This book is wrong. Flat out wrong. It is about the wrong way to start and run a business, a family business, a nonprofit, a government agency, or any other type of endeavor that involves people. This book is for the workers of the world. Business owners, presidents, parents, CEOs, managers, directors, and the men and women who hate their jobs but keep punching in every day. This book is about crushing failure. It’s about integrity and respect, and what happens when people compromise these values. This book is about you, your friends, your co-worker, your parents, and your children. This book is about American business and American families. The text will undoubtedly invoke strong emotions. There is no way you get through this entire story without being pissed off at one or more characters and the values they live their life by. BE WARNED you may find your reflection in the following pages and you may not like what you see. Some who read this book will see the mistakes from a mile away. However, it is a surety that these mistakes are taking place (in one form or another) in every American organization every day. Anyone who does not believe this is flat-out wrong.
Greelis has written a work of fiction, a multi-level story of failed or flawed relationships whose destinies might have been salvageable in light of growing evidence that builds to the book’s insightful conclusions. Their lack of salvation makes this a natural page-ripper, as does the evolving story line of managerial incompetence, greed and self-denial. The irony is that this book uses fiction to explain facts that are all too true and found at some level within every business. The author makes clear that one or more of these fictitious people have crossed our path during our professional lives. The truth of that statement is abundantly and unfortunately clear as the story develops and their faces emerge in the reader’s mind. I remembered at least three, perhaps four of these folks whose behavior and approach led me to look elsewhere for work and secretly hope for their comeuppance. Greelis finally gave me that closure as I suspect it will for any reader, along with a deeper appreciation of the depth of their dysfunction. Of course, there are good people surrounding these characters that also grab your attention as they try to do their work responsibly, but their efforts are predictably futile in the same way the reader remembers their experiences when working with dysfunctional managers. This company-wide dysfunction makes for great reading as the plot builds to its inevitable conclusion. It’s apparent that the book’s ending is the beginning of the reader’s journey and that the power of a good fictional story is its ability to make change. It’s obvious that the lead character doesn’t get it, hasn’t learned from the experience of destroying an American business. It’s also obvious that the reader is now aware of what not to do to avoid the same outcome. Get the book. Paul Palmes, President Business Standards Architects, Inc.