NEW!NEW!Fresh from his record-breaking gig with the House Ethics Committee, Random Grouse is proud to offer you an opportunity to both enjoy the wit and wisdom of Speaker Gingrich -- and pitch in on paying that $300,000 fine too. Most of us prefer to remember those halcyon days of the Contract for America and Newt's victory as the first Republican Speaker of the House since the invention of television.
Newt, in better days, greets important international visitors.
If that's how you like to think of Newt, then you won't be disappointed by his new book. Gingrich pulls no punches in this Twelve Step Program for the 90's: "I'm OK -- What the Hell's Your Problem?"
You grew up hearing the phrase, "Don't carry the world's problems on your shoulders." And yet, for all too many of us, that's exactly what has happened. We see a homeless person, we feel bad. We hear about violence against children, poverty or injustice, and we may even act as if the problem is our own.
Well, have no fear! Newt Gingrich is here with his prescription for liberation from codependency with the less fortunate. No longer will you look across a bleak urban landscape and feel compelled to utter: "I feel your pain."
Gingrich's affirming message is sure to be a hit with all who can afford this new hardcover. And for those who can't afford it: No, we won't take food stamps. (ISBN 666-666, 1995, $99.95 at bookstores everywhere)
Most of us know Dick Peters from his classic, "Management by Objection." Now controversial, that book's influence on American management theory in the 1970's is generally , if grudgingly, acknowledged. Time hasn't always been kind to the philosophy that dictated that the Pinto's gas tank was "good enough" and that the cost of making the Vega's engine block out of steel was a waste when the country was literally drowning in TV dinner trays.
While others are "thriving on chaos" and "embracing change", Peter's "dig in your heels" management style may be as due for revival as disco and Cheech and Chong movies.. Whatever.
Now Peters is back and facing the 90's with a "Duck and Cover" gospel for managers caught up in the Downsizing fad. The book opens with a series of koans, those spiffy pardoxical sayings that litter books about Zen. Peters even describes a method for inserting them into fortune cookies for maximum effect when distributing them to subordinates. Of course, the philosophical profundity of such gems as, "Imagine the worker without a job: you " may be more appreciated in some circles than others.
In 1993, a study in the Harvard Business Review documented that Peters' management methods were the most widely practiced in America's largest corporations. Think of Peters new book as red-meat-and-potatoes comfort food for a Lean and Mean business world.
By special arrangement for a limited time only, Random Grouse is offering a free videocassette of the cult movie classic, "Slacker" with each copy of Zen and the Art of Downsizing. This offer is made in the interest of bridging the gap between this classic management philosophy and the Generation X crowd. We knew you'd "dig it"!