Customer Reviews

Lift: Becoming a Positive Force in Any Situation

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You may have become numb to all the books, methods, systems, authors, consultants, and celebrities touting this or that idea that will change your life, bring you happiness, free you from the crushing chores of daily life, and throw in whiter teeth and shiny hair in the bargain. You would be forgiven for assuming that this is yet another of those books, but you would be wrong. Oh there is the catchy title that is also a metaphor and an acronym for the ideas the author is trying to share, and that is certainly the first impression you get with any of the normal books in the self-help genre. But for me, the similarity ends there. This book is about examining yourself and challenging your own motivations and responses to your life. There is no mechanism you can apply to avoid having to face your life and coast through it chanting some slogans as if they were mantras. Here you face deep and thorough self-examination from your harshest critic; yourself. But rather than beating yourself with a cudgel, the authors show you how you have bound yourself in chains and how you can remove them and find the freedom you think you want. Only real freedom can be intimidating because of its accompanying responsibilities. If you avoid them, you will engage in license and fall back into bondage.

Rather than talking about empowering yourself, the Quinns show you how to examine your habitual and well-worn responses to your life situation and take a fresh approach. Not to gain power over other people, or even to use power for good ends, but to use what they call "lift". The book uses flight as a metaphor for the mental and social processes they want you to recast in your life. They use it quite a lot and, I think, rather successfully. Of course, I can't take you through the whole book and work through all its features with you, but the core of the book that they use entire chapters to flesh out, are:

1) "What results do I want to create?" Almost all of us, at least I know it is too often true of me, deal with difficult situations by trying to get back to where we feel comfortable. We want to fix problems to get back to our life as it was before. But maybe we should be thinking about using the situation to see a new level of life, a transformed life for ourselves and those we love (or at least interact with).
2) "What would my story be if I were living the values I expect of others?" You will be shocked when you try to answer this question in a thoughtful way. You will see that much of what you (at least, I) do is motivated by external factors and often conflict with our true values and what we cherish most in life. This question points you towards becoming free to use your internal motivators by cutting yourself loose of those external chains.
3) "How do others feel about this situation?" Here you get outside your head and think about others and what you can do to best transform the situation by including them in your plans and efforts. The truth is that you will be happier by lifting others than by trying to soar through your life alone.
4) "What are three (or four or five) strategies I could use to accomplish my purpose for this situation?" Now you let go of your fixed responses and become open to fresh possibilities.

These four questions can help you achieve the lift the book is talking about. You don't need anyone to agree with you. You don't need anyone's help. In fact, the whole world can oppose you and yet when you achieve your own lift, you become such a positive force that others will find it hard to resist coming with you. You need no compulsion, no snappy patter, and no gimmicks. Just finding the source of your own lift in any situation will free you and those around you to transform any circumstance into an opportunity for doing good, experiencing vibrancy, and becoming profoundly connected to those around you and seeing your own life in terms of the richness you can bring to others because it makes your own life even more blessed.

The book has eleven chapters. The first two lay out the psychology behind the authors' thesis and their metaphor of lift. Three and four deal with being comfort and problem centered versus becoming purpose centered. Five and six deal with compromising our own values, even without our being aware of them, and replacing external direction with an internal direction that is consistent with our own true values. Seven and eight compares seeing others as objects versus focusing on them. Nine and ten talk about our normal resistance to feedback versus being not only open to feedback, but seeking it. The final chapter shows you how to integrate these principles into a power of lift in your own life.

The Quinns share experiences from their own lives (and the lives of others). They are quite frank about where they have failed, where their sources of pain were, and how they applied these principles. You might also be surprised that they admit the limits of lift. You can only lift yourself and invite others, but if they resist and want to stay firmly on the ground, well, there isn't much you can do but persist in transforming your own life. Maybe they will eventually catch on. Hey, it is very difficult to resist genuine love and attention for very long.

This is a very good book and I hope you can take the time to go through it slowly and thoughtfully. This isn't a book you can race through and use a couple of slogans as its message. Here, the most important aspects of the book are what your examination of your own life shows you in light of the ideas surrounding this metaphor of lift.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

I am shocked by the impact Lift is having in my life. I picked it up as a leisurely read, but before I knew it I was at the back cover. Now, when I am faced with situations where I would normally act out of habit (and receive the same old results), I find I ask myself the four questions the Quinns introduce. Every time, I am transformed and so is the situation. I feel empowered. Lift is accessible, entertaining, and powerful. It is both personal and professional. I find I refer to it often when I want to fly to new heights.

A wonderful book on how to be a person who tries to live a life of positivity- being a positive force in all you do. I started the book and found that after I put it down, I kept going back to it until I finished it within 2 days. The authors share with us their personal revealing life experiences learning how to be a positive force freeing oneself from the cognitive and emotional limitations of selfishness and self-interest to embrace a different way that by golly helps others and makes you even more productive. Reading this book gave me a "Lift" and I recommend it to anyone who wants to live a more positive life but who understands there is no silver bullet- it takes self-management, discipline, and hard work. But the Quinns show us the way with a good roadmap.

Ed Hess, Professor of Business Administration & Batten Executive-in-Residence, Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia

As the title suggests, `Lift' is an energetic new look at an age-old challenge: how do we live lives that count for something? That makes it relevant to everybody. The book delivers on its intriguing title by bringing together lots of smart thinking from the business world with everyday life. So its applications range widely from family life, to organizational leadership. Its genius is to wrap a theory of `lift' around the well known business model of the competing values framework; this makes it coherent and accessible. It is a very easy book to get into and to remember. The tour de force however is the stories that illustrate the main themes. They are human and real, and everyone of us can read our own lives into those stories. Perhaps most appealingly of all it successfully moves beyond the self-serving stance of many development books and takes an ethical view on influence. It is not just about how to live a successful life - it is about how to live a good life.
All in all, it is a fresh, succinct and utterly positive book

Tony Golsby-Smith
Founder and CEO, 2nd Road

What is striking about LIFT is that its reach and application are seemingly limitless. Whether you are a Fortune 500 executive or a parent or a student - if you are a person who wants to tap into the power of positive influence - this book speaks to you. The Quinns break down the science behind the theory in a way that is easy to understand as well as interesting. But more importantly, they go past the discussion of theory and science behind positive influence, and outline a series of actionable steps - questions - that individuals can remember and ask themselves in any situation to help affect the outcome in a positive way. For me, this roadmap that the Quinns provide is the true genius of the book. I've found myself referring back to these simple, introspective questions in situations that I would never have expected. I truly recommend this book to anyone who wants to access that intangible force of positive influence.

Drawing on the history and science of flight as a metaphor, the Quinns not only explain each of the four principles of "lift," but also demonstrate how all of the principles need to work together for positive results to occur. Two chapters are devoted to discussing each principle, with a list of practical suggestions concluding each discussion. The book ends by exploring how to integrate these principles in our lives.

I found the book inspiring yet practical, complex yet accessible. While it was written by business professors and consultants, its ideas can certainly apply in personal, family, congregational, and community situations as well as in business settings. Congratulations to the Quinns for an excellent contribution!

Lift: Becoming a Positive Force in Any Situation

Have you ever met someone whom you just admired for being such a positive force in others' lives? Have you ever wondered about why they were so positive or what process they went through every day in order to stay positive and impact the people around them? Some people just have a magnetic personality that gives off an energy that makes the people around that person believe they can do anything. Lift is one of those books that empowers you to be that positive force. It challenges us to determine what our purpose is, whether we focus internally or on others and whether we are open to improve in whatever it is we are trying to do. The great thing about this book is that although it is grounded in social science, the personal stories of the authors and characters are stories that we can all relate to. The book actually gives practical examples of how Lift works. This makes the book hard to put down. As I read it, I started to relate to several of the stories and finished it within a weekend. I highly recommend this book.

Quinn 2 followed in the footsteps of his father as did Covey 2 with Speed of Trust. I call these books Airport Reading, or Coporate Buzz Books. The messages in these books are solid, in this case lifting to the spirit. The reality is despite all of the research, the book lacks real substance and poses some anecdotal evidence to the claims and ideas.

Quinn notes the ever popular book Good to Great by Collins. While always a good laugh, one must simply ask how many of these eleven companies are still great, if not sub-par? And in 2009, Quinn should know not to cite this book with such reliance. It would also be critical to note that this is kind of light reading that appears to document other light reading, thus claiming some level of false scholarly work.

The author continues to doublespeak in that in one chapter he notes that people reflect the modes and attitudes of those around them. That is fair enough, and is documented with plenty of studies. BUT, the author then goes on to say it is self focused not to stop by and help someone who is negative and chatty. But then further contradicts himself by noting that listening to these people can poison an organization. Quinn makes valid points about reflection and disease to an organization, but simply did not check his logic when adding in the empathy argument. Plus, there may be a human factor involved here, which he did touch on in the first part, but forgot in the next chapter. He loses the point here.

And to equal the failure of Collins, Quinn uses an example empathy with Stakeholders with the BankBoston endeavor to yield to federal pressure to reach out to poor inner cities with a new bank called First Community Bank. He notes how this bank took off and did wonderful. But like Collins, he picked a loser in the medium to long term. Unlike Collins, Quinn should have simply googled BankBoston to see if they took any bailout monies.... Poor research at best, but it keeps loyal to Airport level reading documentation.

Quinn has a valid point in his work, and cites many good stories and research projects in it. The problem of any book on this level, one must suspend their knowledge of the world, and try to remember it is a light read, meant to convey an idea of Lift, not to prove anything sound or scholarly. Not a rush read, get it when it goes on sale.

I had to read a book on leadership for a graduate-level course. As someone w/a background in psychology, I am always hesitant as so many books come off as self-help fluff. I was very impressed with this one, though. It provides a research-based foundation for reflection on one's own behavior in order to be a force of Lift - of positive leadership and action - to others. Other leadership approaches may be layered on top of this. Without Lift, the other approaches won't work, as Lift speaks to being genuine to self and others through you thoughts & actions. You will not be sincere without it! Highly recommended!

The writers did their homework - this is a thoughtfully written, easily accessible book for anyone who is ready to truly be a positive influence in the world. It is applicable to family life, school life, work life, and recreational life. It reflects the power in all of us to invite change rather than force it. Remember the parable about the sun and the wind? The wind wanted to prove his power -- and he bet the sun he could succeed better than the sun in getting a man to take off his coat? The wind blew and blew, but the man just held on to his coat that much tighter. Then it was the sun's turn - and he just beamed. The man was ever so willing to shed his coat! Lift lives up to its name and gives practical ways to be true to ourselves, and allow us to "beam" with integrity and insight for positive change. Thank you, Quinns!