About the Author; Acknowledgments; Preface to the Third Edition; Part I: The Management Quiver; Chapter 1: Don't Be a Prick; Chapter 2: Managers Are Not Evil; There Is Evil; Your Manager's Job; Where Does Your Manager Come From?; How Is He Compensating for His Blind Spots?; Does Your Manager Speak the Language?; How Does Your Manager Talk to You?; How Much Action per Decision?; Where Is Your Manager in the Political Food Chain?; What Happens When They Lose Their Shit?; The Big Finish; Chapter 3: Stables and Volatiles; The Factions; A Stable Evolution; Wait, What?

Take Crazy RisksChapter 4: The Rands Test; The Rands Test: 11 Possible Points; Do you have a consistent one-on-one where you talk about topics other than status? (+1); Do you have a consistent team meeting? (+1); Are handwritten status reports delivered weekly via e-mail? (-1); Are you comfortable saying "no" to your boss? (+1); Can you explain the strategy of your company to a stranger? (+1); Can you tell me with some accuracy the state of the business? (Or could you go to someone somewhere and figure it out right now?) (+1)

Is there a regular meeting where the guy/gal in charge gets up in front of everyone and tells you what he/she is thinking? (+1) And are you buying it? (+1)Can you explain your career trajectory? (+1) Bonus: Can your boss? (+1); Do you have well-defined and protected time to be strategic? (+1); Are you actively killing the Grapevine? (+1); A Start; Chapter 5: How to Run a Meeting; Alignment vs. Creation; A Culture of Meetings; Chapter 6: The Twinge; Twinge Acquisition; Twinges: Built on Experience; A Manager's Day: Full of Stories; A Familiar Nail; A Twinge Catastrophe; Just Another Nail

Chapter 7: The Update, the Vent, and the DisasterThe Basics; How Are You?; The Update; The Vent; The Disaster; Assume They Have Something to Teach You; Chapter 8: The Monday Freakout; Don't Participate in the Freakout; Give the Freak the Benefit of the Doubt; Hammer the Freak with Questions; Get the Freaks to Solve Their Own Problems; You Still Have a Problem; Chapter 9: Lost in Translation; Wallace Hates Me; The Fall Is Not the Lesson; Your Instincts Are 100 Percent Wrong; The Size of the Lesson; Chapter 10: Agenda Detection; Meeting Bail Tip #1: Identify the Type of Meeting

Meeting Bail Tip #2: Classify the ParticipantsMeeting Bail Tip #3: Identify the Players; Meeting Bail Tip #4: Identify the Pros and Cons; Meeting Bail Tip #5: Figure Out the Issue; Meeting Bail Tip #6: Give the Cons What They Want; Meeting Bail Tip #7: Figure Out the Issue; Conclusion; Chapter 11: Dissecting the Mandate; Decide; Deliver; Deliver (Again); Foreign Mandates; Chapter 12: Information Starvation; Information Conduit; Nature Abhors a Vacuum; Starvation Prevention; Aggressive Silence; Chapter 13: Subtlety, Subterfuge, and Silence; Subtlety; Subterfuge; Silence; Business Isn't War