What it’s really like to work in a corporate environment: ‘Dancing with the Bull’ reveals all

Sure, the corporate life might pay well, but is it the be all? Matthew Simon was one of those people who thought so. Until he didn’t. He’d spent 25 years in senior executive roles for multinational companies, but one day he realised he’d had enough. That was in April 2011. In 2019, he released a book, inspired by his time in the suit, creating synergy, flagging emails, catching-up, 1:1s and all the ‘as per‘s’ you can count. The result’s his book, Dancing with the Bull. In the novel, Luke Glass, Matt’s fictional master of the universe, loses his job only to be offered another under mysterious circumstances. Soon after joining The Organisation he meets an unexpected ally, who slowly reveals the ways of the corporate world and how it manipulates those within its grasp. It’s a tale he wrote with a laugh in his mind and a the image of the machines that used to feed his life and reputation; he was known as Matt the banker. He explores the machinations that abound within the corporate world and bases a lot of it on Simon’s personal experience of life on the other side of the smokescreen, including the greed, misanthropy, egos and downright ruthless rogues. “I came to realise that, especially at the most senior levels, managers and executives were simply creating tasks and issues so that they appeared to be not only incredibly busy but also invaluable to the company,” says Matt. “Along with that came the willingness to target people who threatened their position… Read More