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Title: Follow this Path: How the World's Greatest Organizations Drive Growth by Unleashing Human Potential by Curt Coffman, Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina ISBN: 0-446-53050-6 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 08 October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.71 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Right on the Money
Comment: This is exactly the book I was looking for, and it confirmed all of my suppositions about management: It's the people, stupid! Companies have improved every business process under the sun, and have made incredible progress with technology. But they are still woefully inadequate at dealing with their core problems: how to get the most out of their employees, and how to reach their customers on a gut, personal level. FOLLOW THIS PATH quite literally gives managers a path to success: from hiring the right people, to putting them in the right jobs, all the way on up to driving profitable growth. Most importantly, the book has the credibility of Gallup research to back it up.
Rating: 5
Summary: Manifesto for a Revolution
Comment: Review of "Follow This Path"
The central thesis of this valuable and highly readable work can be summed up in three words: Feelings drive actions.
This book from The Gallup Organization focuses on applying that briefest but most fundamental truth to business success. The authors' conclusion can be simply stated: The feelings of your employees influence the feelings of your customers, and that drives their buying behavior and your profits.
It works like this: Understand your employees so that they are assigned to do work for which they're really best suited at the deepest personal level ('cuz they'll do that work better than any other). And treat your employees in ways that encourage them to be fully engaged in their work ('cuz that gets you more loyalty and productivity at no extra cost). And then, in turn, your employees will treat your customers in a way that makes your customers feel good about your company ('cuz that leads them to spend more with your firm for a longer time). And, voila!, your company makes more money with less effort.
At this point you might feel compelled to release a loud exclamation of, "Well, duh!"
But hold on.
The premise of "Follow This Path" seems deceptively simple for two reasons:
1) It contrasts markedly with the "rational" model that still shapes most interactions with both employees and customers in most organizations; and
2) It stands in direct opposition to the assumptions underlying most business initiatives that are supposed to improve quality, productivity, or even customer satisfaction. Most, if not all, of those projects are aimed at mechanistically tweaking operational processes. And they don't positively affect the people on either side of the transaction: employees or customers. And so they have little to no effect on fundamentally improving the business. (But they sure do suck up a lot of time, create many distractions, and generate healthy fees for consultants.)
MORE THAN A REHASH
While tempting, it is misguided to characterize this book as a mere rehash of its predecessors from the Gallup Organization, "First, Break All the Rules" and "Now, Discover Your Strengths." Candidly, when first flipping through the book, "rehash" was my impression, too.
However, "Follow This Path" is a significant contribution in its own right. It integrates and extends Gallup's two previous works. This book's insights derive from an expanded data set supplied by Gallup's massive survey-based research, and the book also (as is all the rage in business tomes these days) draws on much of the historical and current research into the origins of behavior from both psychological and biological underpinnings. A smattering of readable anecdotes from real people help to bring the principles to life. (The end notes also are worth reading as the text there is written as a narrative and adds worthwhile insights. In addition, this work contains an appendix of what likely will strike most readers as mind-numbing statistical mumbo-jumbo, aimed, no doubt, at quieting critics who question the validity of the data underpinning Gallup's claims and conclusions.)
The effect is to validate sound, albeit somewhat non-traditional, perspectives on what really lies behind the elusive, mercantile holy grail of successfully competing in today's crazy, cut-throat marketplace.
THE UPSHOT
The good news is that these principles are easy to grasp and make intuitive sense (after reconsidering traditional biases).
The bad news is that for organizations to take advantage of these simple truths, they must unlearn much of what their managers "know" about how business works. The challenge is to move managers from the realm of the rational, definable, and controllable --- the hallmark characteristic of virtually every manager in virtually every corporation (perhaps with the exception of those strange and intrepid folks populating the marketing communications department).
The new reality: To compete effectively, managers must migrate to the still largely uncharted domain of the emotional, psychological, and personal in order to affect both employees and customers. In a gross understatement, this imperative represents a frighteningly major shift and no easy undertaking.
Making such a dramatic and fundamental change in both mindset and behaviors implies considerable adaptations at two levels: In the minds and hearts of individual managers, and in the policies and systems of their employing organizations.
All exaggeration aside, we're talking social revolution here. Undoubtedly, it will keep Gallup's consulting organization, and firms such as my own, very busy for many years to come.
But what if your boss or CEO is a Neanderthal and "doesn't get it"? Press on. Start with yourself and your very own work group. As the research from Gallup and many others makes clear, that's the only level at which real change actually occurs anyway.
Get the book and read it with a scientific mind, skeptical but open. Then get busy charting your own course through the new frontier of what Gallup aptly terms The Emotional Economy.
Chances are, you'll feel better...with rising productivity and profits...because customers feel better...because your employees feel better.
Rating: 5
Summary: I agree, it's a great book
Comment: I really didn't want to like this book. It just sounded too much like some new age, pop psychology dribble on how to feel good. I couldn't have been further from the truth. Although this isn't a great book, it is a very valuable book, not only for the businessman, but for leaders of nonprofits as well.
The premise of the book is simple. In an age where prices have been cut to razor thin margins, and businesses have become commodities, the only way to profitably survive is to unleash the human potential among your employees and customers. The authors ask this simple, but profound question: Why would a customer drive past your competition and pay a higher price to purchase your product? The answer: You have an emotionally engaged customer.
The authors demonstrate the world's greatest organizations connect with their customers on an emotional level. When this happens customers return because of the way they feel- they become emotional engaged. The businesses manta for the last century has been based on reason- if you build a better mousetrap, offer it at the lowest price, people will buy. Studies have shown that people are more driven by their emotions when it comes to purchase and repurchase than they are by reason. The same holds true for employees. The Gallop organization also has shown that emotionally engaged employees produce more, stay longer, have less accidents, etc.
Any problems? Maybe one. When hiring, the authors tell us again and again to commit to talent above education, experience, willingness to work hard, and the usual resume items. Inborn talent produces engaged employees; but what they did not address was the integrity issue. Jack Welch points out that the most dangerous employee is not the rude, insensitive, actively disengaged employee; but the one with the talent who does not hold to the values of the corporation. The actively disengaged employee will hurt the company, and yes, if you have enough of them they will destroy the company, but the real danger lies with talented, engaged employees who love their work but who do not hold to the company's values. These are the ones Welch would immediately get rid of.
All in all, it's a valuable book. For a pastor of a small church, or a midlevel manager, the Q-12 (Questions developed by the Gallop organization which identify the conditions of a great work space) are invaluable. By unleashing the human potential in staff, volunteers and members the leader of a nonprofit can build a great organization.
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Title: Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton ISBN: 0743201140 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 29 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham, Curt Coffman ISBN: 0684852861 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 05 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: Discover Your Sales Strengths: How the World's Greatest Salespeople Develop Winning Careers by Benson Smith, Tony Rutigliano ISBN: 0446530476 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Soar with Your Strengths by PAULA NELSON, DONALD O. CLIFTON ISBN: 044050564X Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 09 December, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Animals Inc.: A Business Parable for the 21st Century by Kenneth A. Tucker, Vandana Allman ISBN: 0446530492 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: February, 2004 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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