Customer Reviews

Highly Recommended for Men, Too! - By: Donald Mitchell, 12 May 2004
Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman is described as being helpful for women. I am sure that is the case.

Not being a woman, I have to share its benefits from my perspective.

I have enjoyed being a mentor for many working women, & this book does a nice job of addressing the kinds of issues that these women have brought up with me as well as the ones that I have brought up with them. In the past, I have provided copies of How to Be a Star at Work as a way to assist these women. In the future, I will provide this book, as well.

Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman does an excellent job of explaining how the emphasis on relationships & results need to be balanced at work. That is a juggling act that seems to confuse many women, & I found this book to be accurate & constructivein this area.

Interestingly, I find that a lot of men miss these points, too. In these cases, the results are usually overemphasized at the expense of the relationships. I will also recommend this book to male colleagues & subordinates, both to make them more effective & to improve their understanding of how to communicate with female colleagues.

Basically, the book is all about miscommunication & misconception stalls that occur at work, especially the ones that tend to occur among men & women. The book is very effectivein exploring those stalls & inproviding sound advice for overcoming the same stalls.

The only weakness I foundin the book is that some subtle points about business interactions were missed. A lot of male aggressiveness & bluffing was described as just being acceptable, while the same thing by women is unacceptable. What Ms. Evans missed is that there is usually a kind of kidding humor involved to let everyone know that the aggressor is simply indicating a strong desire to play, backed up by self-confidence. That posture takes the sting out of the aggressiveness. When some women are aggressive, they may forget to use the kidding humor & relaxed tone that makes the aggressiveness tolerable to all.

Perhaps the greatest strength of the book is that it permits the reader to choose her/his own goals (and those may not be material success or power) while adapting the advice to one's own personality & preferences. Basically, any advice we get that suggest we act like the individuals we are is good advice.

After you read & apply this book, I suggest that you think about applying it to nonwork situations, as well. Your focus on relationships versus results may be out of balancein those circumstances, too.

Find the perfect balance!