Author: David Cottrell

Publisher: Cornerstone Leadership Institute

Pub. in: November, 2002

ISBN: 0971942439

Pages: 112

Measurements: 0.5 x 6.2 x 9 inches

Origin of product: USA

Order code: BA00262

Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0971942431

A sweeping 5-star book and a very popular management guide in the corporate world.

This extraordinary little book is a bona fide sleeper. A slightly hokey set of staged mentoring sessions allows David Cottrell to speak pithy and deeply practical counsel into the life and work of the harried executive who feels more victim than master of the tasks and crises that bombard him.

The preface clarifies that the guru-mentor figure "Tony," to which Main Learner Guy "Jeff" goes for help is not interested in helping Jeff solve his problems, but rather in coaching the hapless and failing executive to become a better person and leader. This approach distinguishes the book from a thousand managerial how-to tracts that do not confront the inestimable role of character in successful leadership.

On eight Monday morning visits to Tony, Jeff absorbs and hands on to his real-world reader the kind of hard exhortation to change that characterizes soft-spoken but knowing leadership mentors the world over. Tony's ground rules are simple: "Start and finish on time," "Tell the truth," and "Try something different." On Monday One, Jeff learns that becoming a leader is inevitably a community-shaping event. That is, you can't hang with the crowd, say whatever comes to mind, and think at a level below the organization's well-being if you're going to step in to leadership shoes. It's a brutal chunk of truth for people who want to be liked, but essential to hear at an early stage of the leadership experience. At the risk of triteness, this ain't a popularity contest. One often realizes late that the comedians and the models got off at the last stop.

Monday Two informs Jeff that he's a fireman rather than a leader. He needs to figure out the main thing and then get his team to absorb it and work it. Just it, nothing else. He also takes on the hard truth that `people quit people before they quit companies'. He needs to figure out why two people just quite. Unsurprisingly, it's all about him.

By the third Monday, Jeff has sought out his recent departures and asked them why they'd left. He learned he was demoralizing his people by not rewarding the superstars and by not dealing with the underperformers. He learns to distinguish his superstars from his middle stars, and these from his falling stars. This conceptual stuff is sprinkled with shiny little nugget that this reviewer finds himself marking into his own calendar for execution.

And on the fourth Monday, Tony said... fire the dude! Well, it isn't exactly that harsh. But a superstar has a drinking-on-the-job problem and Jeff's company has a reasonable and well-documented policy that requires the separation of any employee who does this. When Jeff takes Tony's advice to `do the right thing', he's surprised by the reaction of other employees who are glad to be rid of the unpleasant task of covering for the guy's boozing at work.

Monday Five changed the way we do things at the organization I direct in the ten minutes it took to read the chapter, entitled `Hire Tough'. We had already been raising the bar in a non-profit organization poised for growth. But we put steel in our hiring processes based on this chapter alone, and committed to getting the HR training or service we need in our next calendar year.

"Got time?"Course not. There's never enough. But Tony reminds us that we all have the same amount and there's a whole lot of little things-very few big ones-that you can do to use it more effectively. This chapter is golden for those who want to claw back your working hours in bite-sized chomps. The good news? You don't have to do it at the expense of human beings and personal interaction. This, at least, has been my experience. People understand, play along, respect you for it, and give you their best time as a result.

On weeks Seven and Eight, Jeff learns how to take care of his people and keep growing himself.

The power of this little book is its size. It's a quick read, yet clearly major experience and analysis have been distilled into it, perhaps as a taster for some of the hardcover - and presumably higher earning-books that David Cottrell has authored. I highly recommend it.

(From quoting David Baer, USA)

Target readers: Executives, managers, entrepreneurs, government leaders, professionals, MBAs, and anyone else with leadership roles or drive.

Better with The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels :

			2 Buy with : ¥ 406.00
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