Customer Reviews

A Journey into the Heroic Environment, Revised and Expanded: A Personal Guide for Creating a Work Environment Built on Shared Values

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Before I read this book I was stuck in past of the one minute manager and the effective executive. After reading The Journey into the Heroic Enviroment I now live and die by it. I carry this book with me everywhere I go and have everyone I know read it. I do feel now that by making this book a must for all my managers and freinds alike, we all have a more productive enviroment that leads to a more productive financial statement. To Rob Lebow I salute you and say thanks.

This is required reading for anyone who "knows" there is a better way to run their operation, but hasn't put their finger on it. I have personally bought over 30 copies of the book and given it to friends, bosses, employees, members of the Board - and a few headhunters! It's that good! Lebow manages to preach the gospel of common sense in managing the culture of an organization, without offending or insulting. Perhaps the most influential book since Goldratt's "The Goal", this book should be mandatory reading for anyone who is given the privilege of working with people in any setting - business, charity, whatever. Short and enjoyable story telling. An easy read, this book should be in every manager's briefcase for those moments when you need a quick "pick me up". Get your copy - TODAY!

Living in what Alan Greenspan called an era of "infectious greed" with corporate titans facing serious jail time, Ex-WorldCom CEO, Bernard Ebbers, leading the way facing life behind bars, and sobering laws in place such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act making ethics and values increasingly important components in every organization, it would do well to learn how to help organizations create heroic environments based on higher standards of excellence. Mr. Rob Lebow, former Director of Corporate Communications for Microsoft, with over twenty years experience helping companies implement his Shared Values Process to create what he calls, a Freedom-Based Workplace, attempts to do just that for readers in his book, A Journey into the Heroic Environment.

Resurrecting an abandoned, `failed,' 1972 study, undertaken by graduate students from the social psychology department of a major United States university, with over 17 million survey responses from workers and managers in 40 countries and over 32 Standard Industrial Codes, that was not able to reveal any conclusive connection between job satisfaction and individual or organizational performance, Mr. Lebow's research team started their own investigation. Bringing a fresh perspective to the study, Lebow realized that the key to solving the mystery of overcoming cultural challenges to create exceptional levels of performance, was not going to be found in the hard numbers and statistics of the survey, but in the actual, literal comments of all the participants. Using this creative intelligence, Lebow indexed the most often addressed topics in all the discarded surveys by country. And the revelation was that all the surveys from the different countries mentioned the same subjects. This became the Lebow Company's 20th Century Rosetta Stone that finally cracked the code to the secrets of unlocking high performance that were embedded in the previously undecipherable 17 million worldwide surveys that the original research missed.

Under the scrutiny of this new lens, the Lebow research group discovered that it was Values, not job satisfaction issues, which resided at the core between performance and what managers and workers were really looking for. Lebow's research suggested that there were eight values that all people respected throughout the world regardless of race, religion, nationality, industry, gender, educational level, or organizational status. Furthermore, the Lebow research group concluded: "that these eight Shared Values...represent the major factors that contribute not only to job satisfaction and employee morale, but to an organization's performance, competitiveness, speed to change, innovation at every level, willingness to learn new things, and overall operational success. [That] this was the universal Cultural Return On Investment (ROI) linking people to performance." While the author does not mention exactly how he came to this revolutionary conclusion, he claims that the correlation between organizational performance and these Shared Values has been tested and validated with over 2,300 organizational sites. These universal Shared Values which Lebow calls The Eight Principles of the Heroic Environment ® are as follows:

1. Treat others with uncompromising truth.
2. Lavish trust on your associates.
3. Mentor unselfishly (and be open to mentoring from anyone).
4. Be receptive to new ideas, regardless of their origin.
5. Take personal risks for the organization's sake.
6. Give credit where it's due.
7. Do not touch dishonest dollars. (Be honest and ethical in all matters).
8. Put the interests of others before your own.


So that's the Big secret? Sounds like the everyday sage advice that a Corporate Yoda would give to his executive team of Jedi knights. Admittedly, this is something we all know and have heard before. They are timeless principles - psychic energy patterns memorialized in the collective unconscious - embedded in human experience itself. But how many of us actually practice these principles?

What makes this work significant is not the list of values which are bandied about at boardroom meetings and showcased on fancy plaques, but the Process ("acting Heroically is a process") that the Lebow research group has engineered in implementing these Shared Values company-wide through stories, examples, illustrations, charts, graphs, ways of communication, and sequential steps to follow. Lebow provides readers with practical tools they can use to actually practice these principles in transforming their corporate culture into a heroic environment.

So what does a `heroic environment' look like? Lebow gives us a model, a vision, to look forward to: "Imagine what would happen in a work environment if people were given the freedom to act the way they really wanted to act - with courage, creativity, and independence from fear of criticism, or worse. And when people are respected and appreciated, they want to contribute even more, to rise to their true potential. I call that kind of place - a place where people act heroically - a Heroic Environment."

I was skeptical at first with this rather rosy picture - feeling that employees given too much freedom would slack-off or go into their own little dream-world. But after finishing the book, I felt Lebow had pulled it off, in terms of providing tools that managers, employees, and consultants can use in transforming corporate culture for the better. After all, people don't get up in the morning wanting to fail; they want to feel significant - knowing they've done a job well-done.

One of the main tenets of the book is that the traditional corporate approach of solving problems from the top down is the kiss-of-death. Frontline workers need to be given autonomy, responsibility, and accountability to solve problems themselves, letting the customer's needs, rather than the company's policies, drive each transaction. To accomplish this, `only hire people you trust, but once you've hired them, trust them.' Management's role is simply to encourage people on the frontlines to experiment and explore new ideas on their own. The best way to manage is to let go and let great, not stepping in to fix problems or criticizing, but to examine the breakdown of the workflow and empowering frontline workers to make their own decisions and changes by providing them with the necessary resources.

According to Lebow, this is the only way to bring back respect to the phrase, "Made in America." He recounts how Toyota's plant workers average 50 changes every two and a half shifts, which would give most American managers a nosebleed. In America, Lebow states, fixing problems is management's job! In contrast, by empowering its frontline people to experiment, fix problems, and make continual proactive changes without fear of failure, Toyota is now financially worth more than Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler-Mercedes all put together. To put things in perspective, Lebow goes on to point out that it took Ford about nine months to make a change to their production line, while it only took Toyota three and one-half hours!

Overall, A Journey into the Heroic Environment, accomplishes its main purpose in serving as a guide to creating a Freedom-Based work environment built on Shared Values. This is not an academic book or scholarly read, nor is it a scientific journal. Use the information and The Personal Work Style Assessment ™ (included in the book) to formulate your own hypotheses and come up with your own conclusions. The book itself, from start-to-finish, can be considered a case study in corporate transformation told in the form of a business story with a chance meeting between John, a disgruntled assistant plant manager of a telecommunications company, and Kip, a mysterious, senior executive mentor figure. The book is simple in its approach, but not simplistic; easy-to-read, but certainly not easy to implement. I highly recommend this book as a path to a rewarding journey that will open up the soul to a brave new heroic world.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER:

Sharif Khan (http://www.herosoul.com; sharif@herosoul.com) is a freelance writer, speaker, and coach. He is author of, Psychology of the Hero Soul, an inspirational book on awakening the hero within and developing people's leadership potential. Khan provides inspirational keynotes and leadership seminars to help people live heroically.

=Treat others with uncompromising truth.

=Lavish trust on your associates.

=Mentor unselfishly.

=Be receptive to new ideas, regardless of their origin.

=Take personal risks for the organization's sake.

=Give credit where credit is due.

=Do not touch dishonest dollars.

=Put the interest of others before your own.

Ron Lebow's highly underrated HEROIC ENVIRONMENT is a wonderful allegory that goes beyond both moralism and psychology to teach great lessons about character and true, lasting success in life. While reading his chapter on the four dominant personality traits, in fact, I found myself in a rather ironic way.

The hero is, of course, the central character/protagonist in this allegory. However, it was when I noticed an existential disagreement with the author's definition of a dissident--and how dissidents should be in essence dealt with in an organization--that I realized that my dominant personality trait is that of a Maverick. Ron Lebow (as his nom de plume character in the book Kip) describes the dissident as being "an integral part of almost every organization (page 90)." He then proceeds, however, to describe the aspects of the dissident's character and personality traits as being those that are essentially, and wholeheartedly, counterproductive to the growth and development of the organization. For him a dissident is more of, really, a codependent. While I don't know the actual etymology of the term, I do know that the word dissident comes out of the lexicon of politics, and has been historically tied to the intellectual structures of the revolutionary minded heroes that follow in their wake. Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, et. al. were very much the dissidents of King George III's colonists; Gandhi's Satyagraha--philosophy of non-violent resistance--was perhaps the most dissident theology of the modern era, influencing America's great 20th century dissident Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. With that kind of company (to say nothing of what's his name from the New Testament [smile]), it is obvious to me that when Lebow is being uncomplimentary he is not actually referring to a dissident but to a set of personality traits that are reflective of someone who exists somewhere between the dissident and his (badly used metaphor, considering the times we live in) terrorist. I would call them the wanna-be dissidents.

Like paparazzi or simple groupie narcissists are to actual movie stars, the disgruntled wanna-be dissidents, whose intuitions do pick up on the structural integrity failures of an organization but focus on it only in order to avoid looking at themselves, are always in the company of real dissidents. They use the dissident's unique set of insights, awareness and profound courage as a technique to cover up their own character failings that they'd rather not be confronted with. As far as the negative impact on an organization however-in terms of both morale and actual profits and structure, etc.-though the natural inclination would be to say the terrorist is the most destructive, with perhaps my definition of the wanna-be dissident coming next on the food chain, I would venture to say that the very philosophy of management that would cause superiors to quite easily mistake a wanna-be dissident for an actual dissident is by far more destructive than any individual. Because that philosophy and confused method of perspective is what would also cause a governing body to almost instantly confuse wanna-bes and actuals in ANY of the dominant personality traits carefully described. For example, the Hero (Jeckyll) can easily be confused with a Charlatan (Hyde), who may know how to look like a hero in an organization he has studied carefully for an undisclosed agenda. Indeed, the most repressive political regimes in the world have always been those whose governing bodies structure their security forces, propagandists and militaries to consistently go after what could otherwise be called wanna-be terrorists, as well as the actual terrorists, both away from and within their borders. Before you know it, more time and attention is given to the wanna be terrorists than the actual ones...and virtually anyone, even the hero and 9 to 5-er, can be labeled a wanna-be terrorist in the fearful climate that that produces...and usually is, while the pretender hero with charisma calls the shots. Hence, WWII Germany.

When such a fearful environment is created regarding organizations that have lost their way by those in power, you can usually bet on a few things: that a) they don't want to hear anyone tell them about it or why (what Mavericks do very well), b) they want people to create miracles within a dysfunctional paradigm that all but prevents miracles from occurring (overworking and exhausting the Heroes) and c) they are already ready to blame all of the hard working underlings for their bad executive decisions when crises occurs (why most 9 to 5-ers get downsized). The Dissident perspective, when this atmosphere has rolled in like storm clouds before a hurricane and people start worshipping false "economy" gods, is really the only one worth listening to.

The Dissident is the one in any organization who is fundamentally aware of the paradigm shift that has taken place for the worse in the organization, and also knows the one that needs to take place for its betterment--and how it should be implemented. And he/she usually figures this out sometimes as much as years before everyone else does. The true dissident, far from being an angry, jealous troublemaker, is the one who teaches the Maverick the new music; the music that he/she then plays for the hero to dance the new dance.

The dissident is the patron saint, or spiritual barometer, of the Maverick. Where the Hero of an organization may be the Heroic environment's heart, the dissident is its soul.

Ron LeBow perhaps purposely dropped the ball here, to create the Zen experience of figuring this out for yourself. Either way, HEROIC ENVIRONMENT as a whole is very refreshing and worth the half day it will take to read and soak in. Highly recommended.

This book is easy and fun read like one of Ken Blanchard's books.

Contains lot's of practical applications for businesses, organizations, and families living in the fast paced, changing enviroment of the 21st Century.

Although it can be read in 2-3 hours, you will probably want to re-read often.

Contains an excellent self-evaluation quiz at the end of the book.

This is a great book for anyone who's tired of office politics and petty bickering in the workplace. One of the positives about the book is that it assumes people want their work, and the time they spend at work, to mean something. The dialogue in the book is based around this optimistic foundation, and is refreshing reading for any individual or team working in today's business world. I recommend getting a copy for yourself, and talking your manager into buying one for each member of your workplace. The idea of shared values discussed in this quick read can strengthen the bonds between members of a workgroup, and make work an enjoyable experience rather than drudgery.

An easy and non-threatening read, "Journey" outlines an approach to creating a work environment which is inspiring and built to last.

The book presents a fairly detailed model of the workplace, and some suggestions on how to transform the workplace into the Heroic variety. It should come as no great surprise that the book also recommends consulting services by the author.

I generally found the book envigorating, and came away from it with a renewed committment to a high level of personal integrity at work.

I read this book in about 4 hours, and it was worth that level of effort. I suspect that enacting the types of changes in the workplace this book describes would require quite a bit more effort.