How to Grow a Backbone

10 Strategies for Gaining Power and Influence at Work

By: Susan Marshall

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

To succeed in business today, you must be strong, smart, competitive, resilient, tenacious, and fearless. If you want to be heard at work, you must speak up. If you want to drive change, you need an action plan. If you want to keep your job in an increasingly competitive world, you must show on a daily basis how you add value to your company. In short, if you want to succeed, you need good, old-fashioned backbone. Using straight talk laced with wry humor, top business consultant Susan Marshall highlights skills every businessperson can learn and sharpen to become stronger, more confident, and more influential on the job.

©2000 Susan Marshall (P)2000 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"The unique exercises strengthen this surprisingly refreshing addition to the overly burdened management genre." (Library Journal)

Stay with it and listen

I found that the other reviews on this page seemed to stop short of actually listening to the book. The book does in fact give specific suggestions on how to grow a backbone as well as define what she means by her title. It is primarily a book devoted to business though the lessons will easily extend out into other areas of life as well. The author sets up a variety of situations that are fairly common and how that can be improved by having a backone and what happens when one doesn't have one. I found it very useful.

Excellent New Advice

I found this audiobook to be an excellent addition to many of the leadership courses and books I have read. I think for someone listening to a "first time" leadership course... this may be a bit to advanced. It can be a bit dry at first (because of the ladies mono-tone voice) but the information is exceptional. Much better then the title even suggests. This book will show you how to seperate yourself from many and position your interactions to get results and passively control.

I'm sorry, but...

...this was painful! I admit, I haven't finished it - after starting the book in January, I'm slightly more than 3 hours into it, so I *do* think I made a pretty valiant effort, and enough that I can share a few thoughts.

I think the book itself is not badly written, but 'Richard from Centennial' was spot-on when he said the reader's voice is dry and monotone.

But now the important thing: The Content. I admit, I've not read a lot of leadership books so perhaps if I had more to compare it to, this one would rank higher up the scale. But I've found most of it so far to be "here's what someone with backbone does" without the How To information to follow-up.

As an example, it's fine to say that someone with backbone sticks to his or her beliefs, but *how* do you do that in a room filled with disagreement? The book just leaves you hanging with this and many other situations.

I gave the book one star because there *are* nuggets of information in it, they're just few and far between. If you really want to read the book, I suggest buying it in print and actually *reading* it - skip the audio version.

not reality

The advise in this book would be hard to fit into a variety of positions and various corp politics. I was not impressed with the obscure suggestions on how to grow a backbone. Also, the narrator's voice and presentation definately did not match the topic and it threw off the whole experience for me. Made me feel like I was listening to a mystery novel without a plot.