Interesting take on self help book. Interesting idea and premise.
Simply written and easy to Reay too

I really liked the format of this book. It was easy to engage with the material and there are lots of situations ot can be applied to. Highly recommend.

An interesting fable with a story within a story to help managers of business or sports teams unlock problems and reframe the question.

I reviewed it more depth here https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2021/03/06/book-reviews-chris-mcmillan-the-london-dream-and-pete-lindsay-mark-bowden-pig-wrestling/

Life getting messy? Learn tips and tricks to cope better with examples from the real world. An interesting take on how to change your life.

Thanks to Pete Lindsay and publisher for my ARC in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

3.5 stars

Too much story telling that seemed made up to explain things. Not for me. I could not continue with this book.

A good book guiding the reader into the mindset of actually looking at problems and that your first thought might not actually be the way to do things

This isn’t the sort of book I’d normally pick up. After all, I get enough corporate-speak at work and dealing with change every day, I felt I’d heard it all.

Told through a somewhat clunky, fable-style narrative, the authors explain their framework to address problems (pigs) and the tools to overcome them.

Common sense, as much as these things usually are, but there were some interesting questions and techniques that I will give a whirl.

Nice little addition to the business self help genre. The kind of thing you could give to new hires and have some value. But nothing out of the ordinary.

This book is a guide to problem solving, its short to read and I did enjoy reading it, however if self-development isn't your thing then it may not be for you. It did get me thinking and I definitely think that I will be reading it again to go over the material.

I read this book as a free download through Net Galley, as I was intrigued by the title. However, it was a fancy title for some common-sense approaches to problem-solving, but then the world is bereft of common-sense at times.
I am not a massive fan of the 'fable' approach to story-telling, as I think it tends to pad out the text, but I did enjoy the book. I also liked the mnemonic that the book offered and the framework for problem-solving. The summaries at the chapter end were also useful, and it is a quick read.

Nope sorry, this wasn't for me. I really do like the concept of the book, but I found the fable a little irritating.

I think this is a “marmite” book!

I liked it though, when you have a problem and you find a solution that sometimes doesn’t pay off, this book helps you to think outside the box and explains and breaks down how to do it. A nice little find and I think it will help me in the future. Gives you new eyes on an old problem, good little read. Happy days.

Pig wrestling a practical guide to help with solving problems, recognising a potential future problem and when a problem isn’t a problem. This book has a formula to help you overcome present and future problems and tells a fable to help you understand and recognise were the problems lie, and what to do about solving it. It does say to read the fable at least twice and I believe that I will need to do this, as although I recognised,understood and agreed to some of the content, there was other parts that I didn’t. Would I recommend this book? Well yes, but only if you’re someone who likes self help books and aren’t expecting miracles. The book does have some sound advice and a short read that you can keep referring back to, as there’s a flow chart at the end for quick assistance.

Wasn't sure what to expect with this book. I requested being intrigued with the title.. Shall certainly be giving it another read through and implementing some of the suggestions. recommended it for anyone wanting a personal development book

I liked how this had the story behind it, it helped me read and resonante. It will be interesting if I retain the information or if I need to pick it up again in the future. Certainly thought provoking but not all that revolutionary.

This was a very interesting approach to problem solving, particularly those that seem to have reached an impasse. I am in the process of putting this approach into practice in a real life situation and initial feedback has been positive.
The book is well structured and its case study approach has made what can be a very dry subject matter easy to read and understand. It is short and to the point and can certainly stand repeat readings.
A very useful tool for a difficult subject.

I really enjoyed this book as I’m a fan of fables but it’s also really useful to step back and look at problem solving. It was a fun way to be reminded that sometimes the problem is how we are looking st something and not the problem itself!

I'm not one who generally reads this sort of book, but like most people I've had and have problems I'd like to look at differently. This books offers that new way of looking at and working through those problems.
The method is told through a conversational journey between a troubled manager and various people who use the method. I enjoyed the writing and the story helped cement the method and the ideas behind it. The story gave different ways of looking at the steps so you could frame it to your own issues.
The whole book is a quick, maybe 2 hours, light hearted and easily understood. It offers you a problem solving method that could help plenty of people with various problems.
Grab this book for a problem solving quick read.

Thanks to netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

PIG WRESTLING
Pete Lindsay and Mark Bawden
“I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and besides, the pig loves it.”
(George Bernard Shaw)

I'm not a great fan of self-help books (apart from Eric Berne's “Games People Play”), which always seem to start with the glaringly obvious and sink all too quickly into wordy jargon. But this one is different, perhaps because the authors are sports coaches who have worked with Team GB for the Olympics.

At heart, it's a fable, a great way of getting across “complex and powerful messages in simple and coherent images”. To be more precise, it's two fables – the outer layer of the story tells how a young manager has become frustrated at his failure to motivate his awkward squad of team members. Fed up with the situation, he goes for a coffee in the basement of his multi-disciplinary office complex. The wise old barista there tells him that if he's tried everything but the problem's still there, then he hasn't tried everything ...

The barista then introduces him to the second fable – and the weird title of the book. It all turns on an odd vision: imagine you're on a walk in the country, and you come across a fenced-off pig pen. Inside it is a prize porker with its head stuck in an old picture frame. The pig would like to reach out to its food trough and to some gold nuggets in the earth at the corner of the pen, but its movements are held back by two bungee cords tying it to the ground. Outside the pen is a bucket full of soapy water and a sponge, a crystal ball fizzing with energy, a child's “Spot the Difference” book and a green recycling bin. That (along with a yellow danger sign), says the barista, is all you need to solve your problem – indeed, any problem you might encounter.

And it is. In the chapters that follow, the young manager is passed from one firm in his office block to another, where the managers teach him the meaning of each of the puzzling features of the pig pen. If you start, for instance, with the picture frame, you learn how an outdated frame “colours our perception of its contents. And that can be dangerous, because we have a tendency to forget that we are looking through a frame at all.” Each encounter with a different manager in the unusual set of offices and workshops throws more light on the strange collection of objects in and around the pig pen. Some of the symbols you might guess (the bucket of soapy water and a sponge is a bit of a giveaway), but others take a bit more puzzling. And it's a tale with a happy ending, but, other than letting you know that the young manager successfully tackled his problem with a fresh approach, I won't spoil it for you by giving the ending away. I think you might enjoy this book, and you might, like the young manager, find yourself cleaning your problems.

Nigel Melville
(This review originally appeared in the Chesil Magazine, Dorset)

With thanks to NetGalley for a prepublication review copy.

Written by two sports psychologists, this is a deceptively simple little book that aims to provide a strategy to deal with any difficult situation, in any walk of life. Which is a pretty tall order...

The basic concept is that of ‘problem cleaning’ to get unstuck and create change, and the authors use the fable format to give us the story of a Young Manager struggling to deal with conflicts between two high-flying teams he manages. He is given advice by the barista in the coffee shack in his building, in the form of a graphic that represents the steps needed to break through his - and, by extension, our - mental barriers. He is then sent on a journey through his building to have each step explained by the various business managers sharing the space.

It’s a quick read if you’re just skimming through but of course that’s really not the point. The graphic is deliberately bizarre, in order to be easily recollected - the ancient concept of the memory palace or the amethod of Loci. It consists of a fence forming a pig pen, containing a pig wearing a picture frame around its neck and held down by two pink bungee cords, so that it cannot get at its food trough which bears the words ’Made in Hanoi’. In the far corner are some gold nuggets; around the outside of the pen are a bucket of water and a sponge, a child’s Spot the Difference puzzle book, a recycling bin and a large yellow warning sign. Together, these disparate elements make up the framework for an alternative approach to problem solving: from deciding if it’s really a problem for you, that needs to be prioritised now and that you are seeing in its entirety; through learning to recognise when you’re looking through the wrong frame; to understanding that our narratives are linked to our failure to progress; to having a vision of what a resolution looks like; looking at the occasions when a problem doesn’t arise and recognising the differences; and finally seeing problems as a result of misdirected energies rather than faults.

I’ve just read the book, so I’m not in a position to comment on how well this method works. But I will certainly try applying these principles the next time I feel stuck with a seemingly insurmountable problem. I can see it being a good basis for problem-solving workshops, but I feel I’d probably need a bit more reinforcement of the ideas than simply reading the book will provide.