Contagious Success: Spreading High Performance Throughout Your Organization [Hardcover]

Susan Lucia Annunzio (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2004

The Hudson Highland Center for High Performance recently completed the largest and most in-depth global study ever done of the factors that accelerate or stifle high performance. The alarming conclusion: only 10 percent of knowledge workers are part of a high-performing workgroup, one that makes money for the company and is creating a new product or service.

Contagious Success reveals Susan Lucia Annunzio’s proven strategies for identifying, nurturing, and replicating business units that are already high performing. These workgroups tend to be ignored while senior management focuses on fixing its lowest performing units. But Annunzio argues for the opposite strategy: Focus on the groups that are doing the best work in the organization, learn their secrets, and help spread their expertise to the average groups.

Annunzio focuses on groups, not individuals, because even a great individual can’t succeed in a weak environment. By using the high-performing groups to improve just the top 20 percent of the average performers—what Annunzio calls “moving the middle”—a company can achieve dramatic, sustainable growth in revenue and profits.

This is a book for leaders who want to unleash the hidden potential in their organizations.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Annunzio is chair and CEO of the Hudson Highland Center for High Performance, and the extensive, worldwide research she and her group completed, into how to define and secure "high performance environments that deliver exceptional results," stands behind this energizing guide to sustaining and duplicating such environments. "Success is contagious" is the stated premise of the book; upon concluding, from the research, that only a small percentage of workers are high performers, Annunzio not only explains the traits of a high performer but also recommends that managers "spread the secrets" of these workers so "you can improve the overall performance of your company." The secrets center on high performers' particular styles, techniques, and energy and how they can easily be adapted for lower-performing workers. Managers are the target audience of this book, but the information gathered and the concepts promoted here will have relevance and interest for anyone who finds business philosophy engaging. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Susan Lucia Annunzio is chairman and CEO of the Hudson Highland Center for High Performance, a subsidiary of Hudson Highland Group, Inc. The author of Evolutionary Leadership and coauthor of Communicoding, she advises senior executives around the world and is an adjunct professor of management at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover; First Edition edition (November 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591840600
• ISBN-13: 978-1591840602
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,199,892 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Substantive and executable, November 13, 2004

By 

Michael Tymkiw, President of Medline Industri... (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Contagious Success: Spreading High Performance Throughout Your Organization (Hardcover)

Contagious Success is eye-opening, meaty, and filled with advice that can be readily applied to the real business world. Annunzio identifies the factors that distinguish high-performance workgroups, with findings drawn from her team's comprehensive, worldwide study of 3,104 knowledge workers in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia. (A knowledge worker is defined as a full-time manager, professional, or technical expert who holds at least a bachelor's degree and whose earnings are within the top 10% of his or her country.) Annunzio suggests that three main factors distinguish high-performance groups: valuing people, optimizing critical thinking, and seizing opportunities. While these factors are hardly surprising, what is remarkable is the mountain of conventional wisdom that Annunzio challenges. For example, Annunzio found that pay ranked fifth in terms of what makes high-performance groups effective - behind values, teamwork, people, and planning. Another insight is that 40% of respondents could show no evidence at all that their workgroups are doing something tangible. (Remember: these are college-educated professionals in the top 10% income bracket - folks who are at least theoretically rewarded for high performance.) A third revelation is that a mere 10% of workgroups qualify as high performing (high performance is defined by demonstrable revenue/profit improvement as well as product or service innovations). A final key revelation is that most knowledge workers confuse performance with productivity -- a vestige perhaps of the industrial revolution, yet a nugget of wisdom worth remembering in this day of Blackberries, cell phones, and the other accoutrements that offer up a false sense of success simply by making us feel busy. Annunzio also suggests how to apply these insights to the real business world in order to improve profits. Here is a sampling of what one might describe as her "Roadmap for Profits"... Rule #1: The best way to achieve performance growth is to increase the performance of your best workgroups. (Most companies focus on hacking off the bottom tier.) Rule #2: Respectfully communicate (always assume good intent, try to understand a person's logic), since a failure to do so makes us run the risk of missing out on brilliant ideas. Rule #3, 4, and 5: Encourage risk-taking, create an environment in which people see mistakes as opportunities for learning, and give employees "amnesty" to speak openly about unspeakable subjects. Only through such open-mindedness do knowledge workers have a fighting chance of pushing their businesses to the next frontier. Annunzio provides many other executable ideas, and her numerous examples and citations help offer a much richer, nuanced understanding than I could ever provide in a brief review. One of the more interesting business books to come along in a long time.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR HI-PERFORMING KNOWLEDGE-WORKER GROUPS?, February 25, 2005

By 

Gerry Stern "Stern's Management Review Online" (Culver City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Contagious Success: Spreading High Performance Throughout Your Organization (Hardcover)

Based on a study of 3,104 knowledge workers in the U.S. and 9 other countries, the author has identified the qualities of high-performing groups, i. e., those that get financial results, through being the best in developing and introducing new products, services and markets. The overall conclusion is that knowledge workers who work in environments in which 1) they are valued, 2) can do their best thinking, and 3) have the freedom to seize opportunities, constitute high-performing work groups. Such groups are adaptable, knowledgeable, and resourceful. The book goes into many factors that explain the success of these groups, offering many case examples drawn from the extensive research. The insights of this book are readily accessible. The book is written in a to-the-point, very readable style. But most importantly, it offers some mind-broadening findings that, for some, may appear to be a challenge to conventional thinking. Speaking as an organization consultant (www.FutureOrganization.com), as well as a reviewer, this book shines forth as offering some solid, although not altogether surprising, conclusions. Bottom line: highly recommended-well worth the reading.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to manage obsession with quarterly earnings, December 8, 2004

By 

Patrick Morris "Patrick Morris" (Chicago, Il.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Contagious Success: Spreading High Performance Throughout Your Organization (Hardcover)

I thought that this book offers common-sense approach to business leaders striving to attain profitable growth in an age of cost-cutting. The author's thought-provoking commentary on the global state of underperformance is a wake up call for management and employees alike. Lessons about creating an environment that inspires employees to high performance are accessible, attainable and well documented with interesting case histories about companies who are doing it right. It is an enjoyable read with solid lessons for rethinking the current business mentality obsessed with quarterly earnings.