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Milligan’s biting-but-inspirational debut blends insights about healthy leadership and management styles with a fable of corporate America. The narrative centers on two LED manufacturing companies that bid for the chance to lead the charge on a $30 million lighting project in the Midwest, a scenario that Milligan uses to offer detailed a taxonomy of personality types Milligan has encountered during his three decades in corporate life. Drawing on a background in psychology, Milligan also breaks down the motivations and common behaviors of each type (Coach, Pacesetter, Narcissist), all represented by different characters in the fictional companies. The Sociopath cultivates a “highly toxic” culture and “to calm his nerves and justify future carnage” tells himself this: The “company would have had a completely different outcome if only they had all performed as he had demanded.”
Milligan dubs employees and leaders of the first company, General Light, “Corporate Savages,” while Technical Illuminations and City Public Power are “A Civilized Culture” and “The Emotionally Intelligent.” While the use of savage-civilized language is off-putting, Milligan’s careful and often amusing descriptions of the businesses and their interactions with one another do well to illustrate the functional and behavioral differences between toxic and healthy companies. A clear dichotomy is set up between the money-grabbing, emotionally abusive, Machiavellian business on one side and the collaborative, compassionate, and fiscally responsible company on the other. Readers with experience in the corporate world at every level will recognize these professional personalities and even see themselves in many of them, and while The Corporate Menagerie offers a clear-eyed dramatis personae introducing the kind of people readers are likely to meet, plus a survey of familiar and preventable workplace culture problems, it also shows readers how they deserve to be treated and the kind of behavior they shouldn’t tolerate in their professional lives. Professionals looking for a cohesive, accessible guide to understanding personalities at work will find Milligan’s refreshing debut useful. Takeaway: A field guide to corporate personalities—and leading a healthy company. Cultures and Leadership. Production gradesCover: ADesign and typography: AIllustrations: N/AEditing: AMarketing copy: A
Milligan dubs employees and leaders of the first company, General Light, “Corporate Savages,” while Technical Illuminations and City Public Power are “A Civilized Culture” and “The Emotionally Intelligent.” While the use of savage-civilized language is off-putting, Milligan’s careful and often amusing descriptions of the businesses and their interactions with one another do well to illustrate the functional and behavioral differences between toxic and healthy companies. A clear dichotomy is set up between the money-grabbing, emotionally abusive, Machiavellian business on one side and the collaborative, compassionate, and fiscally responsible company on the other. Readers with experience in the corporate world at every level will recognize these professional personalities and even see themselves in many of them, and while The Corporate Menagerie offers a clear-eyed dramatis personae introducing the kind of people readers are likely to meet, plus a survey of familiar and preventable workplace culture problems, it also shows readers how they deserve to be treated and the kind of behavior they shouldn’t tolerate in their professional lives. Professionals looking for a cohesive, accessible guide to understanding personalities at work will find Milligan’s refreshing debut useful. Takeaway: A field guide to corporate personalities—and leading a healthy company. Cultures and Leadership. Production gradesCover: ADesign and typography: AIllustrations: N/AEditing: AMarketing copy: A
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Milligan’s business fable—a not entirely fictitious tale of the marketplace—dramatizes the differences between a healthy corporate culture and a toxic one. In an unnamed Midwestern city, City Public Power initiates the public bidding for a $30 million street-lighting project.
Two starkly different companies compete for the job: General Light is infested with a “highly toxic culture” in which selfishness, ambition, greed, and rampant backstabbing are the norm. Its competitor, Technical Illuminations, couldn’t be more different—its employees work collaboratively, prioritizing the victory of the team over individual success, in an environment that engenders mutual trust and personal fulfillment.
The author populates this tale, based on real events, with characters symbolizing various corporate personalities and management styles. Rick Saunders, the CEO of General Light, is a “corporate sociopath” and “social predator” who remorselessly delights in the emotional manipulation of others. He presides over a team of dysfunctional managers that includes a narcissist, a coercive bully, and a Machiavellian schemer.
By contrast, Alex Han, the head of Technical Illuminations, displays all the characteristics of an “authentic leadership style” (“He cared about his employees and made sure all of TI’s executives and managers shared his vision of hard work, thinking before acting, and putting the collective needs of the organization over the individual”).
Milligan’s account is unfailingly clear, written in perfectly plain, accessible prose.
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A (supposedly) true story about two companies bidding for a lighting project for a small city that examines toxic and healthy work cultures using a storytelling approach with management principles summaries at the end of each chapter…By focusing on “the pathologies of low-functioning and high-functioning managers,” Milligan offers a narrow, albeit important, focus on corporate efficiency…the insights into toxic work environments will resonate with many employees.