Customer Reviews

The Churchill Factors: Creating Your Finest Hour

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a great admirer of Winston Churchill. This book is not another biography. Rather, I found a clear, understandable explanation of Churchill's leadership formula. This book showed me how to use the Churchill Factors in my life. The goal setting chapters were the best I have found on the subject. I also liked the author's encouragement concerning taking risks and overcoming obstacles.

I am a high school senior who had to write a report on a famous leader. I selected Winston Churchill. I didn't really know much about him but found exactly what I needed in this book. I ordered it online and it arrived three days later! The book told me how I can become a leader. I could identify with some of the problems Churchill had during his life. His life was full of problems but he was still able to be successful. I think this book will help me when I go on to college next year. I already have some new ideas I want to try out at work. I would really recommend this book to others.

The Churchill Factors: Creating Your Finest Hour was very easy to understand. The message was simple, clear, and practical. Too many self-help books are mumbo-jumbo consultant hype about approaches that never really work. I found this book was honest and extremely usable. Everyone will be able to identify with at least one of the styles in the book. There are several chapters for each one. By applying the Action This Day questions at the end of the chapters helped me to overcome some of the obstacles I deal with at work and at home. I definitely was surprised that this was more than the usual leadership book about a famous person. The Churchill Factors made it easy for me to see why Winston Churchill was such a multi-faceted personality. Everyone would benefit from using his methodology. It's worked for me!

I have followed Larry Kryske's career for many years. As a motivational speaker he has reached thousands with the leadership principles of Sir Winston S. Churchill in a lively and practical way. In one conference that I attended some years ago, Mr. Kryske shared the same platform with a world-renowned historian on the life of Churchill. The "renowned historian" gave a written, and read, presentation on some aspect of Churchill, which droned on for over an hour. The audience was visibly bored and fidgity. Then afterwards, Larry got up and gave a 45-minute presentation on the "Churchill Factors" employing humor while at the same time, fleshing out his presentation with an oil painting demonstration! To say the least, the audience was mesmerized and completely engaged with his presentation. Larry is also a talented artist!

"The Churchill Factors" is an anthology of a lifetime of personal study and public presentations at conferences and other venues. Mr. Kryske is a recognized leading authority on the life of Churchill, but far beyond that, Larry has a rare gift of sifting through massive material in order to provide the listener -- here the reader -- with a life-changing study of practical wisdom. I keep a copy of his book handy both at work, and at home at the kitchen table, and make time to read a page here, and a page there, then contemplate the basic message to apply to my life.

"The Churchill Factors" has practical information for everyone, young and old, no matter what job you do in life, no matter what position you hold. The message is clear: you are on this planet for a purpose, and your finest hour is yet to come!

Churchill was, without question, a fine man and example for us to follow. Learning more about Churchill, what made him great, and how he influenced history is a worthy endeavor.

Being motivated and inspired to pursue higher objectives in life, to really make a difference in the world is also a worthy endeavor. Emulating features of Churchill's life to craft your own success is also worthwhile.

As I began this book, I found myself reading sections to my wife. Good stuff here! The author's own words as well as the quotes from Churchill and other luminaries were getting my attention. I began to understand why several of my friends are such devoted students of Churchill and his influence. The first 37 pages were great.

Then Chapter 5 hit me like a bucket of ice water. I discovered to my astonishment that the author is also a distributor of behavioral style learning materials produced by Inscape Publishing. Most of the balance of the book is a description of the four principal behavioral styles and how various aspects of Churchill's attributes relate to the styles. I was tempted to toss the book away as a blatant commercial for Inscape products. There was nothing on the cover of the book, in the introduction, or in the title that suggested that this was the kind of book I discovered . . . unless you look closely at the category on the back cover and note that the words "SELF HELP" follow "BUSINESS."

The four behavioral styles of drivers, influencers, supporters, and conceptualizers were each presented with some explanation. Churchill's traits were related to each, apparently to validate for persons with each style that they, too, can be like Churchill. I felt some were rather force-fit. As a disclosure, I have used Inscape instruments and behavioral style knowledge for two decades and am a former national contract trainer for the company; I am quite familiar with the products and their philosophies.

At the end of the book is a blatant promotion for a wide range of Inscape products. For those readers who are interested in learning more about behavioral styles, it's helpful to have this catalog available. For those who were really interested in what made Churchill great-from an author touted as a Churchill expert, it's offensive.

I almost rated this book with three stars instead of four (out of five), but there is some good content. Kryske does relate some strong material, particularly in the forepart of the book before he got into the behavioral styles. The book is heavily seasoned with quotes (as call-outs); there's a quote from someone on almost every page. Many of the quotes are from Churchill, but also cited are other historical figures and present-day motivational speakers.

This is an extremely well done book. It is packed with practical ideas for building a better professional and personal life. Churchill is the perfect role mode for anyone wanting to be a leader or motivator of people. The book translated Churchill's method that brought him countless successes in his life to gems that anyone would find easy to apply. The book was tailored to a person's unique personality based on four well defined styles. Churchill's method was looked at from each of these different styles. This was especially valuable and thought provoking. This book is a keeper that I'll refer to again and again!