Customer Reviews

Make It So: Leadership Lessons from Star Trek the Next Generation

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Maybe it's just me, but I found the "leadership lessons" in this book painfully obvious... one does not need to be a born leader to understand, for example, that "if one fails to listen to what another is saying, one will often fail to properly respond to what has been said".

Additionally, I found the Star Trek metaphor used rather clumsily, from the continual references to "the Starfleet" (which got on my Trek nerd nerves) to the ending of each entry with "Make it so". I would have preferred more insight into leadership and less attempts to sound like Picard.

While this book was pleasant to read, I simply do not find it that useful. One would be advised to look for leadership lessons in the past (perhaps from Confucius or Sun Tzu), rather than in a fictitious 24th century.

I was excited to see this book about one of the most skilled leaders (albeit fictional) I've ever observed. Each episode of Star Trek TNG it seems has extremely valuable lessons in leadership. Over the years, these lessons have added up to a huge knowledgebase of situational leadership. However, this book did not really capture the essence of Picard's leadership skills, nor even provide an entertaining read. It is written in the first person-- which is just plain odd to read -- as Picard makes entries in his personal log explaining why he is the leader he is. I think Picard explaining his leadership philosophy is what really kills this book. I suggest just watching the TV series in re-runs and drawing your own conclusions about the leadership lessons of Picard. This book is fun for the bookshelf, but it won't unlock any key insights into the art of leadership.

I bought this book based on how much I love Star Trek. Big mistake. It's not at all insightfull, or true to the spirit of Star Trek.

Each chapter is mostly a summary of a particular episode, written from the perspective of Captain Picard. Disapointingly, the account doesn't sound at all like Picard, and doesn't add anything that we didn't see in the episode.

At the end of each chapter 'Picard' gives a few dot points on leadership. But these sound like generic managerial 'rah rah'...

Really bad book.

This was an entertaining book, combining my love of ST:TNG and my professional career. As an IT project manager, I'm always seeking new ways to understand my job and my people. There are valid business lessons to be gleaned from the stories. It is an easy read, fun to see how the basic concept is wrapped around the context of a particular episode.

My daughter, who works at the local library, rescued this from the trash bin since she knows what a Star Trek nerd I am. I sure wish I had read this book before the time my boss was kidnapped by a rival company and tortured to reveal our business secrets. We launched a daring and ultimately successful rescue attempt. He eventually recovered, but he was kind of weird around the office for a few months afterward.

Seriously, this is a dumb idea for a business leadership book. It was kind of fun to read the recaps of 9 Star Trek:TNG episodes, especially since I read this book just now, many years since TNG went off the air. By really, business leadership lessons?

The idea to create a series of essays on the topic of leadership "written" by the fictional character of Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the USS Enterprise, in itself is quite original. Alas, the execution is awful. You get a series of episode summaries, some rather vague thoughts on what lessons can be learnt from these - and then, at the end of each chapter, a collection of pretty much "plain vanilla" leadership principles. I don't think the captain would have tolerated this kind of sloppy work on his bridge. Dismissed!

When I read that this bookm was coming out, I was extremely excited. I have always thought that the Picard character was a wonderful model of a leader. I also have received much from other management books using metaphor.

When I purchased the book I was very disappointed. The topics were obvious at best. I was expecting the author to draw conclusions based on many episodes. Instead, only a handfull of episodes were covered.

As a die-hard Star Trek fan I really enjoyed this book. I think the authors got a real feel for speaking through Jean Luc Picard. The only reason I'm not giving this book a full 5 stars is because of the unnecessary and boring forwards that come at the beginning of every chapter. We don't need to be told at the beginning of the chapter what a great leader Picard is, we find this out from reading the chapter content itself. Also, I'm not sure how someone who is totally unfamilar with Star Trek would respond to this book.

Overall, as someone who has owned two businesses and now teaches, I found much of the advice very helpful, and this book is a great way to re-experience and get a different perspective on some ultra popular Star Trek episodes. I definitely recommend this book to any Star Trek fan whose is interested in not only becoming a better leader, but also performing better in the work place.

Especially insightful if you are familiar with Star Trek. Each of the lessons picks up an episode and speaks to the leadeship exhibted by the crew of the Enterprise. Easy to read, simple to understand. Check it out!

Even if your not a frequent follower of the Star Trek series, the lessons throughout this book are very relevant to the leadership characteristics of a successful business. In short, you've hired people to do a job, let them do the job.