The Kindergartener’s Guide To Business
A book site says that “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” is one of the 100 best business books of all time. This sparked me to think about the Kindergartener’s Guide to Business.
I’m not sure if “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” really qualifies as a business book. Maybe as a motivational guide. But I do think “The House at Pooh Corner” has plenty to say about corporate life. It has Tigger, the epitome of the unmanageable employee (and aspiring CEO), Rabbit in all his micromanaging, scheming splendor, Pooh at his earnest best, fending off corporate Heffalumps with his trembling sidekick Piglet, and the Eeyores and Owls that inhabit companies everywhere. Christopher Robin, the actual CEO, appears periodically to clean up messes (a nice change of pace from today’s headlines).
I’m open to suggestions here. What other children’s books tell us something about work?
I thought your post was an interesting way to not only think about what children’s books tell us about work but in thinking about them as an analogy to companies. For example – Curious George and the Man with the Yellow Hat reminds me of the scrappy start-up taking on the older, wiser corporation. Or Wylie Cyote and the Roadrunner – classic example for the big competitors – Yahoo/Google, Microsoft/Mac. Very fun to apply our old favorites to the world today.
Thanks, Rena. One of your co-workers mentioned that she thought james and the Giant Peach had some interesting parallels to the business world; I haven’t read those books, but I’m going to keep an eye out now.
It got me to thinking about this post again, and it occurred to me that there are two Dr. Seuss books that I think do work well for thinking about business: Bartholomew and the Oobleck (doing the right thing despite obstacles, and Horton Hears a Who probably works here, as well), and Green Eggs and Ham (persistence and openness to change). “The Lorax” obviously is about the ugliest aspect of Organization Man style business.
Michael