apocalyptic power structure on its head when, after a long period of torture by competitors which is viscerally and vicariously well-established through the narrative, he is taken outside only to see that his grandmother, Maya, has been captured and tied to a post by his captors. When given the options of A) shooting his grandmother or B) being killed, Bird chooses C) throwing down the gun, raising his arms high and bursting into song. No Stockholm syndrome here.

Leadership: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. NYTimes bestseller about brave little girl Lily Melissa Owens who frees her babysitter/servant who has been brutalized by local men by following her instincts and leading them both to safety. See also Effective Advertising.

Organizational Change: Babette's Feast by Isak Dineson. Okay, I haven't actually read the story, but loved the film. Protagonist Babette, a servant (servant leader), works away quietly for 14 years. When she wins the lottery, she secretly invests her capital in a creative (and magically-realistic) and generous-to-stakeholders venture: she creates a sumptous and intoxicating meal that propels an entire community out of their staid values, roles and relationships. You go Babette!

Effective Advertising: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. NYTimes bestseller about mother-orphaned Lily who finds an intriguingly-designed honey label in her dead mother's box of treasures that ultimately leads her to her true kin. See also Leadership.

Subordinates Mobilizing Leaders: Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry by Rosalie Fry. Okay, so I didn't read this one either, but saw the film based on the novel, The Secret of Roan Inish. It's out of print, and the only two copies I see available through abebooks cost over $200. Reprint anyone? Fiona, the protagonist and motherless child who has just been bounced to her grandparents' care after a stint with her father in town and in the pubs, researches the question no one else wants to hear, "What happened to the baby Jamie?" She exhibits fearlessness, doggedness, thorough research (myth, anecdote, history from all quarters), partnering and high level of pro-activity until she is finally able to convince the real CEO, grandma, that her vision is real (Jamie IS on Roan Inish running around barenaked and being raised by seals). Results: mobilizes CEO who mobilizes team leading to reclamation of said child Jamie, in line with Fiona's mission and meeting and exceeding goals and objectives.