TOP DRAWER BOOK REVIEW
by
HL Carpenter

 

Managing Up
By Rosanne Badowski with Roger Gittines
215 pages; hardcover; $23.95
Doubleday, New York, 2003

Everyone knows secretaries - or rather, administrative assistants - are the people in charge at any office. Ignore at your own peril this simple truth: if you want to accomplish things at work, admin assistants are the go-to folks. You want them on your side. Managing Up proves that point in spades.

The author was the executive assistant to Jack Welch during his years as CEO of General Electric, and she apparently managed him quite well. A warning - if you are not a fan of Mr. Welch, you may want to pass on this book, as he not only writes the forward, but is featured predominately throughout.

Managing Up presents fifteen techniques for taking control of your life at the office. Simple and concise, they work equally well for taking control of your life outside the office. For example, in the chapter titled "Simplicity", the author suggests that "you can't please everyone," so you should "get used to it." There's a useful lesson for alleviating much everyday angst.

Unfortunately, most of the advice consists of old clichés packaged in a new wrapping of General Electric company culture. Worse, some of these platitudes are repackaged more than once. In an early chapter, the author says "admit to your mistakes, but don't repeat them". Later in the book she tells you to "learn from your mistakes and move on."

Managing Up is an interesting inside view of how a big company operates. If you're new to the corporate world, you may be impressed by how much power administrative assistants can wield. But if you're seeking fresh insight for managing your own career upward, there's little here that you don't already know.

 

Review originally published August 2003.