This book is rather narrowly targeted to higher level corporate managers. The general principles can be adapted for other situations, but Autry doesn't make any real attempt to stretch in that way.

This is 47 short chapters. Each chapter starts with an excerpt from the Tao Te Ching in Stephen Mitchell's translation. After a while I started keeping Ursula Le Guin's translation alongside and reading her version too! Autry then comments in two or three pages how the principles can be used by a manager.

I'm pretty much a Taoist novice and an using this book as an entry point. I don't doubt that this book barely skims the surface of Lao Tzu's vision. The books doesn't really claim to do more. Seems to me perfectly valid for a person to use and share whatever limited understanding they might have. I'm rather fascinated by the notion of colonization ... how e.g. an American might claim to be more of an expert in Lao Tzu's thinking than someone who grew up in Chinese culture. But that's not what's happening here. I see nothing wrong with Americans cooking and enjoying spaghetti, as long as they don't claim that it is more authentic than an Italian's spaghetti!

This is probably more an issue with Mitchell's translation, which seems to take a lot of license and I gather presents itself as more a translation than a kind of reformulation type of interpretation. But the present book seems to be Autry's book. It uses the Mitchell "translation", but doesn't get caught up in arguing that it has captured Lao Tzu's true meaning. ( )