Introduction.

So Who Are We?

How This Book Is Different.

Managing Minefields.

Can You See It Coming?

1 Exit Strategies and Why You Need One.

An Exit Strategy: What It Is and Isn’t.

Creating Your Exit Strategy.

Negotiating the End at the Beginning.

2 Taking the Reins.

A Smart Start.

Setting the Course.

Watch Out for Imprints in the Sand.

Have You Been Chosen over Your Peers?

Looking the Part.

3 The House of Mirrors, or How to Keep Your Perspective.

Sizing Up the Team.

Overstepping Boundaries.

The Unanticipated Pitfall.

Out of Sight Should Never Mean Out of Mind.

One More Look in the Mirror.

4 Comrades, Coalitions, and Competitors.

Your Own Band of Brothers or Sisters or Siblings or . . .

When Good Allies Go Bad.

It’s Not Always Fair Play.

5 The Trouble with Teams.

Analyze Your Team.

Manage Your Image.

Think Like an Owner.

The Corporate League.

Strategies for Psyching Out the Team Dynamic.

6 Surviving a New Boss.

I Love the Smell of Chaos in the Morning.

And the Winner Is . . .

When Your Peer Gets the Nod.

7 Managing the Rank above You.

The Playbook.

Perception Traps.

8 Hidden Influents, or the Art of Managing Corporate Staff.

Financial Juggernaut.

Bodies, Benefits, and Boundaries.

Negotiators and Regulators.

Rogue Influents.

Know Who Your Friends Are—and Aren’t.

9 The I-Didn’t-See-It-Coming Moment.

Ten Red Flags and What They Really Mean.

Wielding Your Power on the Day of Reckoning.

The Four Laws of Survival.

Conclusion.

Notes.

Index.