Career Warfare: 10 Rules for Building a Successful Personal Brand and Fighting to Keep It

Book excerpt: FROM THE NATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF BRAND WARFARE A genuine winner shows you how to stand out from the crowd As the youngest-ever CEO of John Hancock Financial Services and the bestselling author of Brand Warfare, David D'Alessandro knows plenty about breaking away from the pack. In Career Warfare, this ultimate insider tells the true story of how he learned the unwritten rules of corporate ladder climbing. In his signature, outspoken style, D'Alessandro offers concrete advice on building a reputation that commands respect, coping with office politics, and surviving the less-than-sane aspects of any organization. He explains why only 20 percent of the people in a given corporation are truly valuable to the organization, demonstrates the right way to polish the boss's image and prevent the boss from tarnishing the reader's, and provides valuable lessons in the etiquette of reputation building. Through engaging, often-hilarious stories drawn from his own dramatic climb to the top, David D'Alessandro speaks to success-oriented readers at every level and explains: How to make people want to take a chance on them How to gain and keep a great reputation Why success will not proceed in a rational manner Why hard work and accomplishment aren't enough What character has to do with it