The Last Word on Power: Executive Re-Invention for Leaders Who Must Make The Impossible Happen [Hardcover]

Tracy Goss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1995

Today's leaders are reinventing everything but themselves, and this is why so many attempts to revolutionize business fail. The last word on power is the key method in reinventing executives so they can take on "a mission impossible" based on a course designed and run exclusively for the past fifteen years by Tracy Goss. Do you want to do work that is worthy of your time and talent? Do you want to make your mark on your company, industry, community? Are you dissatisfied with the fact that reengineering, quality improvements, and other changes never make a lasting impact? Then you need to go beyond the techniques of improvement and learn the skills of being extraordinary. The power to be extraordinary is not one we are born with. It's not the power to fix what's wrong or improve what's right. It is a power one learns in a course that for the past fifteen years has been designed and run exclusively for top executives by consultant Tracy Goss. For the first time, Goss makes her coursework available to the general reader in The Last Word On Power. Goss's unique methodology shows how "you can put at risk the success you have achieved for the 'possibility' you can be." She positions executives to take on the future they dream about. She teaches how to behave differently so you can be free of constraints from the past. She shows how you can be at home in an environment in which you are constantly surrounded by threats, and how to transcend the ordinary so that you can make the impossible happen. Her work has resulted in important life changes and organizational reinventions throughout the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

For over 20 years, consultant and lecturer Goss has been working to help senior executives in her intensive seminars to "transform" themselves into another state of being. Now, she offers her reinvention process for those willing to commit to a lifetime of hard work required to make this process real. She explains her seven transformative steps: uncovering your winning strategy, understanding the limits of the "universal human paradigm," putting everything at risk, inventing a new master paradigm, inventing an impossible game to play, breaking the addiction to interpretation, and operating beyond the limits of your winning strategy. Goss offers powerful information, far above the glib self-help mush that already lines the shelves. She answers the fundamental question of why management fads do not work: the personal work has not yet been done. Her unique approach is as significant a work in this genre as Peter Block's Stewardship (LJ 6/15/93) and Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Successful People (S. & S., 1989). Highly recommended for all libraries.?Dale F. Farris, Groves, Tex.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

Today's leaders are reinventing everything but themselves, and this is why so many attempts to revolutionize business fail. The last word on power is the key method in reinventing executives so they can take on "a mission impossible" based on a course designed and run exclusively for the past fifteen years by Tracy Goss. Do you want to do work that is worthy of your time and talent? Do you want to make your mark on your company, industry, community? Are you dissatisfied with the fact that reengineering, quality improvements, and other changes never make a lasting impact? Then you need to go beyond the techniques of improvement and learn the skills of being extraordinary. The power to be extraordinary is not one we are born with. It's not the power to fix what's wrong or improve what's right. It is a power one learns in a course that for the past fifteen years has been designed and run exclusively for top executives by consultant Tracy Goss. For the first time, Goss makes her coursework available to the general reader in The Last Word On Power. Goss's unique methodology shows how "you can put at risk the success you have achieved for the 'possibility' you can be." She positions executives to take on the future they dream about. She teaches how to behave differently so you can be free of constraints from the past. She shows how you can be at home in an environment in which you are constantly surrounded by threats, and how to transcend the ordinary so that you can make the impossible happen. Her work has resulted in important life changes and organizational reinventions throughout the world.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business; 1 edition (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038547492X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385474924
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #163,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars POWERFUL, CHALLENGING, EXCITING, March 9, 2001

By 

Larry Latham (Tulsa, OK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Word on Power: Executive Re-Invention for Leaders Who Must Make The Impossible Happen (Hardcover)

I have never done an LGAT like est or Landmark Forum, though I have read some of their concepts and found them interesting. There was too much other, negative material to entice me into those programs. This book, however, puts forth what I understand to be the core teachings of those organizations, and I have found them powerful, challenging, exciting beyond belief. I disagree with the reviewer who thinks that you have to have had est training or the like to understand this book. It is written clearly, Ms. Goss defines all her jargon concisely, and she gets right to the heart of the matter of transformation (as opposed to change - a great distinction.) It is the best "self-help" book I have ever read and I highly recommend it far beyond the boundaries of business re-invention. As an artist, I found her concepts liberating, and as a person I truly do feel that I am in the process of transforming myself. And on top of all that, it coasts less than a tenth of the Landmark Forum Weekend seminar! My only complaint is that the book doesn't list discussion groups based around the information contained inside. Perhaps I'll have to go to an est or Forum site to have conversations about it...but I can't say enough about it.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for EST & Forum graduates, June 19, 1998

By 

Anthony P. Mayo "Tony Mayo" (Virginia near D.C., USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Word on Power: Executive Re-Invention for Leaders Who Must Make The Impossible Happen (Hardcover)

Tracy Goss has long been closely associated with Werner Erhard, the originator of EST and Landmark Education Corporation's Forum. I expect happy graduates of those programs to be very happy with this book (I am and I am). The book presents the central concepts of those programs very clearly and in a format designed to help business people put the "distinctions" to work immediately. I doubt, however, that a person not trained by the author or another of Mr. Erhard's colleagues could get much sense from these pages. It can seem to be merely jargon and wild promises unless you have actually put the techniques to work for yourself with the assistance of a coach.

For people experienced with the methods, this book is an effective refresher and spur to action. A friend and I read the book at about the same time and immediately formed a mutual support program employing its ideas, along with structures from the courses I teach. We are getting exciting results. I recommend the book to anyone eager to transform their lives from survival to adventure.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is the BEST, April 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Word on Power: Executive Re-Invention for Leaders Who Must Make The Impossible Happen (Hardcover)

This book, and Steve Chandler's "17 Lies", would be the only two books you would ever need in your life if you wanted to learn how to be both POWERFUL and very, very happy. Tracy Goss succeeds in doing what no one thought could be done.....she has taken the MOST useful and exciting teaching from the Landmark Forum and made it accessible to everyone in this fine, fine, book. Werner Erhard should be very proud of this. Her book shows you EXACTLY how to reinvent yourself, anywhere, any time, no matter what your past history was. She shows you how to gracefully step outside of all past influences on your current life and reinvent yourself anew ANY WAY YOU WANT TO BE. Most self-help books cheer you on, but don't tell you exactly what to do. Tracy Goss does it all. Read carefully, read slowly, read as if you had a life-threatening disease and THIS was the cure.