Sun Tzu Was a Sissy - by Stanley Bing (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

A hilarious and tough-minded guide to winning the war of contemporary life.

The Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu taught that readiness is all, that knowledge of oneself and the enemy was the foundation of strength, and that those who fight best are those who are prepared and wise enough not to fight at all. Unfortunately, in the current day, this approach is pretty much horse hockey.

Sun Tzu was a Sissy will transcend all those efforts and teach the reader how to make war, win, and enjoy the plunder in the real world, where those who do not kick, gouge, and grab are left behind at the table to pay the tab. Students of Bing will be taught how to plan and execute battles that hurt other people a lot, and advance their flags and those of their friends.

• Office Warfare: Learn to plan and execute battles in the toughest trench of all--the modern workplace. It's time to advance your flag and hurt other people a lot.
• Aggressive Strategy: Discover why Sun Tzu's passive approach is "horse hockey" and why a real warrior knows that kicking, gouging, and grabbing is the only way to win.
• Satirical Business Advice: A hilarious and tough-minded look at building armies, positioning for attack, and enjoying the plunder that other, more timid guides are afraid to talk about.
• Workplace Humor: With Stanley Bing's signature cynical wit, this is the one business book that admits what everyone's thinking: war is hell, but it can also be a hell of a lot of fun.

From the Back Cover

We live in a vicious, highly competitive workplace environment, and things aren't getting any better. Jobs are few and far between, and people aren't any nicer now than they were when Ghengis Khan ran around in big furs killing people in unfriendly acquisitions. For thousands of years, people have been reading the writings of the deeply wise, but also extremely dead Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu, who was perhaps the first to look on the waging of war as a strategic art that could be taught to people who wished to be warlords and other kinds of senior managers.

In a nutshell, Sun Tzu taught that readiness is all, that knowledge of oneself and the enemy was the foundation of strength and that those who fight best are those who are prepared and wise enough not to fight at all. Unfortunately, in the current day, this approach is pretty much horse hockey, a fact that has not been recognized by the bloated, tree-hugging Sun Tzu industry, which churns out mushy-gushy pseudo-philosophy for business school types who want to make war and keep their hands clean.

Sun Tzu was a Sissy will transcend all those efforts and teach the reader how to make war, win and enjoy the plunder in the real world, where those who do not kick, gouge and grab are left behind at the table to pay the tab. Students of Bing will be taught how to plan and execute battles that hurt other people a lot, and advance their flags and those of their friends, if possible. All military strategies will be explored, from mustering, equipping, organizing, plotting, scheming, rampaging, squashing and reaping spoils.

Every other book on the Art of War bows low to Sun Tzu. We're going to tell him to get lost and inform our readers how real war is currently conducted on the battlefield of life.

Review Quotes

"Among our best corporate-war correspondents. Bing provides a wickedly entertaining little guide to remaking yourself as a rapacious, coldhearted S.O.B." - Time magazine

"Mr. Bing's humor is ...laugh-out-loud funny." - Dallas Morning News

"Bing is hilarious!" - Don Imus

"A masterful curmudgeon who causes laugh-out-loud moments." - USA Today

"The book is Bing at his snarky best." - Miami Herald

"Among our best corporate-war correspondents. Bing provides a wickedly entertaining little guide to remaking yourself as a rapacious, coldhearted S.O.B." - Time magazine

"Designed to make you as tactically sound in your private life as you are in the cruel, cruel world." - Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times, and Marine Corps Times

"No one understands corporate war better, or makes it funnier, than Stanley Bing." - Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

"A hilarious, thought-provoking war plan for the battlefield of the modern workplace. Bing proves once and for all that the pen is mightier than the sword, especially when he's wielding the pen and the guy with the sword has been dead for thousands of years." - Neil Cavuto, Fox News