cover image Wisdom of Wolves

Wisdom of Wolves

Twyman L. Towery, Towery. Sourcebooks, $14.95 (160pp) ISBN 978-1-57071-206-7

This brief, easily digested book uses the ways of wild wolf packs as a metaphor for achieving business, family and personal success. Towery, a business and organizational consultant, clearly conveys the sense of life in a wolf pack, its organizational structure and strategies for survival. With intermittent quotes, anecdotes and simple exercises for relating the wolf pack to business organizations and families, the author explores such values and virtues as patience, curiosity, loyalty, communication, perseverance and learning from failures. Towery notes that ""while human social order seems to be falling apart... the organization of the wolf pack remains the model of playfulness, teamwork, efficiency, and sharing."" While their numbers have dwindled considerably (thanks to humans), wolves have maintained a consistent and effective culture, even while adapting to environmental changes. Practicing a kind of ""natural population control"" and living always ""in balance with nature,"" wolves, Towery asserts, have values that ""are never compromised."" Wolves remain devoted to the group and affectionate, and place the education and care of their young above all else. There is much to learn from these creatures, Towery asserts, illustrating simply but powerfully how people can incorporate wolves' successful strategies into human organizations. (Feb.)