Customer Service For Dummies

Any management book that concludes with a chapter titled "My Advice Is Don't Take My Advice" is bound to raise a few eyebrows-and for good reason. But don't read Richard Farson's Management of the Absurd: Paradoxes in Leadership (Simon & Schuster, $21 cloth) for its entertainment value. Rather, read it to challenge your own assumptions.

"Examining the absurd is not just a playful exercise," Farson stresses. "I believe that many programs in management training today . . . fail to appreciate the complexity and paradoxical nature of human organizations."

Without question, Farson faces an uphill battle. He asks readers to believe that effective managers are not in control and that praise can actually be a bad thing. Even worse, he makes you question the very traits you most pride yourself on.

"Strengths can become weaknesses when we rely too much on them, carry them to exaggerated lengths, or apply them where they don't belong," he warns.

It's just that sort of statement that forces readers to do some serious thinking of their own. And that, undoubtedly, is the author's intention.

This article was originally published in the July 1996 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Customer Service For Dummies.