Yesterday, I completed reading Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. If I were to rank it, it may be a 3 or 4 out of 10. It’s a quick read and the message behind it is both timely and incredibly important. In all honesty, though, it could have been published as a white paper and had the same impact. That’s no offense to the authors… it’s just that the book is one of discovery and affirmation. It’s not a book of action.
Bob Prosen’s book, Kiss Theory Good Bye is quite the opposite. As soon as I picked this book up, I felt as though I stepped off an escalator and onto a rocket ship. I’m only through the introduction and there’s already valuable information. Here’s a teaser – the five crippling habits that get companies and organizations nowhere fast:
- Absense of clear directions
- Lack of accountability
- Rationalizing inferior performance
- Planning in lieu of action
- Aversion to risk and change
Ummm… ouch! Bob just summed up my growing frustration with my job. I work for a fantastic, successful employer that is growing like crazy. The more employees and promotions, the slower we seem to get, though. Bob doesn’t know a thing about our company but he absolutely nailed it! These are precisely the things that are slowing us down that we must change immediately.
I passed on a couple copies of this book to some folks in the organization. I hope they have made it through the introduction as well! I can’t wait to dig into the rest of this book. The book doesn’t focus on these crippling habits, it focuses on what’s needed to change the organization and get it moving in the right direction!
I’m sure I’ll be sharing much more from this book with you in the next few weeks. Pick up a copy of Kiss Theory Good Bye by Bob Prosen so that we can discuss it together.
Wow, Sounds like the company I work for at the moment. It seems as a company starts to grown from a innovative small to mid-sized company to more of a Corporate environment, Those 5 habits become all to common.
dang. my local library doesn’t have it.
I’m 100% with you on that top 5. I’m going through a “let’s ignore our last post mortem and repeat the same problems” at my startup right now. ugh.
Interesting, engtech. We’re so afraid of our last mistakes that we’re paralyzed in planning mode. Weeks from release and we’re still arguing features and functionality. It’s not healthy at all. At one company, one of the best bosses I ever had called it “Analysis Paralysis”.
Sometimes you just have to move forward. To your point, though, you can’t simply move without adjusting!
I wish I liked to read (other than blog articles) I can’t pick up and finish a book to save my life.
~BittBox
Books are my creative outlet and they really tap into my imagination. I’ve always been an avid reader – mostly because I’ve always been able to apply what I’ve learned to what I do.
Of course, creativity is probably not a primary requirement for the jobs that I do (even though it is core to it). You, of course, have been both educated and have trained yourself in creativity – so I guess opening a book may not be the best resource for you. That’s really an interesting perspective, Bitt! Do you have other creative outlets?
I do try to make 1 of 5 books to be fictional so that I’m not buried in leadership, technical, and marketing material. I’m overdue on that right now!
Perhaps you need to cut off the head and see if it dies?? Just kidding.
Nice! A little Starfish humor! I’m afraid that cutting off the head would kill us for sure. Ironically, though we have these 5 issues to take care of, the head is who I have the most faith in to make the necessary changes.
Unfortunately, I’m not in a position of authority to actually make the change so it’s more difficult for me to. I am trying to make a difference, though!