Wisdom, Inc. : 26 Business Virtues That Turn Ordinary People into Extraordinary Leaders

Rating:
Summary: How to Win the Respect and Esteem of Bosses and Colleagues
Review: There are several things I couldn't figure out about this book. Perhaps you can.

First, the subtitle didn't seem to have anything to do with the research done to prepare for the book or with the book's contents. To explain, the author did a survey (7000 direct mail pieces to middle and top executives and a one-page ad in Strategy and Leadership magazine which has a readership of 15,000) to which 700 mostly top management people responded. They were asked to select from among 53 qualities the ones that are "most important to you in employees and co-workers." I don't see what that has to do with being a leader. I rated the book down one star for this misleading use of a subtitle. The only guess I can make is that the author thought that anyone who is a co-worker of a middle or top management person is a leader. Clear or unclear to you?

Second, if the authors really wanted to know which ones were most important to leadership, shouldn't they have asked those who are being led? Wrong survey group. I knocked the book down one more star for this.

From these two points, you can probably understand why I chose the title I did for this review, for that is what the research has produced. In that genre, I have to compare this book to How to Be a Star at Work, and I have to say that this book is not even close to being in the same league. Buy that book instead.

Now, for the book itself, how much can you tell someone about 23 personal qualities in 160 pages? As you can see, that is 4 or 5 small pages for each one. And the author includes quotes, anecdotes, examples, statistics, and survey findings, as well as instructions for using the virtue. I felt like I was on one of those 23 cities in 17 days trips to Europe.

Now, the material is good. It will come as no surprise to people who know about history and business. So I have to assume that this might be intended as something to give to young or inexperienced people. That might be all right if you want them to grasp hard for security (being well-liked by the boss is good for that), but that seems like a bad idea in the day of the entrepreneur in the New Economy. I suggest you give them Nuts! (about Herb Kelleher and Southwest Airlines) instead.

The final thing that puzzled me was why creativity rated so low in the survey (only 16 percent favored that as a quality in employees and co-workers). Hmmmm!

Something may be puzzling you. Why didn't I rate the book down more? The reason is that I liked many of the exercises, plus the challenge that Mr. Godin provided to the reader to follow these virtues and attitudes for 30 days to see what happens. I suspect that you'd benefit if you did, so I gave the book 3 stars for the exercises and the challenge. You can draw your own conclusions from there as to how many stars you would select.

If you are interested in a leadership book, you might start with Leading Change by John Kotter.

Use this review to help you test to see if you have the misconception stall that authors always deliver on what their titles and subtitles suggest.

Rating:
Summary: How to Win the Respect and Esteem of Bosses and Colleagues
Review: There are several things I couldn't figure out about this book. Perhaps you can.

First, the subtitle didn't seem to have anything to do with the research done to prepare for the book or with the book's contents. To explain, the author did a survey (7000 direct mail pieces to middle and top executives and a one-page ad in Strategy and Leadership magazine which has a readership of 15,000) to which 700 mostly top management people responded. They were asked to select from among 53 qualities the ones that are "most important to you in employees and co-workers." I don't see what that has to do with being a leader. I rated the book down one star for this misleading use of a subtitle. The only guess I can make is that the author thought that anyone who is a co-worker of a middle or top management person is a leader. Clear or unclear to you?

Second, if the authors really wanted to know which ones were most important to leadership, shouldn't they have asked those who are being led? Wrong survey group. I knocked the book down one more star for this.

From these two points, you can probably understand why I chose the title I did for this review, for that is what the research has produced. In that genre, I have to compare this book to How to Be a Star at Work, and I have to say that this book is not even close to being in the same league. Buy that book instead.

Now, for the book itself, how much can you tell someone about 23 personal qualities in 160 pages? As you can see, that is 4 or 5 small pages for each one. And the author includes quotes, anecdotes, examples, statistics, and survey findings, as well as instructions for using the virtue. I felt like I was on one of those 23 cities in 17 days trips to Europe.

Now, the material is good. It will come as no surprise to people who know about history and business. So I have to assume that this might be intended as something to give to young or inexperienced people. That might be all right if you want them to grasp hard for security (being well-liked by the boss is good for that), but that seems like a bad idea in the day of the entrepreneur in the New Economy. I suggest you give them Nuts! (about Herb Kelleher and Southwest Airlines) instead.

The final thing that puzzled me was why creativity rated so low in the survey (only 16 percent favored that as a quality in employees and co-workers). Hmmmm!

Something may be puzzling you. Why didn't I rate the book down more? The reason is that I liked many of the exercises, plus the challenge that Mr. Godin provided to the reader to follow these virtues and attitudes for 30 days to see what happens. I suspect that you'd benefit if you did, so I gave the book 3 stars for the exercises and the challenge. You can draw your own conclusions from there as to how many stars you would select.

If you are interested in a leadership book, you might start with Leading Change by John Kotter.

Use this review to help you test to see if you have the misconception stall that authors always deliver on what their titles and subtitles suggest.