A Dance with the Corporate Ton by Lata Subramanian #BookReview

A Dance With The Corporate Ton by Lata Subramanian

Plot of A Dance with the Corporate Ton

A Dance with the Corporate Ton: Reflections of a Worker Ant is an autobiographical account of author Lata Subramanian’s professional life. It starts with a brief glimpse of her childhood and then quickly transitions to her humble beginning in the service industry. The book is about her unconventional start in advertising and details out the years she spent there. According to the book blurb in Goodreads

The author, Lata Subramanian, will take you on a career journey that will make you relive the excitement of your first job; the exhilaration of career breakthroughs; the highs and lows of corporate life; and your search for personal meaning. Along the way, she will also make you smile a lot as her career autobiography is full of humour, satire, anecdotes and interesting historical references to aristocratic behaviour.

A Dance with the Corporate Ton – What I Liked

What I liked about the book was that it was very real. The names of companies, people, ad campaigns was all real. In a memoir, this is absolutely essential. While she claims to not be in touch with several people, she still mentions them in detail. Another thing is the very positive tone of the book. She has elaborated on the positives and hardly spent any time on the negatives. Even when she talks about the low points in her career, she focuses more on her own feelings and what she did than trying to make someone else look bad or unfair.

Throughout the book, you discover a lot of management and corporate lessons. Be it about being a people manager or office politics! The parallels drawn with the London society of yore, add an interesting twist to the presentation.

A Dance with the Corporate Ton – What I Did Not Like

While this book chronicles her professional journey very well and is written in first person, you don’t get to see Lata the person. The hard working professional is there but the woman behind it remains partially hidden. Her drive to make it comes from a childhood resolve and her decisions to take care of her mother are explained but the reason for living in America is not. The personality behind it all remains hidden behind the saree clad persona the author draws up for us.

A Dance with the Corporate Ton – Final Thoughts

I found the book a welcome change from the string of romances and thrillers I had been reading. There are plenty of lessons to be drawn from the book – some the author calls out and some she does not. She is not judgemental of anything and leaves it to the reader to form their own opinions.

After reading the book, I have acquired an immense admiration for Lata Subramanian and the dignified way she has handled her career. If you are a career woman, this book is a must read.

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