Wareham, John 1940-

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WAREHAM, John 1940-

PERSONAL:

Born January 4, 1940, in New Zealand; son of Albert John and Yvonne Jean (Presling) Wareham; married Margaret Ann Owles (a public relations officer), May 13, 1961; children: Anthony, Dean, Louise, Jonathan. Education: Victoria University of Wellington, B.Comm., 1962. Hobbies and other interests: Photography.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Office—Wareham Associates, 30 East 21st St., New York, NY 10010-7215. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Worked in New Zealand for Coopers & Lybrand, and Charles Haines Advertising; associated with Wareham Associates, Inc., New York, NY, 1964—.

MEMBER:

Institute of Directors (fellow), New Zealand Society of Chartered Accountants.

WRITINGS:

How to Climb the Money Tree: Judas Iscariot's Guide to Collecting Silver, A. H. & A. W. Reed (Sydney, Australia), 1971.

Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1980, published as The New Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter: Strategies for Surviving and Thriving in the New World of Business, HarperBusiness (New York, NY), 1994.

The Mystic Executive Survival Handbook, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1981.

Wareham's Way: Escaping the Judas Trap, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1983.

Wareham's Basic Business Types: Sorting Winners from Losers, and Managing People for Profit, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1987.

The Anatomy of a Great Executive, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1991.

How to Break Out of Prison, Welcome Rain (New York, NY), 2002.

Chancey on Top, Welcome Rain (New York, NY), 2003.

Contributor to magazines and newspapers in the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, including Across the Board, New Zealand Listener, and Wharton.

SIDELIGHTS:

John Wareham is the author of books on corporate success and business survival. Drawing upon his experience as a recruiter for his managerial consulting company, Wareham's books—a mixture of self-help, psychology, and business strategy—have been key in illuminating the inner workings of the corporate environment.

Wareham has kept up with changing economic times. He updated his 1980 Secrets of a Corporate Head-hunter in 1994, revamping his strategies to include what a Publishers Weekly contributor called "pragmatic advice" on surviving the troubled market. Theodore Kinni of Industry Week also noted Wareham's "street-smart approach" in his Anatomy of a Great Executive, a book that outlines a five-point system for evaluating business managers that includes work ethic, people skills, and emotional stability.

Wareham's emphasis on psychology is most apparent in his 1987 Wareham's Basic Business Types: Sorting Winners from Losers, and Managing People for Profit, which categorizes business executives into stereotyped personalities such as small-town Rusty, gregarious Tood, and workaholic Lockheed. "The author has kind words for only four or five of the twenty or so types that he limns," noted Walter Kiechel, III, in Fortune. One of these is McCoy, the ideal executive, whom Wareham introduces in the final chapter.

Wareham's eighth book, How to Break Out of Prison, draws parallels between imprisoned criminals and corporate executives in an examination of the "mental prisons" that may inhibit people from achieving success. Wareham, who has coached soon-to-be-released prisoners as well as business leaders, finds that the two groups often share similar self-defeating strategies. Douglas C. Lord commented in Library Journal that How to Break Out of Prison gives the reader "a fresh and energized perspective" on ideas of success and failure.

In what a Publishers Weekly reviewer called "one of the book's most powerful sections," Wareham discusses the counterproductive behavior pattern that he calls "sounding the bugle and advancing to the rear." In this situation, an individual takes a bold step towards self-improvement while simultaneously undermining it. Wareham offers as an example the story of an ex-convict who violates parole by enthusiastically attending night classes. The Publishers Weekly reviewer commented on the effectiveness of such real-life examples and noted the book's "highly readable format," recommending it to "those seeking to change their lives."

Wareham told CA: "I write at my computer. When I am working I put down 1000 new words a day, usually early in the morning, sometimes very late at night. I try to press on to the end. I enjoy editing and seeing everything come together. I am most influenced by self-imposed deadlines. I want to get it all down and 'get on with my life.' The most surprising thing I have learned as a writer is that the writer's own unconscious has an agenda all of it's own. It produces material that one could never consciously create. In non-fiction I try to write books that will be practical, helpful, and entertaining. In fiction I am not content to entertain, and hopefully to delight. My key character, Chandler 'Chancey' Haste, is picaresque at best. Moralizing would be tedious and silly. I am most influenced by the mysteries, contradicaiton, and hyprocrisies of human behavior.

"My favorite book is my latest, Chancey on Top, because fiction permits free rein to the imagination and emotions. I had always wanted to write fiction, and this is the book I wanted to write. It is entirely different from anything previous, and may shock some of my readers. I fell into nonfiction because that was what publishers wanted. Chancey was exhilarating to write and is—I hope—exciting to read. I am thrilled with the conclusion, which came as unexpectedly to me as it will to the reader.

"My second favorite is How to Break Out of Prison, because it permitted me to offer hard-won insight for my tandem careers at opposite ends of the social spectrum—developing executives and rehabilitating prison inmates."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Best Sellers, November, 1983, review of Wareham's Way: Escaping the Judas Trap, p. 300.

Booklist, October 15, 1983, review of Wareham's Way, p. 315; May 1, 1987, review of Wareham's Basic Business Types: Sorting Winners from Losers, and Managing People for Profit, p. 1324; June 1, 1994, Barbara Jacobs, review of The New Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter: Strategies for Surviving and Thriving in the New World of Business, p. 1744.

Book World, April 25, 1982, review of Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter, p. 14.

Business Book Review, 1998, number 3, review of Wareham's Basic Business Types, p. 98.

Fortune, June 8, 1987, Walter Kiechel, III, review of Wareham's Basic Business Types, p. 174.

Industry Week, September 16, 1991, Theodore Kinni, review of Anatomy of a Great Executive, p. 7.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 1983, review of Wareham's Way, p. 958.

Library Journal, March 1, 1981, review of Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter, p. 535; August, 1987, review of Wareham's Basic Business Types, p. 121; July, 1994, review of New Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter, p. 108; August, 2002, Douglas C. Lord, review of How to Break Out of Prison, p. 123.

Management Review, September, 1991, review of Anatomy of a Great Executive, p. 54.

Publishers Weekly, October 2, 1981, review of Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter, p. 110; May 16, 1994, review of New Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter, p. 58; July 8, 2002, review of How to Break Out of Prison, pp. 43-44.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), May 10, 1992, review of Anatomy of a Great Executive, p. 8.