具体描述
Tired of swimming with the sharks? Fed up with that big ape down the hall? Real animals can teach us better ways to thrive in the workplace jungle.
You’re ambitious and want to get ahead, but what’s the best way to do it? Become the biggest, baddest predator? The proverbial 800-pound gorilla? Or does nature teach you to be more subtle and sophisticated?
Richard Conniff, the acclaimed author of The Natural History of the Rich, has survived savage beasts in the workplace jungle, where he hooted and preened in the corner office as a publishing executive. He’s also spent time studying how animals operate in the real jungles of the Amazon and the African bush.
What he shows in The Ape in the Corner Office is that nature built you to be nice. Doing favors, grooming coworkers with kind words, building coalitions—these tools for getting ahead come straight from the jungle. The stereotypical Darwinian hard-charger supposedly thinks only about accumulating resources. But highly effective apes know it’s often smarter to give them away. That doesn’t mean it’s a peaceable kingdom out there, however. Conniff shows that you can become more effective by understanding how other species negotiate the tricky balance between conflict and cooperation.
Conniff quotes one biologist on a chimpanzee’s obsession with rank: “His attempts to maintain and achieve alpha status are cunning, persistent, energetic, and time-consuming. They affect whom he travels with, whom he grooms, where he glances, how often he scratches, where he goes, what times he gets up in the morning.” Sound familiar? It’s the same behavior you can find written up in any issue of BusinessWeek or The Wall Street Journal.
The Ape in the Corner Office connects with the day-to-day of the workplace because it helps explain what people are really concerned about: How come he got the wing chair with the gold trim? How can I survive as that big ape’s subordinate without becoming a spineless yes-man? Why does being a lone wolf mean being a loser? And, yes, why is it that jerks seem to prosper—at least in the short run?
Also available as a Random House AudioBook and an eBook
作者简介
Richard Conniff’s work takes him from the executive suite to a casual swim with piranhas in the Amazon, from tea in the member’s dining room at the House of Lords to the driver’s seat in a demolition derby. He won the 1997 National Magazine Award for his writing in Smithsonian and the 1998 Wildscreen Prize for Best Natural History Television Script for the BBC show Between Pacific Tides. His previous books include The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide and he has also written for Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Time, and National Geographic.
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从结构上看，这部小说就像是一个设计极其精妙的迷宫，每当你以为找到了出口时，却发现自己只是进入了另一个更复杂的岔路口。作者非常擅长设置“烟雾弹”，用看似重要的次要情节来分散读者的注意力，直到最后一刻才揭示出隐藏在幕后的真正线索。我特别欣赏它对叙事视角的频繁切换，这种切换并非随心所欲，而是服务于揭示不同角色的认知局限性。通过这种方式，读者被强行拉入不同的视角进行理解，从而避免了对任何单一角色的绝对偏信。这种多棱镜式的观察角度，使得整个故事的真相变得异常立体和耐人寻味。它要求读者不仅要关注“发生了什么”，更要关注“为什么会有人相信事情是那样发生的”。这种对“感知”本身的解构，是这部作品区别于同类题材作品的显著特征，也是它能在众多作品中脱颖而出的关键所在。
评分读完这本书，我感觉像是经历了一场酣畅淋漓的思想风暴，它不像那种教科书式的说教，而是将深刻的哲学思辨包裹在一层充满张力的情节外衣下。作者对于权力结构和信息不对称的探讨，简直可以用“冷峻”来形容。书中对某个特定行业内部运作的揭秘，其细致程度令人咋舌，仿佛作者本人就是一名资深“局内人”。我印象最深的是某段关于“认知偏差如何影响决策制定”的描写，那种将复杂的心理学理论融入日常对话的功力，真是高明。它没有生硬地抛出结论，而是通过角色之间看似漫不经心的交锋，让读者自己去拼凑出全貌。这种“留白”的处理，极大地拓展了文本的解读空间。不同年龄、不同阅历的读者，在同一段落中可能收获截然不同的感悟，这正是优秀文学作品的魅力所在。此外，书中对于时间线的处理也颇具巧思，多线叙事交错并行，到最后汇聚成一个令人拍案叫绝的结局，让人不得不佩服作者构建复杂世界观的缜密心智。
评分这部作品的叙事手法堪称一绝，它巧妙地将时代洪流下的个人挣扎与宏大历史背景交织在一起。作者似乎对人性的幽微之处有着近乎苛刻的洞察力，笔下的人物并非扁平化的符号，而是充满矛盾和复杂性的有机体。我们跟随主人公穿梭于光怪陆离的上流社会与阴暗潮湿的底层世界之间，每一次场景的切换都伴随着情绪的巨大震荡。尤其令人称道的是其对环境氛围的营造，那种扑面而来的压抑感，或是瞬间爆发的狂喜，都通过细腻的文字描述，精准地投射到读者的感官之中。读到某些情节时，我甚至能清晰地“听”到角色内心的独白，感受到他们脚下地毯的质地。这种沉浸式的体验，使得阅读过程本身就成为一种探索与发现的旅程。它迫使我们重新审视那些我们习以为常的社会规范和道德边界，用一种既疏离又贴近的视角去解构“成功”和“失败”的真正含义。全书的节奏控制得张弛有度，高潮迭起却又在关键时刻戛然而止，留给读者充分的喘息和反刍空间。
评分这部作品的魅力，很大程度上源于它对“真实性”边界的不断试探。它并非一本单纯的纪实性作品，但其中描摹的职场生态、人际关系的微妙演变，却比许多号称“真实故事改编”的文本更具说服力。作者似乎对“权力”的腐蚀性有着深刻的理解，他笔下的人物，无论起点多么高尚，最终都难逃被体制或欲望异化的命运。最让我震撼的是，它提出了一个极其尖锐的问题：在高度结构化的社会体系中，个体的道德选择究竟有多少自主权？这种拷问，不是通过激烈的冲突来展现，而是通过角色内心深处那种近乎无声的自我辩护与妥协积累而成。阅读过程中，我多次停下来，陷入沉思，思考自己是否也在不自觉中遵循着某些心照不宣的潜规则。这种强迫性的自我反思，是我阅读此书后最大的收获之一，它超越了单纯的娱乐范畴，达到了思想启迪的高度。
评分这本书的语言风格是如此的独特，它不像主流畅销书那样追求易读性和流畅性，反而带有一种古典的、近乎于诗歌般的凝练。很多句子，我需要反复咀嚼才能体会到其中蕴含的深意，它要求读者必须放慢速度，全然投入到文字的肌理之中。这种阅读体验，对于习惯了碎片化信息获取的现代人来说，或许是一种挑战，但绝对是一种回馈丰厚的投资。我尤其欣赏作者在描述自然景物时所展现出的那种近乎偏执的美学追求——一片落叶、一缕晨光，都能被赋予超越其本身意义的象征重量。这种对细节的极致雕琢，让整个故事的背景仿佛都被镀上了一层神秘而坚固的质感。它让我开始重新审视自己周遭环境中的“无意义”细节，或许在作者的笔下，万物皆有其言。通篇读下来，文笔的华美与故事主题的沉重形成了鲜明的张力，这种反差，恰恰激发了阅读最大的兴奋点。
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