Surviving Your Serengeti
Surviving Your Serengeti: 7 Skills to Master Business and Life, published March 2011, is a motivational business fable based on author Stefan Swanepoel's experiences in business and growing up in Africa.
The book is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller.
Synopsis
Swanepoel compares modern-day business and personal challenges with the life-and-death struggles of the millions of animals of Serengeti plains of East Africa whose 1,000 mile-long migration filled with hunger, thirst, predators and exhaustion is often considered one of the natural wonders of the world. The book matches a person's dominate instinctive skill with its corresponding Serengeti animal. According to the book the seven skills and animals include the "enduring wildebeest", the "strategic lion", the "enterprising crocodile", the "graceful giraffe", the "efficient cheetah", the "risk-taking mongoose" and the "communicating elephant".
Review
This fable does not suffer from forced attempts at making the story fit the lessons and therefore the narrative is easy to follow. When evaluating any business parable, The Two primary criteria are the strength of the story and the applicability of the lessons. From a story standpoint, Surviving Your Serengeti genuinely entertains. From an applicability standpoint, the book's biggest value is that at the end of each chapter the author summarizes the qualities that define each skill and then maps out A Plan of action for readers to follow.