 | Workarounds That Work : How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work |
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(31 customer reviews)
Product Description
Master the Art of the Workaround to Boost Your Productivity! "With the variety of challenges leaders face every day, Russell Bishop has hit on an amazingly simple and highly effective solution: the workaround.' This is a brilliant approach to facing day-to-day business challenges, and it works! Marshall Goldsmith, world-renowned executive coach and author of the New York Times bestsellers Mojo and What Got You Here Won't Get You There "If you want to succeed big, there is no substitute for sticking your neck out. Russell Bishop shows how to do it without getting your head chopped off. Workarounds That Work offers practical, down-to-earth advice on overcoming obstacles on the job & both big and small. It's a must-read for anyone trying to navigate the bumpy road of the modern workplace. Arianna Huffington, cofounder and editor-in-chief, the Huffington Post " Workarounds That Work tackles one problem area after another, busting myths and giving practical advice along the way.
Dave Logan, professor at the Marshall School of Business at USC and best selling co-author of Tribal Leadership " Workarounds That Work goes where none of the other productivity books go& into the messy,icky, hard-to-control stuff that we all face every single day. You'll finish this book with a fresh take on how to think about productivity and at least a half-dozen new ways to get things done. Les McKeown, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of Predictable Success "Today's relentless demands of work require a new model of how we get things done. Workarounds that Work envisions work as a continuous stream of free-flowing accomplishments instead of the headaches, inefficiencies, and stresses we associate with work today. You'll never experience red tape again. Tony Schwartz, CEO, The Energy Project, and bestselling author of The Way We're Working Isn't Working About the Book: You've experienced the frustration dozens of times: you need approval on a project,but a key sign-off person is out of town; a product is on a crash schedule, but you're missing an important detail; you need to move a head in a process, but company rules cause delays.What you need is a workaround. In Workarounds That Work, Russell Bishop& an expert in personal and organization transformation& teaches the art of the workaround:a method for accomplishing a task or goal when the normal process isn't producing the desired results. Workarounds help you breakthrough the tasks and systems that keep you from the important stuff. They even help you bring lasting change to your organization by doing away with frustrating institutional inefficiencies once and for all.
Workarounds aren't only about getting things done. They're about getting the right things done. To ratchet up productivity, your organization needs someone who will ask the big questions, such as: How can our systems& from operational infrastructures to management processes& be more efficient and effective? Do we make the most of our talent? Do our teams work in isolation when collaboration would be more useful? Are we wasting time, placing blame, and fighting fires when we could instead be fixing problems? Is our direction clear, aligned,and focused? Are you ready to be that person& the one who gets things done, no matter what? Workarounds That Work explains how to identify problems that make work around necessary and then create the best solution available& without sacrificing quality or doing a less-than-stellar job. With Bishop's strategies at your disposal, you can conquer anything that stands in your way at work& even when it seems like your organization's culture is pitted against what you know is best for it.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #44499 in eBooks
- Published on: 2010-12-18
- Released on: 2010-12-18
- Format: Kindle eBook
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
About the Author
Russell Bishop is an internationally regarded speaker, educator, coach and consultant. His corporate clients include Fortune 500 executives in aerospace, healthcare, information technology, and telecommunications. He is also an editor and frequent columnist for the Living section of The Huffington Post. A recognized expert in personal and organization transformation, Russell has coached thousands of individuals around the world, helping them to create balance and success in their personal and professional lives. Today, Russell is the founder and President of Bishop & Bishop, a consulting and coaching company whose seminars, coaching, and consulting offer individuals and organizations a new approach to integrating values into their personal and professional lives. He has lectured on productivity for the executive MBA programs at UCLA, University of Texas and Washington University in St. Louis.
Most helpful customer reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
By Mike Michalowicz
This book should be called a field guide, more than a book. I have had multiple times that my project involved groups. 4 or 5 people responsible for working together to get something done, and sure enough one person is late (and often finger points). One person late, makes everyone late.
Mr. Bishop's book gives excellent guidance. And for me it all started on page 17... we can't control others, but we can control how we respond and influence others. Lesson 1 - it's you who needs to change (not in a negative way - but in the way you behave) to make the work around.
Chapter 4 gives a strong overview of "framing" - the problem is often how the problem is framed. I found a few new techniques here for framing strategies. This is a pretty impressive section of the book.
All sections (page 167 is a perfect examples) have a "checklist" of questions to use in different workaround strategies.
Email etiquette was really a good read too. I think it is my natural tendency to think of workarounds as a face to face communication, the email section keeps the balance of all communication that is necessary.
While a few parts of the book were not new to me (but a good refresher), I discovered some new stuff. And the overall format was a helpful guide. I plan to use as a reference tool (hence I call it a field guide) going forward.
I recommend the book!
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
By Chauncey Bell
In Workarounds that Work, Russell Bishop models - in his way of speaking, in the way he reveals himself, in the examples he brings, and in his recommendations - a way of being that revels in the challenge and joy of work, and does not flinch nor whine about the myriad roadblocks that inevitably confront anyone trying to do anything serious in life. He is a joyful warrior in the middle of the mess of modern working life. Russell shows clearly the power of humility, gratitude, an indomitable spirit, a commitment to find alternatives and not remain stuck in ruts, and the soft underbellies of the enemies we face in everyday working life.
I often say that the last of the five greatest generators of waste in our modern working world - the interpretation that we are doomed to a kind of indentured servitude called `work' - is the nastiest and most destructive of the sources of waste in our working lives. `Thank God it's Friday' - the announcement that we toil away five days of every week just waiting for a brief respite of freedom and meaning each weekend - is our declaration that we consider 5/7ths of our lives wasted. A tragedy.
Russell's book is an antidote to work as toil, and full of good things.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
By Arthur Rosenfeld
Many books in this category work their magic from the outside in. That is to say they examine the circumstances, obstacles and issues and propose external solutions. Other books in the genre turn this around and go from the inside out, looking at the prejudices, presuppositions, habits and addictions we harbor on the inside, and how they manifest in our external life. "Workarounds That Work" is a rare find in that it examines its topic from both directions. Thus, in addition to advice on how to organize your in boxes, we see lines like "What could you do that would make a difference in your job that requires no one's approval, cooperation, support, or agreement other than your own?", concepts like "time management problems are really self management problems", and chapter heads like "Multitasking Our Way to Oblivion", wherein Bishop proposes substituting the setting of multiple goals to the juggling of multiple tasks.
There are many practical gems for business people here, but more you read, the more you realize that "Workarounds That Work" is a personal development guide hidden as a business handbook. Spirituality circulates through the book's business meat and management gristle like blood through bone. It's a treat of a read for a much wider swath of readers than its category feel would suggest. Here's hoping that in his next book, this practical sage will be brave enough to cross the line he only touches with his toe in this one and give us his thoughts on the repurposing of business so that profits are not the Holy Grail, but rather merely a tool for the development of employees and community.
http://astore.amazon.com/amazon-book-books-20/detail/B004GNFPDY
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