House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time

Martin Kihn

Jun 2009 · Sold by Business Plus

About this ebook

In the bestselling tradition of Liar's Poker comes a devastatingly accurate and darkly hilarious behind-the-scenes look at the wonderful world of management consulting.

Once upon a time in Corporate America there was a group of men and women who were paid huge fees to tell organizations what they were doing wrong and how to improve themselves. These men and women promised everything and delivered nothing, said they were experts when they were not, sometimes ruined careers, and at best, only wasted time, energy, and huge sums of money. They called themselves Management Consultants….

Welcome to the world of Martin Kihn, a former standup comic and Emmy® Award-nominated television writer who decided to “go straight” and earn his MBA at a prestigious Ivy League university. In HOUSE OF LIES, he brazenly chronicles his first two years as a newly-minted management consultant: featuring his struggles with erroneous advice, absurd arrogance, and bloody power struggles. Hey, it’s all in a day’s work— and it pays really well!

Ratings and reviews

I picked this book up from the library after having enjoyed the Showtime series. If you aren't interested in consulting, don't bother. While I found the book to be decent, there is no link between the show and the book other than the title and the disdain for the profession in general. Some amusing parts, but a bit lightweight and I was expecting more than what I found.

While there were some funny chapters, the book mostly felt like mental masturbation for the writer. I was expecting a bit more bite. While Kihn does a decent job skewering the profession, half the chapters felt more like stream of consciousness and less satire.

A brief but cold water rush of my own experience with consulting, but as they say " Even when the devil critizes his hell, he's still being a devil", and Kihn's still that devil making a living of consulting services by this day...

About the author

Martin Kihn was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work as head writer for MTV's Pop-Up Video, and was also a staff writer for New York magazine. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Forbes, GQ, Spy, and numerous other national publications. He is a graduate of the Columbia Business School and Yale University.