Rating: 
Summary: You won't go wrong with this book
Review: For me, the most important part of Whale Done is that it reinforces and goes way beyond one of the principles in The One Minute Manager. "Catch them doing something right!" certainly reinforces positive behavior. Redirecting negative behavior is another issue that is handled extremely well in this delightful book. I loved this story, and the principles taught are memorable. Whale Done! deserves 5 stars. If you want to motivate people to do their best, I would also suggest you read Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self.
Rating:
Summary: You too can build power and positive relationships.
Review: Give yourself...or better yet your co-workers, family and friends a Whale Done.Who would have thought that you could use whales as an example of how to make positive relationships, but leave it to Ken Blanchard, the master of the story to do it. Whale Done is a great story with insightful application. It follows those concepts that they use at Sea World to train the Killer whales. The books uses an effective illustration of this training to teach you how to improve all your relationships that you have and to become more productive while your at it. The Whale Done Approach is rather simple, but powerful. Build trust, accentuate the positive, and when mistakes occur, redirect the energy. So how do you do this? Ken points out that you build trust by being sincere and honest. This is important because people know when you are not. You have to show people also that you mean no harm and you have to realize that building trust takes time. This is similar to the Emotional Bank account that Stephen Covey talks about in the 7 Habits. When you value the relationship by building trust you make deposits, but when you make a mistake or blunder you make a BIG withdrawal. Accentuating the positive is done for a rather intriguing reason, as Ken points out, the more attention you pay to what someone is doing, whether it is right or wrong, the more that behavior will get repeated. So it is important to accentuate the positive to reinforce the positive behavior in others. Redirecting energy requires several different parts. First and foremost, Ken indicates that you have to catch people doing things right rather than always finding what they are doing wrong. This way you encourage people to continue to do right things and help with the first part, building trust. Next when you are redirecting you have to remember to focus on the right behavior and not that the person is bad or unacceptable. If you want to redirect correctly, Ken sets out the steps that you need to take. First, describe the problem clearly and without blame. Next, show the negative impact that what they are doing will have. If, it is appropriate, take blame yourself. Next, make sure that the person knows what the correct task is and that they understand it. And finally, express your trust and confidence in them. Ken does a masterful job of taking a power life changing concept and bringing it down to the easy to read level of child's story. It is a quite but powerful read. I highly recommend that you read about the whale and how they can help you change your life.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Great inspiration! I couldn't put it down, the perfect book to give to anyone! Everyone on my shopping list is getting one! Whale Done!
Rating:
Summary: Great Timeless Topic
Review: Great story! I've loved the Shamu show since seeing it in the 70's. Dr. Blanchard has hit a homerun again. His books are always powerful and remind us what we should be doing when working with our staff or family. I've read all of his books and can hardly wait to see what he'll write about next. Great job, keep accentuating the positive!
Rating: 
Summary: Like Rusty Screws to the Eyes
Review: Here we go again; more canned material from Ken Blanchard that involves characters who are stale and annoying, advice that is common sense and recycled, and a catch phrase that would get anyone laughed out of their office. Whale Done! is a waste of time. Here is my advice pertaining to Ken Blanchard books: Read The One Minute Manager if you feel insatiably curious about how a guy can write some 30 books with cheesy titles and make people think he's a leadership genius. Then, assume you've read all 29 other books. Because they're practially clones of each other. I should get more specific; I'm sounding more mean-spirited than critical. For one thing, Blanchard's books average a retail price of $20. Now I know that nowadays you should never actually pay retail, but they're still expensive without merit. For another, with a size 20 font size, it takes more time for me to read "Elmo Bakes a Cake" to my seven month old son than it does to whisk through an entire Blanchard book while I'm on my coffee break. The scant material, supplemented by its triviality, comes nowhere close to justifying the cost. And by the way, if you're so relationally inept that you think reading a Blanchard book on relationships is going to turn you into Mr. Congeniality, spend your money elsewhere. If, by the end of the book, you think people are going to champion your leadership because you say to them, "WHALE DONE!" you obviously assassinated the former executive to get where you are. Finally, Blanchard's characters exist nowhere within the known world we call earth. The way his characters talk with each other is as unrealistic and shallow as a third-grade reader. Just reading the conclusion of the speech Wes' mentor gives in Whale Done made me long for something more intellectually stimulating...like Madamoiselle for Teens or Cadavers Today. You could trip over a newspaper and get a better idea of reality than by reading Whale Done. Don't waste your time with this book. If you're going to read in hopes of improving your relationships with subordinates, actually read. Read something that requires a bit of heavy lifting like Kouzes and Posner's The Leadership Challenge. The only extra expense will involve your time. But if it came down to reading Whale Done and watching two hours of televangelism through static...
Rating:
Summary: A Rather Silly Idea
Review: Here we have a book about an old idea: positive reinforcement. In other words, reward people when they do good as the whale trainer does when he gives the whale a fish for jumping through a hoop. I wish life was this simple and managing people this easy, but dealing with complex relationships is far harder than giving simple rewards. The basic premise of this book is that people are like whales.To assert that managers can command people to do what they want by simple rewards is silly, naive and just downright dumb! No company that I know works this way. There is office politics to consider, personalities to contemplete and power players to acknowledge. This is what it is like to work in an office, which is much more complex than the simple reward system that Blanchard advocates. People are more complex than whales and while this book may be a whale of an idea it is not a book that carries much weight.
Rating: 
Summary: A Little Over the Top, but A Positive Read
Review: Hokey to an extreme, if you take this for what it is--a fable with a message--there are some pertinent gems to extract. Good premises, but wrapped in almost inane language at times. Try to muddle through the story and live by the lesson.
Rating:
Summary: whale done
Review: I absolutely loved this book!! The message of "Catching people doing things right" makes so much common sense. People in general have a habit of paying attention to poor or wrong behavior when it makes so much sense to do the opposite and ignore it and pay more attention to the good.
Rating:
Summary: Good Read
Review: I am always on the lookout for new tools to use not only in my family life, but in the business world as well. "Whale Done!" meets both of those requirements and was a good read for me.
It is fascinating to think that the same methodology used in the training of whales is so directly applicable to managing people in our business world. I have only had this book for three days and have already begun to apply the principles that are the foundation for bringing positive behavior out of Shamu! I am purchasing a copy of this book for each of my direct reports in the business where I am a Vice President. I have also contacted the CEO of our company in a neighboring state to recommend the book to the corporate staff. Our morale and business climate is good, however, there are some gems in "Whale Done!" that are worth building a program on for our future.
Many managers are into "positive re-enforcement" as a teaching tool, but this book goes way beyond that in the methods that it explores. Imagine if you could have as much success with your staff as the trainers have with Shamu!!!
Rating:
Summary: Very Relevant for Teachers and Everyone else
Review: I feel extremely grateful to the authors of this book for writing this gem.
I am an Elementary School Teacher, and I was handed a very difficult class to manage. The children in this class came from homes with poor parental support, and they had poor social skills causing them to constantly pick fights with each other.
I tried using the disciplinarian manner of dealing with them. It just didn't work. They were already so jaded and used to being punished that to them it didn't matter one bit at all. In fact, it only served to make them even more defiant.
Then, I happened to chance upon this book. When I read this book, I could instantly link the ideas of positive relationship to William Glasser's Choice Theory - where positive discipline is emphasised. They are really very complementary.
When I tried using just Choice Theory alone, it didn't quite work. But when I used Whale Done together with Choice Theory, it took me just two days and the class became much more well behaved and cooperative. It was too amazing for me to believe that it was happening! But really, seeing is believing...
I think for people who have given poor ratings to this book, it's probably because the book hasn't given very clear instructions with regards to how to redirect the undesirable behaviour appropriately. If you can't figure out how to redirect, it is a sure thing that the Whale Done method will fail hopelessly.
If you really wish to give positive relationships a shot, try this:
Read William Glasser's Choice Theory first.
Then, read Whale Done.
Finally, use the Whale Done method, coupled with using Choice Theory as the basis for all redirections.
And very importantly...never give up! It is sincerely a very trying process in the beginning especially when you do not witness immediate changes. But be patient and push through with both the Whale Done method and Choice Theory, and you'll be able to enjoy better positive relationships around you.
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