Seven Survival Skills for a Re-Engineered World

Dubbing career planning an oxymoron, Yeomans outlines a survival course while companies, governments and educational systems slim their staffs and even the military is mustering out its people. Opining that specific skills that are hot tickets to employment today could become obsolete tomorrow, Yeomans recommends a personal improvement program in which basic abilities--speaking, writing, listening--assume new importance. He advises taking control of one's relationship with one's boss, learning to be both a leader and a team player and exploiting stress for motivation. He would have sellers enter into collaborative relationships with customers. This book revises a theme Yeomans introduced in the 1980s when he broke ground with 1,000 Things You Never Learned in Business School, reflecting new changes and turmoil introduced in the era of downsizing. Yeomans is both humorous and engaging. But, like a plethora of other business books published today, his is geared to individuals looking to adapt to changes in the workplace and ignores the question of whether those changes are good or bad. (Oct.)