FRIEND & FOE When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both

The relaxed tone of Tom Perkins's intelligent performance makes it easy to stay engaged with this multilayered lesson on working with others. The authors, articulate professors at A-list business schools, survey a broad range of research about how we influence and resolve conflicts with people. Explaining that scarce resources, our social natures, and life's vicissitudes are the ever-present reasons that competition with others is here to stay, they use vivid examples from various arenas to show how people strike a balance between cooperating and playing hardball. They share studies that explain, to name a few examples, how social comparisons and context can influence how we define success in various transactions. The result is a pleasing combination of an excellent reading and accessible writing about an important aspect of everyone's life. T.W. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2015]