BOOK REVIEW
9
Drug Dealers: Experts in Recessionary Business
CEOs could learn a lot from hustlers
By Nick McMaster
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Posted Sep 21, 09 5:26 PM CDT
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(Newser)
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50 Cent is the first rapper to pen a book of management advice. It’s a shame, then, that The 50th Law, co-written by Robert Greene, boils down to the worst kind of “be authentic” self-help boilerplate, writes Lucy Lucy Kellaway for the Financial Times. As a former drug dealer, 50 has a lot to offer managers, especially in a recession.
Dealers are good models for doing business in a credit crunch because “they live permanently in a world of zero credit,” Kellaway writes. Cost-cutting CEOs must detach themselves from employees whose jobs are in peril, just as hustlers must disregard customers' welfare. One difference: "In an emergency a drug dealer must be able to pop his product in his mouth and swallow it at a moment’s notice—whereas the CEO seldom finds call for such extreme action."