Get Your Frog Out of the Well: Private Lessons For The Global Economy;
By Chuck Boyer; Wiley India
Pages: 159; Price: Rs 249
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Despite the global turmoil and fears of economic slowdown, the US remains the world's biggest economy and will continue to do so in the coming few years at least. Moreover, considering that India is a booming economy involved in global business, a dialogue between the two countries is a necessity. But hurdles such as cultural differences, semantics and the lack of proper communication can slow down the process. And Chuck Boyer's Get Your Frog Out Of The Well, gives away lessons on how to communicate effectively with Americans.
A business writer by profession since 1973, Boyer has worked for major corporations such as IBM, HP, Digital, Symphony services, MasterCard and Arthur D. Little Consulting. This is his first book and is assorted with amusing insights on the art of doing business in the global economy. As the author reveals in the preface, the name of the book is inspired by a famous Hindu proverb according to which a frog living in the well has lot to discover about the rest of the world.
Boyer starts with adopting the right techniques for communicating across the table: corporation and on a broader level, a culture and goes on while distinguishing the 'problem and solution' from 'issue and expectation'. Get Your Frog… is largely embedded with Boyer's own experiences while working in the IT majors and his interviews with business leaders such as Subroto Bagchi, co-founder of MindTree Consulting, Ajay Kela of Symphony Services, Bikramjit Maitra of Infosys and Dilip Phadke of HP (US). The book also has a chapter dedicated to what these leaders have to say about working with Americans.
Chapter four onwards, the book gets more US centric with explanations on topics such as three good things and three bad things about American business culture as well as three types of Americans you may come across. The book talks about how each American is just like each Indian, as they are all different and how they tend to think that ‘great meetings' can solve great problems.
Boyer classifies the Americans in three types: Helper-Experts Race car driver and Judge and sites examples from real life to support their distinctions. Based on the survey done on Indian managers, Boyer puts together the top ten points on “How to deal with Americans”. This includes interesting listings such as “be honest” and “get to the point”, the most amusing one being: “It's high time for Americans to start learning something about Indian culture.”
Boyer has dedicated a chapter to writing skills as well, where he shares his “four subtle secrets” of writing and communicating. He also talks about blog power and how he is hooked on to Wikipedia and Google.Though, there are a number of examples on how innovative firms discarded the use of power point slides, Boyer has managed to include a chapter on the use of power point slides while presenting yourself. In which, he gives away some tips which comes handy.
Last but not the least the author concludes his writings by advising the readers (read student) on how they can use these soft skills to maximise their chances to get into the hot jobs. Boyer reiterates several times that the book is not a 'how to' tome. The style is conversational and grips the reader’s attention
Book Reviews 
Chapter four onwards, the book gets more US centric with explanations on topics such as three good things and three bad things about American business culture as well as three types of Americans you may come across. The book talks about how each American is just like each Indian, as they are all different and how they tend to think that ‘great meetings' can solve great problems.
