Real Power: Business Lessons From the Tao Te Ching

The Tao Te Ching is the world's oldest leadership manual, written, according to legend, by the sage Lao-tzu in the sixth century B.C.E. In this book, premier business consultant James A. Autry and bestselling author and translator Stephen Mitchell present a modern-day guide to business leadership drawing on the age-old lessons of the Tao Te Ching.With simple, evocative essays, commenting on a selection from the Tao Te Ching, they show how its elegant wisdom can transform the workplace from a source of stress into a source of creativity and joy--and make work, at any level of the corporate ladder, more fulfilling than ever before.

In recent years, visionaries and profiteers alike have attempted to apply the 81 simple but profound poems of the Tao Te Ching to everything from sports training to pet breeding. James Autry, an award-winning author and respected former CEO, and Stephen Mitchell, whose previous work includes the New York Times bestseller Tao Te Ching: A New English Version, have applied these poems in a meaningful way to the world of business. Real Power: Business Lessons from the Tao Te Ching is a stimulating interpretation of this ancient classic that will provide the guidance and inspiration missing from most modern management texts. Addressing contemporary business situations with the wise paradoxes that are the hallmark of Lao-Tzu's 6th-century work (such as "fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill; keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt"), the two propose an ageless approach to the workplace that deals uniquely with various issues of our time like compensation, competition, training, and downsizing. --Howard Rothman END