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Join us and set up your own Blog! How cool! | Stomp the Elephant in the Office: A Leadership Guide for Leaders |
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Review By Stuart Nachbar There are many business and motivational books on leadership. They all give pretty much the same advice and rely on catch phrases (for instance: The One Minute Manager) or numbered attributes (for instance: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) to help the reader. What makes these books different is the writing; the authors are trying to reach different audiences.  Stomp the Elephant The first is the senior executive who is already the titular leader of an organization, through ownership or professional accomplishment. He sees opportunities or problems but does not have the time, or skill, to work down through several layers of management. But he might want to engage a consultant, or work with his most direct reports to manage change. The second market is the first-time manager who has been given significant responsibilities and wants to develop his own leadership style. If he is a thoughtful manager, he wants his employees to respect him, but not necessarily fear or hate him. The third market is the employee who needs to understand how corporate culture works and find the organization that is the best fit to his personal qualities. Each of us thrives in some workplaces and fails in others; a leadership book is, among other things, a useful guide to find the best fit. Stomp the Elephant in the Office by Steven Vannoy and Craig Ross is meant for the first market; at 324 pages it is much too long to be a quick primer on leadership for a lower level manager. It has good memorable catch phrases: Elephant-Free Workplace, Leadership Lock, Wellness Culture, Energy Map being examples, as well as numbered attributes: Culture Pillars, Change Conditions, Mind Factors, among others, but some could have been books unto themselves if they were targeted at non-senior managers and professionals. As a comparison, I researched the One Minute Manager titles on Amazon and learned that each runs approximately 112 pages. Some of the content in Stomp the Elephant, especially Energy Map exercises, appears well suited for books or training guides of similar length or shorter. There was one annoying nit with this book: the authors have a picture of an elephant sounding a battle cry, but the picture is a very faint light gray against the book’s bright red cover. This not only made the cover less eye-catching—and gave the book less shelf appeal—I also knew nothing about the elephant figure until I got to page 159. Then I was instructed not to look at the figure, but if I did, it was a demonstration of their Mind Factor #2. It was not a good idea to do this demonstration; it might come at the expense of sales. But Stomp the Elephant is a good guide to launch a corporate-wide organization communications effort, redesign a business function in disarray or if you are a brand new, but experienced senior manager who wants direction to get up to speed on the corporate culture and it’s fit with financial conditions and market realities. I have no doubt Stomp the Elephant will help place Vannoy and Ross on their short-list of consultants. Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com . |
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