Katherine Crowley

Although I write a lot of book reviews, I usually don’t review psychology-related books because their value is so subjective. What’s most valuable to me as a worker in a non-psychological enterprise, isn’t necessarily valuable to everyone else. Thus, I have a hard time ascertaining a psychology-related book’s general worth. However, this book is an exception. Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster offer workplace advice that pertains to almost everyone. They investigate dealing with difficult bosses and parse, down to the gritty details, how to handle each boss depending on one’s personal approach to work.

To the troubled employee, who faces an all-too-common problem of a difficult boss, Crowley and Elster offer a four-part process: Detect, detach, depersonalize, and deal. Since workers and bosses come from a variety of psychological stances, they subdivide reactions according to a matrix of how these personality types interact toxically and how their interactions can possibly improve. Of course, an employee’s self-awareness and reasonableness play a central role in achieving the best outcome.

My first reaction to this book is that my workplace isn’t so bad. We have our difficulties, for sure, and this exploration addresses those. However, many difficult scenarios that I haven’t encountered are addressed here, like a serially lying boss or a prejudicial boss. Learning to deal with those situations helps me, but it also reminds me that my more trivial difficulties aren’t so severe. It gave me perspective.

Second, besides dealing with bosses better, reading this book equipped me to deal with colleagues and perhaps direct reports in a better way. I was surprised how much the insights could help me with leading other people and dealing with their personality types. It was a guidebook about what not to do as a boss. By itself, that viewpoint added value.

The task of achieving a good relationship with your boss is one that most of us face at some point. I’m glad to take away a few constructive pointers from Crowley and Elster and to grow into a broader perspective about my life situation. It will help me as I continue to do work developing software.… (more)

In the world of literary fiction, we talk about cardboard characters. This book has cardboard problems, and cardboard characters, that have cardboard solutions to workplace problems. Ah, what a wonderful world it would be if everything fit nicely into archetypes.

And the ending .. what kind of ending is that? I wonder if the publisher left out pages from the book. I thought there would be a chapter, even a paragraph, that might tie things together.

There are a lot better books out there for dealing with emotional traps at work.


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My key takeaways:

1. Think of mean girls as psychologically handicapped people, so you needn't retaliate.

2. Do your best not to obsess about the situation. Instead, apply the energy you would spend worrying to producing stellar results in other areas.

3. Accept that the situation you’re in isn’t fair, and get ready to respond to the difficult people around you differently.

Sometimes, you don’t want a solution to your problem, you just want someone to understand. That’s exactly what this book offered. I was able to relate to the scenarios mentioned and that felt good.

Advice-wise this book is not very useful. Sometimes, they are contradictory. I would not recommend following the book completely. However, I still liked reading it. It encouraged me to let go.… (more)