Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman: What Men Know About Success that Women Need to Learn

This book rocks. Every person in the workforce should read it. Men need to read it to understand gender differences and level the playing field. Women need to read and study this book because, as Gail writes in the book, “from early childhood on, boys and girls play with different sets of rules. And because men create the rules in the game of business, and because women are only now trying to be effective competitors, we will prosper only when we are familiar with those rules.”Play like a man book coverBusiness is a game and Gail will help you understand the rules and win the game. She outlines the ground rules, prepares you to play, then explains how the score is kept. After laying out the basic game, the book then offers fourteen rules for success and six things man can do at work and women can’t. The book ends with tips on how to enter and end the game and some final advice.According to Gail of course the object is to win the game. This is done by feeling good about what you do. When you feel good, you feel fulfilled and you win. If you love your business life, you will not be miserable.You must understand your role. Think of a sports team. Each player has position and knows the job. The pitcher is not the catcher. They do work together but each as a different role. Train for work, just like you would a sport. Listen to your coach. Don’t take things personally any more than a pro would striking out. It happens.The fourteen rules include speak up, speak out, accept uncertainly and more. With each rule Gail outlines typical situations and how win in each one.This is an easy read so get the book, but keep a highlighter handy. You’ll be marking the sage advice to remind yourself of the rules.

I taught a personal development course for women second year college students. They read this book and we discussed it in class. They all said they really liked it and learned a lot about how to succeed in business as a woman.The book title sums up the author's point of view based her hard won experience climbing the corp ladder. She suggests that women navigate the fine line between playing the game of business mostly the way men play the game, basically, by being assertive, while maintaining one's own unique identity and certain feminine qualities that are useful in certain situations in business. A fine line to balance to be sure.I discussed the challenge of that balance with the students and they understood and looked forward to navigating that balance. Very good advice in the book I think and will always be highly relevant so the date the book was written is not important. The advice is timeless.

In my opinion, as a female executive, this book is one of the must-haves on the shelf! The advice is timeless and practical. It is also not a book at either A) implies women are superior to men B) bashes men. Very refreshing.Excellent advice such as "quit saying your sorry" and not to settle for less because you're being a team player (she used an example of how a man will negotiate for the biggest office with the newest furniture while a woman in the same position would settle for used furniture in a smaller office to be a team player). She does also impress upon us that women do have partiulcar natural abilities that we need to exploit towards our success and some of those have to do how men tend to naturally relate to us.I still refer to things that have stuck with me when I read the book a few years ago and I plan on picking it up again to re-read it - yes, it's most definitely one of those kind of books.Also, finally, it's pretty short and sweet and it's basic.... kind of like some of us. Highly effective tool to add to your tool box!

Any woman working in business needs to read this book. In fact, any young woman just heading into the business world should HAVE to read this book. It's like the secret rule book that you never knew existed. You may not agree with everything the author states, but it's a fascinating glimpse at how the other half operates.Women come to work with a different set of assumptions around how to be a team player, and how to work in order to advance the company's goals. Then they wonder why the less-qualified jerk they've been working with gets promoted ahead of them. It's not willful misogyny, it's just that men are scoring your behaviour using a different set of guidelines. This book offers some interesting insights into that process.I think this is also a useful read for men, who might be interested to understand more about why women behave the way they do, and for the more enlightened amongst you, might even see the value in it.I recognize that one shouldn't generalize across an entire gender's behaviour, but there are enough commonalities addressed here to make this a useful read for anyone.Wish I had read this 25 years ago.

I read this book in 2000 when it was first published. It is a quick read, and it is entertaining. What brings the book to mind again today is that earlier this week I used one of the author's stories to illustrate a point I was making when presenting information to upper management at a chemical plant. As a licensed professional counselor and personal and professional life coach, I often bring in stories, because they are wonderful teachers. Gail Evans has some good stories, but more importantly, she comes across as definitely authentic. Therefore, when she gives a list of what MEN can do that WOMEN can't, the reader pays attention.They can drink. We can'tThey can cry. We can't.They can have sex. We can't.They can fidget. We can't.They can yell. We can't.They can have bad manners. We can't.They can be ugly. We can't.Now then, even though we can all argue that this is not always true, her concept is a marvelous instigator of REAL conversation about some of the different expecations we have of men versus women. I'm glad I bought this book back in 2000, and I'm glad I kept it all these years. I recommend reading it yourself to see if eight years has evidenced any change. See more from "Thinkwriter" at [...]