Customer Reviews

The Employee Handbook of New Work Habits for a Radically Changing World: 13 Ground Rules for Job Success in the Information Age

5 star:		(3)
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3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I am commenting on this book because the three previous comments indicate that the readers are not aware that each person is responsible for his/her outcomes. The message of this booklet and those in the know is:"YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE" for your own success. This is the message of today.

My opinion is that everybody should realize that the 13 rules for job success are and always have been the keys to progress and success. If every person understood the message of this booklet we wouldn't have so many people who don't realize that every human being needs the satisfaction of achievement and accomplishment. This can only be obtained by working, thinking, studying, reading, helping, etc. When we don't get the satisfaction of achievemenet and accomplishment we turn to watching television, drinking alcohol, smoking, taking drugs, etc.

This book does mention some valid points about taking control of your own career. But it fails to acknowledge what motivates us to work and has a horrible over tone that preys on the fear culture you find during redundancies. I'd look elsewhere for motivation, somewhere that tells you how to be more confident rather than "do this or else".

This book should be titled "Chicken Soup For The Displaced Worker." With one sticking point: You get more depressed after you read it. If anyone hands you this book, tell them no thanks. I strongly agree with the reviewers who said that this is a book for clueless managers looking to jump on meaningless trends.

If you are reading this book, you are probably managed by clueless managers that jump on every trend promising to increase productivity. Not the managers productivity, naturally, but those pesky employees. Managers will love this book, since it conveniently shifts all burden of responsibility onto the lower ranks, giving them advice like "work as though you own the company" and "you are responsible for your own motivation". Interspersed between irrelevant computer industry statistics that act as filler for a book so sparse on content, Pritchett suggests both the obvious and the unrealistic, showing a weak grasp of human nature in the workplace.

This book had to have been written knowing that managers control purchase of such books, so lets tell them everything they want to hear and make some money. Aside from stating obvious advice such as stay flexible, keep your skills up to date, do a good job and other topics that fall under the rubric of "DUH!", this sparsely worded pocketbook proceeds to absolve managment of their duties by shifting them to the employees they manage. In between randomly quoted computer industry statistics that serve no purpose whatsoever other than filler amongst pages starving for content, Price places all responsibility on the worker bees, leaving the managers free to kick back and read more stupid books like this one. Amongst his pearls of wisdom doled out to the troops are "Work like you own the company" and "You are responsible for your own motivation". Need I say more?

My company unfortunately distributed this book. This guy who wrote this book is an idiot. If you're a manager or above in an organization and want to run your people into the ground and make a name for yourself, then this book is for you. His message is quite disturbing and detrimental to how business should be run. I'm not against free speech, but if I was, I'd start with this book.

I read this in the 80's, when I was just starting out in my career. Much of my success in business can be traced to the lessons that it teaches. Starting out, I thought of my job as a job. I showed up, did what I was asked, but wasn't really engaged. After reading "New Work Habits...", I became invested -- in my career, but mostly in myself -- and have reaped the rewards in recognition, compensation, satisfaction, and flexibility.

Basically, this little book teaches you how to make yourself valuable to employers. Its principles are timeless and true. I am buying copies to give to my daughter, nieces and nephews who are all young adults starting out in their own careers.

Highly recommended.

Let's cut to the chase. The message of this book is quite simple:
Change your current attitude and increase your productivity so that you will ad value to your company in the long run. In other words, all for the benefit of us (managers, CEOs, Bill Gates, etc.) at the expense of you, the employee (the tried and true `profits over people' mentality rears its ugly head once again in corporate America). If the events of September 11 or the recent Enron affair haven't yet taught us that money and misguided "motivation" should NOT be the primary goals in life, I don't know what will.

Price Pritchett's little book, The Employee Handbook of New Work Habits For A Radically Changing World, should really be called "The Abridged Career Bible" and not a handbook. Could this have anything to do with the lucky number 13? Filled with his "13 Ground Rules for Job Success in the Information Age," Pritchett's book really is a survival manual. In an time of new technologies, services, knowledge work, and fierce worldwide competition, only those open to change-those who are flexible and invest their energy in finding and seizing opportunities-will thrive. Those who resist change and harbor bitterness will only end up going the way of the dinosaurs. And we don't need to be reminded of what eventually happened to the dinosaurs...

Pritchett advises workers to become quick-change artists. In an age of restructuring, outsourcing, downsizing, subcontracting, and forming new alliances, workers can expect new ways of working and having to align immediately with new organizational needs and realities. Being a quick-change artist-mobility-can build an employee's reputation.

Then again, says, Pritchett, so does commitment. Commit fully to your job. Companies now cannot afford to hire more employees to solve common problems. Nevertheless, clients and customers expect quality and speed. Companies' response is to throw fewer people at problems and to do more-faster and better-with less. This calls for highly committed people-those who work from the heart and invest passionately to their jobs. It follows that commitment will result in more satisfying work, too, bringing empowerment, relieving stress, and curing the pain of change.

Through their commitment and working from the heart, employees are contributing and adding value. Workers should think that they are being remunerated for the value they add rather than for their tenure, good intentions or activity level.

Employees' job security, therefore, depends on commitment and how valuable they are to customers. Employees must see themselves as service centers. They need to sharpen their insights into their personal "market" and understand what it is their customers do, expect and need. Employees need to know how they fit into the overall picture and how they will contribute to customers' success. Remember, warns Pritchett: "customer" does not only imply people outside the organization but co-workers and internal customers as well. Career success depends on building strong relationships with both internal and external customers and a reputation for responsiveness and quality service.

Just ensure that service and responses are delivered in a timely fashion! We do, as Pritchett says, live in an impatient world. Organizations, then, must accelerate. Workers must operate with a sense of urgency. These are raw survival instincts at work. To survive: speed up. To be successful, organizations must emphasize action: cover ground quickly, eliminate excess baggage, abandon outmoded practices, decentralize, and delegate decision-making power. There really is no room for slow adjustment to change. Valuable employees are those who push the process of change along.

But change brings ambiguity and uncertainty!

Fine. As Pritchett advises, accept it, and manage your own morale! Workers need to realize that placing their morale in someone else's hands disempowers them and that ambiguity may, in fact, be the in the best interest of their career.

Sure, they will be faced with new expectations, shifting priorities, different reporting relationships, vague job descriptions...

Workers need to act upbeat, accept change, and create clarity for themselves-to set priorities, meet deadlines, chase down needed information, show initiative and an ability to improvise. They need to work as though they are in business for themselves.

So what does that mean?

Traditional hierarchies are flattening out. Organizations want to get closer to customers and clients, and are decentralizing business units. The result? Mini-enterprises or self-contained work groups that operate more independently. Employees will need to assume more responsibility for the success of the entire enterprise and consider personally how they can help cut costs, improve productivity, and innovate.

In other words, as hierarchies collapse, responsibility, power, and authority are being pushed to the lower levels. Self-contained work teams must stand accountable for their collective results. Accountability implies thinking in broad terms, considering the larger picture, and considering outcomes. Workers must streamline their approach to economize time, energy, and other resources.

Broad thinking and innovation take brains: it doesn't take long for skills and knowledge to become outmoded in a rapidly changing world-a world that takes no pity on those who are lazy about learning. Workers need to stay in school in order to retool themselves and to keep up with the latest knowledge. Their future employability depends on up-to-date credentials, the latest skills, and the most recent developments in their chosen field. Home study, reading, attending workshops and seminars, volunteering for understudy or apprenticeship programs, asking for learning opportunities-all of these should become "habits".

Lifelong learning implies continuous improvement. Yes, and according to Pritchett, it's the best insurance for both employees' careers and for organizations. How? It is the relentless quest for a better way, for high quality craftsmanship, for daily perfection. Continuous improvement-and this is not just limited to learning, either-may be gradual, but in the long run, it adds up to a competitive advantage.

Employees also need to learn not to rely solely on their reputation anymore: the world is changing too quickly. Employees must then strive to upgrade their job performance-response time, quality, cost control, and customer service-on an ongoing basis.

Improving job performance also means building a reputation as a problem solver. Employees must learn to take care of problems, not point them out. By searching beyond themselves, for solutions, they disempower themselves and lose the ability to find workable solutions. The pro-active solution, according to Pritchett, is for employees to assume ownership of problems and to allow the solutions to start with them.

To summarize, change is inevitable, and there is little, if anything, organizations can do to stop it. The best they can do is adapt and to alter their expectations-preferably before they have to. Some are fortunate enough to scramble and adjust when push comes to shove. As to the rest? Well, just remember the dinosaurs...


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This book should be titled "Chicken Soup For The Displaced Worker." With one exception: You get more depressed after you read it. If anyone hands you this book, tell them no thanks. I strongly agree with the reviewers who said that this is a book for clueless managers looking to jump on meaningless trends.