Customer Reviews

Follow this Path: How the World's Greatest Organizations Drive Growth by Unleashing Human Potential

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina not only challenge but indeed obliterate much conventional wisdom about organizational growth and individual development. Those inclined to challenge them would be well-advised to consider the basis of their assertions: "Ten million customers and over two hundred thousand managers were surveyed. More than three million employees were interviewed from 1995 through 2001. Additionally, more than two million talent-fit/role-success reviews were tallied. More than 300, 000 business units, in hundreds of organizations worldwide, took part in the study....All major industries, from fast-food chains to physicians' groups, were represented. A wide variety of job types was included, as were all kinds of customers. Industry and organizations of all sizes were integrated....Employees from different types of organizations were measured in terms of their talent, engagement, and outcomes."

What about customers? "Similarly, customer data included purchase information: Volume, dollar amounts spent, repurchase intentions and behavior, brand ratings, product evaluations, opinions, and other complementary patterns of attitudes and behavior were all covered in detail." Who wants to step forward to challenge the validity of Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina's assertions? Not I.

The subtitle of this book, "How the World's Greatest Organizations Drive Growth by Unleashing Human Potential," is somewhat misleading. In fact, according to Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina, cultures -- not organizations -- unleash human potential which, in turn, drives organizations. More specifically, emotion-driven, highly engaged employees ("associates" at Wal-Mart and J.C. Penney) continuously nourish and thereby sustain profitable relationships with (yes) emotion-driven, highly-engaged customers. Contrary to conventional wisdom, "Superior performance is not the exclusive product of the rational mind. no matter how appealing it is to business to believe this is so. Talent does intelligence one better, because it combines and utilizes the full circuitry (rational and emotional) of the brain's neural connections in the endless pursuit of productive outcome."

What about knowledge and skills? Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina duly acknowledge that they are required by quality performance. However, "In essence, talent and engagement are emotionally driven. In tough economic times, talent and emotional engagement are the only natural competitive advantages." Emotional engagement is thus the "fuel" that drives the most productive employees (approximately 20% of any workforce) and the most profitable customers. Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina seem almost surprised by the fact that there is an unlimited supply. "The most amazing thing about it is that it never runs out."

The word "path" in this book's title refers to a sequence of "steps" to be taken:

1. Acknowledge the role that emotion plays in driving business outcomes.

Comment: Keep in mind that emotions can be either positive (e.g. appreciation) or negative (e.g. resentment).

2. Acknowledge that all employees possess innate talents that can be emotionally engaged.

Comment: Workers generally do best what they enjoy doing most.

3. Understand that unique talent combinations lead to increased profits and growth.

Comment: Because needs change, different talents may be needed and in different combinations.

4. Understand and appreciate the power of the Q12 and accept what it can do for an organization.

Comment: Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina focus on the Q12 in Chapter 4 and explain how to manage the Q12 in Chapter 5.

5. Understand what it means to manage to develop and sustain engaged employees.

6. Understand the economic implications of engaged, not-engaged, and actively disengaged employees.

7. Acknowledge the role which emotions play in customer engagement.

8. Understand the eleven indicators of customer engagement and how they will impact on your brand, product, or organization.

9. Accept what managing to enhance and sustain customer engagement means.

10. Understand the economic implications of fully engaged, engaged, not-engaged, and actively disengaged customers.

NOTE: The chapter in which this step is examined, Chapter 10 ("Emotional Economics, Part 2") develops in much greater depth the material provided in Chapter 6, "Emotional Economics, Part 1."

Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina devote a separate chapter to each of the ten steps of The Gallup Path, explaining precisely how it can enable any organization (regardless of size or nature) to "drive growth by unleashing human potential." Taking each of these steps will fail, however, unless and until when doing so supervisors REALLY DO understand (a) that talent drives performance and supervisors are totally committed to engaging the talent of every employee, (b) that emotionally engaged employees are invariably the most productive employees, and finally (c) that emotionally engaged customers "always come back for more" and thus are the bedrock of any organization's sustainable profitably.

In their concluding remarks, Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina observe that "It's time to see your world in a different way." In fact, by the end of this book, they have urged their reader to see the world in dozens of different ways. It is important to supervisors to know that, once embarked on The Gallup Path, they will be guided and informed by Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina every step of the way.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out First, Break All the Rules which Coffman co-authored with Marcus Buckingham. Also, Hammer's The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade; Bossidy and Charan's Execution: the Discipline of Getting Things Done; O'Toole's Leading Change: The Argument for Value-Based Leadership; Collins' Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't; and Connors and Smith's The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual & Organizational Accountability.

Review of "Follow This Path"

The central thesis of this valuable and highly readable work can be summed up in three words: Feelings drive actions.

This book from The Gallup Organization focuses on applying that briefest but most fundamental truth to business success. The authors' conclusion can be simply stated: The feelings of your employees influence the feelings of your customers, and that drives their buying behavior and your profits.

It works like this: Understand your employees so that they are assigned to do work for which they're really best suited at the deepest personal level ('cuz they'll do that work better than any other). And treat your employees in ways that encourage them to be fully engaged in their work ('cuz that gets you more loyalty and productivity at no extra cost). And then, in turn, your employees will treat your customers in a way that makes your customers feel good about your company ('cuz that leads them to spend more with your firm for a longer time). And, voila!, your company makes more money with less effort.

At this point you might feel compelled to release a loud exclamation of, "Well, duh!"

But hold on.

The premise of "Follow This Path" seems deceptively simple for two reasons:
1) It contrasts markedly with the "rational" model that still shapes most interactions with both employees and customers in most organizations; and
2) It stands in direct opposition to the assumptions underlying most business initiatives that are supposed to improve quality, productivity, or even customer satisfaction. Most, if not all, of those projects are aimed at mechanistically tweaking operational processes. And they don't positively affect the people on either side of the transaction: employees or customers. And so they have little to no effect on fundamentally improving the business. (But they sure do suck up a lot of time, create many distractions, and generate healthy fees for consultants.)

MORE THAN A REHASH
While tempting, it is misguided to characterize this book as a mere rehash of its predecessors from the Gallup Organization, "First, Break All the Rules" and "Now, Discover Your Strengths." Candidly, when first flipping through the book, "rehash" was my impression, too.

However, "Follow This Path" is a significant contribution in its own right. It integrates and extends Gallup's two previous works. This book's insights derive from an expanded data set supplied by Gallup's massive survey-based research, and the book also (as is all the rage in business tomes these days) draws on much of the historical and current research into the origins of behavior from both psychological and biological underpinnings. A smattering of readable anecdotes from real people help to bring the principles to life. (The end notes also are worth reading as the text there is written as a narrative and adds worthwhile insights. In addition, this work contains an appendix of what likely will strike most readers as mind-numbing statistical mumbo-jumbo, aimed, no doubt, at quieting critics who question the validity of the data underpinning Gallup's claims and conclusions.)

The effect is to validate sound, albeit somewhat non-traditional, perspectives on what really lies behind the elusive, mercantile holy grail of successfully competing in today's crazy, cut-throat marketplace.

THE UPSHOT
The good news is that these principles are easy to grasp and make intuitive sense (after reconsidering traditional biases).

The bad news is that for organizations to take advantage of these simple truths, they must unlearn much of what their managers "know" about how business works. The challenge is to move managers from the realm of the rational, definable, and controllable --- the hallmark characteristic of virtually every manager in virtually every corporation (perhaps with the exception of those strange and intrepid folks populating the marketing communications department).

The new reality: To compete effectively, managers must migrate to the still largely uncharted domain of the emotional, psychological, and personal in order to affect both employees and customers. In a gross understatement, this imperative represents a frighteningly major shift and no easy undertaking.

Making such a dramatic and fundamental change in both mindset and behaviors implies considerable adaptations at two levels: In the minds and hearts of individual managers, and in the policies and systems of their employing organizations.

All exaggeration aside, we're talking social revolution here. Undoubtedly, it will keep Gallup's consulting organization, and firms such as my own, very busy for many years to come.

But what if your boss or CEO is a Neanderthal and "doesn't get it"? Press on. Start with yourself and your very own work group. As the research from Gallup and many others makes clear, that's the only level at which real change actually occurs anyway.

Get the book and read it with a scientific mind, skeptical but open. Then get busy charting your own course through the new frontier of what Gallup aptly terms The Emotional Economy.

Chances are, you'll feel better...with rising productivity and profits...because customers feel better...because your employees feel better.

I really didn't want to like this book. It just sounded too much like some new age, pop psychology dribble on how to feel good. I couldn't have been further from the truth. Although this isn't a great book, it is a very valuable book, not only for the businessman, but for leaders of nonprofits as well.

The premise of the book is simple. In an age where prices have been cut to razor thin margins, and businesses have become commodities, the only way to profitably survive is to unleash the human potential among your employees and customers. The authors ask this simple, but profound question: Why would a customer drive past your competition and pay a higher price to purchase your product? The answer: You have an emotionally engaged customer.

The authors demonstrate the world's greatest organizations connect with their customers on an emotional level. When this happens customers return because of the way they feel- they become emotional engaged. The businesses manta for the last century has been based on reason- if you build a better mousetrap, offer it at the lowest price, people will buy. Studies have shown that people are more driven by their emotions when it comes to purchase and repurchase than they are by reason. The same holds true for employees. The Gallop organization also has shown that emotionally engaged employees produce more, stay longer, have less accidents, etc.

Any problems? Maybe one. When hiring, the authors tell us again and again to commit to talent above education, experience, willingness to work hard, and the usual resume items. Inborn talent produces engaged employees; but what they did not address was the integrity issue. Jack Welch points out that the most dangerous employee is not the rude, insensitive, actively disengaged employee; but the one with the talent who does not hold to the values of the corporation. The actively disengaged employee will hurt the company, and yes, if you have enough of them they will destroy the company, but the real danger lies with talented, engaged employees who love their work but who do not hold to the company's values. These are the ones Welch would immediately get rid of.

All in all, it's a valuable book. For a pastor of a small church, or a midlevel manager, the Q-12 (Questions developed by the Gallop organization which identify the conditions of a great work space) are invaluable. By unleashing the human potential in staff, volunteers and members the leader of a nonprofit can build a great organization.

I'm not easily impressed. As a management consultant, I must read more than 50 business books a year. After a while, they all seem to blur together into one large mass. Imagine how shocked I was to come across this fantastic book while in Japan (of all places). The information on employee-strategy alignment and employee satisfaction is dead on. There's something in here for almost every manager. However, equally impressive was the way in which it was written. If you like straight forward no B.S. facts and "how-to"s, its here. If you prefer to learn through brief case studies, they're here too. Regardless, the writting style is easy to digest. No academic or overly-technical pretense. Just common every day American English. I read through it like a novel -- practically cover-to-cover without putting it down. If you're interested in increasing the satisfaction of employees and/or improving the alignment of your employees and strategy, definately run out to the nearest book store (or Amazon) and pick up a copy. You may also want to consider a copy of Smallwood, Ulrich and Zenger's "Results-Based Leadership" or Gubman's "The Talent Solution." Overall Grade: A/A+

I work in a very competitive industry, where practically everything has been maximized -but the human factor, employees and profitable relationships with customers. This book has taught me that real and sustainable growth is attainable, without the accounting or false methods that plague companies today.

Great job, Gallup!

Having known and worked under Dr. Gonzalez-Molina's direction for more than twenty years, I can only attest my personal, heart-felt and authentic testimony that he is one of the finest managers I have ever met. His dedication and endless vocation to develop the people around him have made his leadership legendary in many a management circle within the U.S. and Latin America. Follow This Path is a first person testimony of his record. Dr. Gonzalez-Molina: those of us who feel grateful for working with you want to urge your readers know that your vision and teachings are priceless, uniquely priceless.

This is exactly the book I was looking for, and it confirmed all of my suppositions about management: It's the people, stupid! Companies have improved every business process under the sun, and have made incredible progress with technology. But they are still woefully inadequate at dealing with their core problems: how to get the most out of their employees, and how to reach their customers on a gut, personal level. FOLLOW THIS PATH quite literally gives managers a path to success: from hiring the right people, to putting them in the right jobs, all the way on up to driving profitable growth. Most importantly, the book has the credibility of Gallup research to back it up.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. Its message is possibly the most valuable message there is in business today, because it articulates the human related side of a company into a model that produces dollars and cents. The book gave me a fresh start at how I look at my company. After all, growth and profits are as natural as the emotional responses we get from employees and customers, including the jealousy I see in one of the readers' comments posted here!. You must read this book if you want to find real and sustainable ways to grow your business. This books does a wonderful job at showing you how.

This book puts it all together in a manner that you can actually put to practice. Many books are very theoretical but difficult to put into practice in your area of business. This book empowers individual managers to drive improved performance of their own unit. While some of it sounds like common sense (& isn't that usually the best!) I found myself anxious to apply the path outlined in the book. I absolutely believe that my business will perform better after reading this!
The authors are the most insightful business people I have ever read.! A must read!

Liked the book a lot. But the most important think it did was show me how to do my job better. I am a manager overseeing more than 100 teams internationally. It changed how I see work, colleages, customers and myself. I sent it to our CEO and Board of Directors. We are very excited about the management model that this book outlines. Great book.
I was thinking the guy who posted the criticism of one of the authors should read the book and follow the path.