Customer Reviews

The Hod Carrier: Leadership Lessons Learned on a Ladder

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Mark Kimbell's, The Hod Carrier, is one of the most straight-forward, business-applicable books I've read in years. The story about leadership lessons learned on a ladder conjures visions of difficult challenges each of us face. It also provides easy to remember lessons and simple tools such as "Bricks are twice as heavy when you're behind", and "Never forget whose bricks you are laying."

Mark's writing style is a Ken Blanchard-esque story style. The story itself is compelling, descriptive and so intriguing that you won't want it to end.

Carl Koetter
President
Koetter Training Resources, LLC

The Hod Carrier is a quick, easy read, but the message is profound. Mark Kimbell is as interesting on paper as he is in person. The concepts in this book apply in almost every area of life, and are illustrated in an entertaining and memorable way. The author creates wonderful visual images as he writes, and by the end of the book I felt almost as if I had experienced the events described along with the characters. I highly recommend The Hod Carrier. I will definitely read it again.

This book is a must-read for anyone in management or aspiring to become a manager. Obtaining a sense of the true meaning of manual labor, taking pride in your work, and possessing a genuinely strong work ethic, will become evident after reading "The Hod Carrier." This book will demonstrate how to incorporate these virtues into the everyday working environment and inspire others to marvel at your leadership abilities. I highly recommend this book to anyone of working age. It could be a strong motivator for young people as they enter the workforce and decide their career paths.

For anyone who spent the summers of their formative years working in a group labor situation, The Hod Carrier will bring instant memories. The lessons learned on those job sites have been used from home rooms to board rooms. The Hod Carrier is an easy read that carries a profound message. If you manage or interact with people, you will benefit from your time spent with The Hod Carrier.

"The Hod Carrier" is one book you'll read cover to cover, and you won't be able to put it down. Everyone who has ever had a summer job will relate to the story of Allen Hollings, whose experience work as a hod carrier helped him become a successful manager of people.

We meet Hollings when gets the CEO position of The Corbin Group, a high-tech software company. You quickly find out what kind of leader he is when he meets with the senior team for the first time. (You're sure to recognize a current or former coworker or manager in that group.)

What grabs your interest are the comments that Hollings writes beside each person's name. For instance, when asked whether his team has any extra capacity, the Director of Quality Assurance squirms and avoids giving a direct answer to the question. Hollings writes, "Doesn't want the mixer to start."

The lessons and the laughs shift into high gear in chapter two. The author illustrates his management lessons by telling the story of the summer after Hollings' freshman year in college, when minimum wage was $2.00. Hollings takes a job as a hod carrier because he can make $3.50 to $4.00 per hour. Never mind that he has no idea what a hod carrier does. (The main duty is to make sure bricklayers don't run out of raw materials.)

The story of a 19-year-old kid working on a construction site seems like an unlikely way to illustrate techniques for managing people. But Mark Kimbell's ample story telling ability will keep you turning pages, always anxious to find out what happens next. The payoff in The Hod Carrier arrives in the half dozen or so truisms--which can be applied to every business--that should be mandatory reading for everyone who manages people.

Just finished the book "The Hod Carrier" (subtitled "Leadership Lessons Learned on a Ladder"), by Mark Kimbell.  Splendid.
Think it's the first book I've read cover-to-cover in quite some time (and <gulp> managed to finish in less than one day).
 
As I was reading, it became clear that the author really needs to have a movie made out of this book.  I think people would be fascinated to see the different personalities in this book engage and rub up against each other on the screen--and it would give people a good idea of how important teamwork and leadership is to bricklaying [or to any other job for that matter]. 

There are 7 key "brick-metaphor" lessons that apply directly
to good management, and the author does a good job of conveying these--not through preaching, but through the interesting storyline itself. The 7 lessons are written down on a separate, quick-reference guide for convenience.

I certainly found myself identifying with several of the characters in the book, and now feel encouraged to look at work now thru different "healthier" eyes.   I bet a lot of other readers will too.  A very worthwhile book!

- john

A quick read, use it for any training classes as pre-reading. The analogies provided proof useful in a variety of settings. I find myself applying them at work and when dealing with other companies. Highly suggested for a framework of professinal development.

If you manage people in a business or organization I highly recommend assigning this book to your employees / co-workers. It only takes a few hours to read, yet leaves the reader with a lifetime of experiences.

Written by business consultant and trainer Mark Kimbell, The Hod Carrier: Leadership Lessons Learned on a Ladder is the deftly written, attention riveting story of Allen Hollings, a 19-year-old college student who decides to get himself a summer job on a construction site -- and finds that this decision will change his life forever. Allen is pushed and driven to the limits of his physical ability and emotional stamina as he struggles to meet the demands of the construction foreman. While learning and practicing the skills of carrying brick and mortar, Allen finds himself learning lessons about discipline, motivation, and time management that will serve him long after his summer job is over and the rest of his life begins. Indeed, Allen applies those hard learned summer job lesson to inspire a powerful work ethic in the lives and attitudes of the men and women he comes to manage in the competitive and hard working world of business. The Hod Carrier draws upon real world conditions laid out in a narrative storytelling which illustrates basic leadership principles that readers will find themselves absorbing interwoven with the genuinely interesting story so adroitly written by gifted communicator Mark Kimbell. The Hod Carrier is not just an another entertaining story, but does what the finest literary fiction has always sought to accomplish -- affecting and influencing the reader long after the novel is read and placed back upon the shelf.