Product Description

A fresh and innovative route to business and personal success - "Polar Bear Pirates" contains a whole new universe of characters and terminology that everyone will instantly recognize and relate to. Polar Bear Pirates, highly focused, successful, fun-loving people who truly believe in life before death, are on a quest to reach Fat City. But as we follow the fortunes of these highly motivated bears, we see how they must fight off some pretty ruthless and often highly elusive enemies - enemies who are determined to block their paths and shatter their dreams...Here's a brief sketch of just some of these treacherous characters: Sinkers - the bitter losers who, as disciples of the pear shape, despise anyone else's success and derive immense pleasure from torpedoing it; Head treads - those who block anyone coming up the success ladder; they are devoid of talent, having only got where they are through brown nosing, knife throwing and luck! Neg ferrets - the pessimistic warriors of doom with insatiable appetites for other people's problems; Molasses Man - the sweet but slow, well-meaning people who are burdened by the beliefs of others; Bloaters - boasting, lazy, obnoxious and tediously egotistical reptilian saddos who are absolutely full of it! Written in the tradition of the bestselling, "Who Moved My Cheese", "Polar Bear Pirates" is a uniquely entertaining and often hilarious look at business and personal development. A 'game book' of questions, answers, traps and signposts, this book delivers powerful, inspirational messages as it helps you to unravel a series of complex motivational issues on your journey to personal and professional success.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27123 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 149 pages

Review
"…he warns that you must have certain qualities to get there (Fat City) though. Using a highly original omelette metaphor he suggests that you can have all the ingredients but unless you have an egg you really should "think along the lines of cheese and toast." Quite…" (The Herald (Glasgow), 9 November 2002)

"In a nutshell: A motivating and inspiring guide on how to succeed in life and how to deal with various characters you may meet along the way, whether they prove to be friend or foe...Final Word: the book really is an enjoyable read, illustrated with highly entertaining characters that can be likened to at least one or two people in our life..." (Evening Standard, 2 December 2002)

“…You’ll be guaranteed to smirk a bit at Webster’s wise–crack filled prose…” (www.tuc.org.uk, 20 December 2002)

“…a self help career book for the Nintendo generation…” (www.worksmart.org.uk, 20 December 2002)

"…lighthearted yet meaningful…an inspirational book…should sit on the shelf of any line manager who wants to inspire the sceptics…" (Personnel Today, 18 February 2003)

Review
"…he warns that you must have certain qualities to get there (Fat City) though. Using a highly original omelette metaphor he suggests that you can have all the ingredients but unless you have an egg you really should "think along the lines of cheese and toast." Quite…" (The Herald (Glasgow), 9 November 2002)

"In a nutshell: A motivating and inspiring guide on how to succeed in life and how to deal with various characters you may meet along the way, whether they prove to be friend or foe...Final Word: the book really is an enjoyable read, illustrated with highly entertaining characters that can be likened to at least one or two people in our life..." (Evening Standard, 2 December 2002)

“…a self help career book for the Nintendo generation…” (www.worksmart.org.uk, 20 December 2002)

“…You’ll be guaranteed to smirk a bit at Webster’s wise–crack filled prose…” (www.tuc.org.uk, 20 December 2002)

"…lighthearted yet meaningful…an inspirational book…should sit on the shelf of any line manager who wants to inspire the sceptics…" (Personnel Today, 18 February 2003)

worksmart website 20 December 2002
"..a self help career book for the Nintendo generation

Customer Reviews

Business Insight? Don't Make Me Laugh!
At first sight, this comes across as original and engagingly written. Many of us will initially recognise the archetypal characters lampooned, especially from work. Don't be fooled, though. Keep whatever wits you have about you, and you realise a couple of chapters in that the whole thing is getting a little wearing. You begin to ache for a bit of actual advice amidst all the increasingly forced joviality.

What starts out as caricature soon becomes stereotyping - not the best habit for the workplace. No-one is always true to type; but the author is so far into his own rather repetitive creativity, and so far from any coherent theme, that he implies just that. Rather limiting for a "champion of change"!

The acronyms become especially tedious. It seems any clever-clever phrase is going to be initialised, so that the effort of remembering what it's actually for starts to sap any enjoyment or mnemonic effectiveness. The level of contrivance we're looking at is ultimately equivalent to David Brent on a bad day. You start to wish he'd just STFUAGOWI... (hoho, heehee).

This is fodder for the enthusiasms of personality-challenged business geeks on whom opposable thumbs are largely wasted, other than for twiddling or leafing through this sort of puerile gibberish. Nothing is developed; the list of cute nicknames just stretches on and on, ultimately becoming witless evidence of Webster's own zero disposition to change. I agree that the negative types need resistance, even ridicule, on occasion. But simply despising people, writing them off as one-dimensional, and offering no thoughts as to how we can change them - or our dispositions towards them - is an approach as ironically negative and rigid as the attitude it seeks to challenge. Good old "positive reinforcement" seems to have slipped our Adrian's mind in the gleeful momentum of making up names to call people.

This is when this kind of stuff, and the way it's spoon-gobbled by desperately out-of-touch, snake-oil swallowing execs looking for their latest fix, really starts to make me despair. To all those at the trough, can I just say: "Why don't you get your snouts out of this swill and try injecting a bit of your own personality and humour into work, for God's sake!" Honestly, if you have to rely on this sort of pap for inspiration, you're very likely ITWJ (In the Wrong Job, haha, teehee).

Ultimately, we realise we should have expected this from the start. From the outset, this guy says if you don't want to change, don't bother reading this (and, by extension, buying it). In fact, he tells us that if we feel OK, we shouldn't be happy about it; and then if we are - again, there's nothing for us in here. What a pity he didn't have the "courage and innovation" to put that on the back cover! I'm also willing to bet that this is one of those cast-iron egos that, if challenged, defaults to the safety-mechanism embedded in this book: "Hey, relax! It's a bit of fun! and if you disagree - you're just another Neg!"

Well, sorry to dampen the "fun," but where this has any use, it isn't original. What's actually new is pretty useless; and, in the end, self-contradictory. It's a one-joke, finger-pointing, anti-redemption gig; and, if you read with care and insight, the joke ends up on the author. If you want a truly witty and endlessly evolving, beautifully thought-out, on-going critique of business behaviours, I recommend the "Dongethigedilb" approach - Don't get this, get Dilbert.

Polar Bear Pirates
Polar Bear Pirates and Their Quest to Reach Fat City must be the most refreshing business book around. It's great fun labelling all those work colleagues and friends that drive you up the wall, but just think 'Neg Ferret' or 'Bloater' and they will never have the same effect again. Not only is this book fun and amazingly illustrated, it is inspiring and motivational. I couldn't put it down!!

Polar Bear Pirates
An innovative writing style makes this book easy reading with humorous names and images for the less than positive people adding to the fun of the book.
Underlying all of that is a simple strategy for achieving personal success.
I want to be a Polar Bear Pirate and am making the changes necessary to achieve that goal.
A good starting point for anyone at an impasse in their lives; personally or professionally