Office Politics: How to Thrive in a World of Lying, Backstabbing and Dirty Tricks, by Oliver James, Vermilion, RRP£20
The best thing about Office Politics, Oliver James’s latest work, is that he has chosen to dedicate it to his old housemaster at Eton, “David Macindoe (RIP) whose thankless task it was to school me in office political skills”. This is nice because it is so unpolitical – the grave being the only place safe from sucking up, lying and self-aggrandisement.
The dedication does, however, make one wonder what went on at Britain’s poshest school to have left the popular psychologist with quite such a dark view of how organisations operate. Again and again, James asserts that people who are stupid and lazy get to the top because they are good at politics. Worse, many of them are suffering from at least one, and probably all three, of the “Dark Triad” of conditions: they are narcissists, Machiavellis and psychopaths.