Review: Barking Up the Wrong Tree

 Barking Up the Wrong Tree has the feel of several dozen blog posts turned into a book. But I noticed that it was a WSJ best-selling book, so plenty of people must think it's good reading. And to a large extent, Eric Barker is entertaining and breezy. For instance:

managing what your boss thinks of you is far more important than actual hard work. A study shows that those who made a good impression got better performance reviews than those who worked harder but didn’t manage impressions as well. Often this comes down to something we’re all very familiar with: good ol’ ass kissing. Is flattering the boss effective? Research has shown flattery is so powerful that it works even when the boss knows it’s insincere. Jennifer Chatman, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, did a study to see at what point flattery backfired . . . but she couldn’t find one. (kindle loc 802)

Later on in the same chapter he mentions that if the entire company turned into the kind of people who just ass kissed and nobody did any work, it suddenly became a much worse place to work and the company would tank eventually. (Unless you're Google of course, which has so much revenue coming in it doesn't matter that ass-kissing is the normal work ethic.)

 Barker notes that the entire point of fiction is to paint an unrealistic picture of the world:

Research shows that fiction makes us more “prosocial”—that is, kind and giving. It does this by making our vision of the world less accurate. Just as religion and stories of personal meaning help us cope, so do movies, TV, and other stories. Stories not only engage our minds but also quietly slip a pair of rose-colored glasses on our heads. (kindle loc 1508)

 You get the idea of what the book is like. There's a ton of references to say Robert Wiseman's work, and even a side mention of American Shaolin. (I never realized that Matt Polly wrote additional books other than that one, so this book caused me to go look up the other books!)

Each chapter ends with a recap and a bunch of summaries, and of course every "on the one hand" advise comes with an "on the other hand" advise. Ultimately, there's one saying that comes to mind over and over again when I read this book, which is to know the enemy and to know yourself. If you've already internalized that saying, you do not need to read this book. But you should read it anyway for the entertainment.