Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters. [Paperback]

Michael Bungay Stanier (Author), Seth Godin (Contributor), Michael Port (Contributor), Dave Ulrich (Contributor), Chris Guillebeau (Contributor), Leo Babauta (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 22, 2010

You work hard. You put in the hours. Yet you feel like you are constantly treading water with "Good Work" that keeps you going but never quite moves you ahead. Or worse, you are mired in "Bad Work"—endless meetings and energy-draining bureaucratic traps.

Do More Great Work gets to the heart of the problem: Even the best performers are spending less than a fraction of their time doing "Great Work"—the kind of innovative work that pushes us forward, stretches our creativity, and truly satisfies us. Michael Bungay Stanier, Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006, is a business consultant who’s found a way to move us away from bad work (and even good work), and toward more time spent doing great work.

When you’re up to your eyeballs answering e-mail, returning phone calls, attending meetings and scrambling to get that project done, you can turn to this inspirational, motivating, and at times playful book for invaluable guidance. In fifteen exercises, Do More Great Work shows how you can finally do more of the work that engages and challenges you, that has a real impact, that plays to your strengths—and that matters.

The exercises are "maps"—brilliantly simple visual tools that help you find, start and sustain Great Work, revealing how to:

• Find clues to your own Great Work—they’re all around you
• Locate the sweet spot between what you want to do and what your organization wants you to do
• Generate new ideas and possibilities quickly
• Best manage your overwhelming workload
• Double the likelihood that you’ll do what you want to do
  

All it takes is ten minutes a day, a pencil and a willingness to change. Do More Great Work will not only help you identify what the Great Work of your life is, it will tell you how to do it.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If I had to pick a person to have dinner with, when I need to be prodded and challenged..., I'd pick Michael Bungay Stanier. He has an ability to shake our tree and make us more conscious and responsible. And the best part—he makes it easy and fun."

--David Allen, bestselling author of the Getting Things Done

About the Author

Michael Bungay Stanier is the founder and senior partner of Box of Crayons, a company that works with organizations, ranging from AstraZeneca to Xerox, to help them do more great work. A Rhodes scholar who earned both arts and law degrees with highest honors from Australian National University and an MPhil from Oxford, he is a popular speaker at business and coaching conferences, and was named Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006. He lives in Toronto.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company; Original edition (February 22, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761156445
• ISBN-13: 978-0761156444
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (112 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats." George Orwell

Michael was banned from his high school reunion for "the balloon incident", was sued by one of his Law School lecturers for defamation, gave himself a concussion digging a hole as a laborer, was fired on his first shift as a garage attendant and has held a number of jobs where he had little or no impact.

Luckily, there's also been some upside. He is the author of a number of successful books including the best sellers 'End Malaria' (which raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Malaria No More) and 'Do More Great Work: stop the busywork and start the work that matters'. He is also the founder and Senior Partner of Box of Crayons (BoxOfCrayons.biz), and was the first Canadian Coach of the Year and a Rhodes Scholar.

Before Box of Crayons, he was the first employee for what is now the world's largest independent innovation agency, and while most of what he invented never saw the light of day, he did have a hand in Pizza Hut's stuffed crust pizza. He has also spent time as a change management consultant where he batted about average for the industry for really successful change projects - 10% or so. His only lasting impact in this role was writing the global vision for GlaxoSmithKline, something that has lasted more than a decade even though it took almost no time at all to create.

Box of Crayons is a company that helps organizations around the world do less Good Work and more Great Work. They have particular expertise with organizations in the financial, professional service, pharmaceutical and consumer goods market sectors, and particular success with organizations with engaged but overwhelmed employees. Box of Crayons' premier product is the Coaching for Great Work program which gives time-stretched managers and leaders practical coaching skills that stick. It is delivered by a global cadre of program leaders.

Michael created The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun (EightPrinciples.com), a short internet movie seen by millions, and some other movies seen by a lot fewer people (The 5¾ Questions You've Been Avoiding, Great Work Alchemy and 11 Words for 2011).

Michael speaks regularly to audiences around the world. Highlights include speaking at Google, the HRPA and SHRM conferences, the Rural Women of Manitoba conference and anywhere that's vaguely warm during wintertime in Toronto, his home.

"If I had to pick a person to have dinner with, when I need to be prodded and challenged and inspired to think about the things I really am committed to think about for myself and what I'm doing, I'd pick Michael Bungay Stanier. He has an ability to shake our tree and make us more conscious and responsible about what we know but aren't willing to admit we know yet."
David Allen, author of Getting Things Done

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

112 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exercise workbook...Love the Maps, February 7, 2010

By 

D. Kanigan (CT, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters. (Paperback)

The author, Michael Bungay Stanier, was the Canadian executive coach of the year in 2006 and is a business consultant. Core message of the book is that many of us do far too much good work ("treading water") or bad work (energy draining activities) and not enough great work (offering true satisfaction). Stanier opens the book by defining Bad Work, Good Work and Great Work. And then rolls into the 15 short and snappy exercises supported by highly effective visual maps to help guide you through the process via brainstorming, reflection, analysis of actual observations.

1) Where are you now? (Map current mix of bad, good and great work. Assess)
2) What's Great? (Recall peak moments. Assess)
3) What are you like at your best? (Recall emotions at peak moments. Map "I am this...not that")
4) Who's great? (Think of role models that are inspiring and assess why. Choose characteristic. Emulate & Visualize)
5) What's Calling You? (Scan landscape for great opportunities. Analyze. What surprised you? Inspired you?)
6) What's Broken? (Map aggravations that "erode the quality of our lives." Assess. What can you change)
7) What's Required? (Map all the work you do on daily or weekly basis into one of 4 quadrants: a) They Care/You Care (Sweet spot/Do more-convert from good to great work) (b) They Care/I don't care. (Stop doing), (c) I Don't Care/They Care (Must do - delegate or be more efficient-embrace adequacy." (d) You Care/They Don't Care (Do it Elsewhere; do it undercover; re-label it)

8) What's the Best Choice? (Map your options. Rate/rank the options.
9) What's Possible? (Map creative new ideas and explore what can be converted to great work)
10) What's the Right Ending? (Explore different ways forward - What can be, what's changed, new outcome)
11)How Courageous are You? (Map safe to impossible methods to do more great work)
12)What Will you do? (Map (a) what is easiest to do, (b) what would have the greatest impact, (c) what do you want to do, (d) what Will you do)
13)What Support Do You Need? (Map people who have influence, skills, or love you)
14)What's the Next Step? (Map what you will do, by when, what's the first step, what accountability do you need - then analyze)
15)Lost Your Great Work Mojo? (Revert back to steps 1-14 and assess)

And the book concludes with 4 great work truths:
Great Work Truth #1: Things only get interesting when you take full responsibility for the choices you make.
Great Work Truth #2: To do more Great Work, you must both narrow and broaden your gaze.
Great Work Truth #3: Decide what to say no to.
Great Work Truth #4: Stop Making everyone happy.
Great Work Truth #5: Ask for Help.

This is an exercise workbook (more than a book) where Stanier allows reader to work their way forward to a solution to finding their own Great Work. The book also includes relevant and thoughtful quotes (Camus, Edmund Hillary) and passages from contemporary coaches (Seth Godin, Dave Ulrich, Penelope Trunk).

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For those that seek inspiration, crave innovation, and want to extract more meaning from life, February 26, 2010

By 

Todd B. Kashdan - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters. (Paperback)

This is the second book that I purchased from Michael. Don't be deceived by the notion that this book is about being more innovative, energized, and productive in the workplace. By work, Michael is talking about living a life most worth living. He is talking about bringing the same enthusiasm that you have for Alaskan crab legs and flirtatious conversations with a loved one to every life domain.

I wonder where this book will appear in bookstores. Business book? Self-enhancement book? Psychology book? Do More Great Work transcends categories. I suspect that you are skeptical of these superlatives but I honestly do not take the time to write reviews unless an author inspired me. Michael does (again).

He prods, provokes, and challenges you to answer questions about your life that can often be uncomfortable. He gives you a playground of exercises to uncover values, strengths, and situations governing your behavior, and how to navigate with them to effectively emerge as a mindful, passionate leader.

I am purposely avoiding specific details about what is in the book because it is impossible to cover the broad terrain and I hesitate to emphasize small snippets out of context. There are dozens of questions and exercises that are useful on their own and even more powerfully together. None of these questions are silly, none of them are superfluous, and if you are receptive, this book has the potential to evoke meaningful change.

Are you content with mediocracy or do you want to do something profound with your limited time and stamina in the only life you will ever be given? If you want the latter, get this book. I stake my reputation on the line.

Todd Kashdan, Ph.D.
Author of Curious?: Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of 1st edition - Find Your Great Work, February 9, 2010

By 

D.W.D. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters. (Paperback)

"Find Your Great Work" is structured around a series of "maps" that can help you bring more "great" work into your life. The "maps" in this book seem at first glance to be quite simplistic, almost gimmicky. However, if you can get past the fact that they're "written" on a napkin, they seem quite powerful. This isn't the kind of book that you read once and put on a shelf. While the author might disagree, I would recommend reading the book from cover-to-cover once, without responding to the questions associated with each map, to help immerse yourself in the author's thinking. I believe this would be helpful in either returning to the beginning of the book to work with each map sequentially or before working with those maps that seem to speak to you. This book has the potential to affect your thinking in subtle as well as profound ways. In fact, in writing these comments, I realized that today I said something in a meeting of my direct reports that came straight from "Find Your Great Work" without my even realizing it. I look forward to continuing to work with the contents of this book to bring more great work into my life.