Beware the Head Treads

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Among your colleagues are Polar Bear Pirates, Neg Ferrets, Sinkers, Bloaters, Molasses Men, Head Treads, and Pineapple People. That is, according to the peculiar world of British IT boffin Adrian Webster.

And there is apparently much method to his particular brand of madness.

Polar Bear Pirates and Their Quest to Reach Fat City (John Wiley, $41.95) is an unusual take on office life and values promulgated by an author who sub-titles his guide to life A Grown-ups' Book for Kids at Work.

And at first glance, given the abundant cartoons, it does look like a kids' storybook. Or something you might give to a dim new staffer who needs a course in Values 101.

It's among the rash of books being released on to the Christmas market, and one of several that this year seem determined to deliver in quite flippant style the quite serious, how-to-get-ahead messages we're used to seeing from the business press.

Polar Bear Pirates "regard the journey to Fat City as just as game, a fun race with winners and losers, a game based on attitudes that anyone can play".

Make that understanding attitudes. Take Webster's office archetypes. Polar Bear Pirates - the good guys - have an "overwhelming and infectious love of life" and a "refreshingly simple approach to success".

Neg Ferrets - creatures with insatiable appetites for other people's problems and a penchant for the negative - are among The Enemy.

Sinkers have had no success themselves, so are obsessed with making sure nobody does, either. They use lots of what Webster called N'T words like "can't" and "won't".

Bloaters are "boasting, lazy, obnoxious, and tediously egotistical, reptilian saddos who know it all".

Molasses Men are sweet but slow, burdened by the beliefs of others.

Head Treads are the "cream of the crap", toady, brown-nosing knife-throwers who are terrified that their lack of talent will be exposed.

Pineapple People are the fierce-looking ones who scare people off - but who are actually marshmallows once they trust you.

Whether this fairly light guide on forging ahead while outsmarting nay-sayers is usefully substantial is a decision best left to readers.

Some will find it cute. It will irritate the hell out of others.

Same for How to Survive Best Practice, by Erica McWilliam (University of New South Wales Press, $16.95).

A small, wittily-designed paperback you can probably hide behind something more worthy-looking, it takes the mickey out of the language that shapes our working lives.

"Bonding," she says, "is what corporate executives and other lead managers are supposed to do together so that strong ties are formed in the workplace.

"These ties are then available to be worn by any executive needing to get into a really good restaurant for a business lunch.

"Bonding is not to be confused with bondage, although you never know your luck on a motivational weekend."

The author is a professor in the school of cultural and language studies at the Queensland University of Technology, who says her primary mission in life is to seek and destroy irony deficiency.

She describes the point of her "booklet" as strengthening "the resolve of skeptical individuals to trust their intuition and maintain radical doubt about the current fad for refashioning us all in the corporate livery of 'best practice'.

"Like bad capsicum, this too will pass!"

Other books released in the run-up to Christmas include The Dick Smith Way, by Ike Bain (McGraw-Hill, $29.95).

Bain, Smith's right-hand man and business manager for 25 years, tells the electronics entrepreneur's story, peppering it with tips and anecdotes. According to Smith, the secret of success is to "surround yourself with capable people".

Ian Brooks' The Apostles' Creed (Nahanni Publishing, $34.95) is business advice masquerading as fiction. Jim Barker, a partner in a financial planning firm, has a terrible day so retreats to a bar.

There he meets Pat Bartlett, a very successful businessman - and it's an encounter that will change his life. It's an interesting way to introduce the 12 principles which form the creed.

His book Persuade Your Customers to Pay More - which offers ideas on how to compete on value rather than price - has just been released as a pocket edition for $14.95. Nahanni is at (09) 419-0695 or www.nahanni-publishing.com.

Once again, the famous career guide What Colour Is Your Parachute? (Richard Nelson Bolles, Ten Speed Press, $49.95) has been revised and updated.

Bolles is now 75 but his book seems unstoppable - it's now 32 years old, revised annually, and in its life has spent 288 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.

The weighty, 2172-page book Business: the Ultimate Resource (Bloomsbury, $150)is a comprehensive overview of business thinking, information and skills, ranging from best practice in various fields to personal development advice and run-downs of the theories of the main management thinkers.

It's useful, but probably not bedtime reading.

More likely to be night-time diversion is Alan Shrugged by Jerome Tuccille (John Wiley, $58.95).

Did you know American Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was once a professional jazz clarinettist? Economics eventually won.

The book traces the life and career of the world's most famous banker but isn't hagiography.

Value Shift, by the curiously named Harvard professor Lynn Sharp Paine (McGraw-Hill, $56.95), is timely: in the wake of scandals that collapsed WorldCom and Enron it argues a strong case for corporate responsibility and strategies for "value-positive orientation".