Customer Reviews

The Milkshake Moment: Overcoming Stupid Systems, Pointless Policies and Muddled Management to Realize Real Growth

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

 

 

I liked this book. It had the feel of a printed copy of a well-written and well-organized blog. The points made will usually make sense, but sometimes you will have to stretch your mind to get them. Arguably the six sections the book is split into are really chapters. And the chapters are really just point headings in those six sections. The sections and chapters in this book are titled as follows:

I. The milkshake moment
II. Foster "grow" versus status quo
III. Put purpose before profit
IV. Insource crucial judgment
V. Address the "people problem" problem
VI. Care for customers

1. It was a dark and stormy night
2. Half empty or half full?
3. This is not a customer service book
4. A brief history of organizations and man(agement)
5. Toddlers and trust
6. Some shocking behavior
7. Lessons from the cubicle farm
8. The managed
9. The led
10. It's never about money
11. The wizard of westwood
12. Profit pushers
13. NoClu Motors, Inc.
14. Purpose in the plan
15. You gotta serve somebody
16. Edicts made on high
17. Peeves from below
18. Participatory policy making
19. How `bout them promegranites?
20. Come harter or high water
21. The people problem polka
22. Eric's excalibur
23. Why people work
24. Home team drops the ball
25. The big secret to great customer service
26. Even geniuses struggle to serve
27. It takes a hero
28. The future is already here ... some folks just aren't getting the memos

The author says at page 14 of the book "A milkshake moment is a brave individual action, be it big or small, that furthers the cause of growth." This book is designed to help the reader develop the actions and attributes of a true growth/change leader. Organizations (companies) can grow if their leader or leaders encourage creativity, flexibility, and openmindedness of subordinates. They'll grow, change, and improve if they have lots of people who have the capacity to recognize and respond to opportunities. That's the message of this book.

What is this book really about? Well, if you want your company to overcome stupid systems, pointless policies, and muddled management, then consider giving this book a read. Your company will only recognize real growth if it can overcome these things. 4 stars!

Steven Little explains that "a Milkshake Moment is a brave action, be it big or small, that furthers the cause of growth in an organization. Milkshake Moments materialize when individuals understand the organization's true purpose, honestly believe it is their job to fulfill it, and are given the tools and the freedom to make it happen." These remarks remind me of what William L. McKnight, then CEO of 3M, said in 1924: If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room they need." In stagnant organizations in which little (if any) room for initiative is provided, Little acknowledges that a would-be growth must possess "the guts to stand up and say, `This idea is contrary to everything we say we believe.'" That's a Milkshake Moment.

My take on this book is that Little has written it for two separate but related audiences: One consists of would-be growth leaders whom he encourages to take whatever initiatives they sincerely believe are required by what their organization's stated values; the other consists of their senior managers who must create and then sustain a culture within the workplace that encourages, recognizes, and rewards Milkshake Moments. These senior managers must also be growth leaders who "clearly communicate an organization's true purpose and grant individuals permission to do whatever can be done ethically to achieve it."

Long ago, Andrew Carnegie hired Napoleon Hill and directed him to interview the world's most prominent businessmen and learn the secret(s) of their success. Carnegie paid him and all of his expenses. He also wrote letters of introduction for Hill who then began a two-year assignment. After completing the last interview, Hill returned to the United States and met with Carnegie to report on what he had learned. He was especially interested in knowing what the businessmen shared in common. Hill's response? They all went "the extra mile."

Contrary to what this book's subtitle may suggest, it is not always possible to overcome "stupid systems, pointless policies, and muddled management to realize growth." In those instances, if the initiatives of would-be growth leaders are discouraged and perhaps even punished, they need to leave that organization and join another. In this context, it is worth noting that during exit interviews of highly-valued employees, one of the major reasons they cite for leaving is a lack of respect for their supervisor and a lack of faith in the organization's integrity.

Little includes dozens of especially interesting stories throughout his narrative to illustrate, indeed dramatize his key points. One of his recurrent themes is the inability and/or unwillingness of senior managers to recognize the nature and extent of damage that results from the "fences" they maintain around the minds, hearts, and souls of those for whom they are responsible. If not exactly the "toxic" leaders that Jeanne Lipman-Blumen and Kenneth Gangel so brilliantly discuss in their books and articles, they are nonetheless barriers to growth and expediters of the stagnation to which Little frequently refers.

I appreciate Little's Snap! Crackle! & Pop! writing style as well as his passion to help prepare would-be growth leaders to cope with what James O'Toole so aptly characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." I agree with Little that significant growth does not always require major changes. Last year, Toyota implemented more than one million ideas generated by its production workforce. Most involved minor refinements to improve quality or to eliminate waste. I hope that many of those who read this book are owners of small companies or work for such companies. I also hope that they read it carefully and, while doing so, think about all the opportunities they have each day to share a Milkshake Moment with fellow workers and, especially, with customers. My final hope is that those who have such moments also share them with Steven Little by contacting him at www.stevenslittle.com.

This is an interesting, well-written book worth picking up. It's easy to read with short chapters and contains some interesting, and at times funny, insights into the world of processes...especially bad processes (those that bind the hands of employees/organizations).

The book's entire premise is that while processes are necessary and provide value to an organization, you should make sure they allow `wiggle' room for individuals who use those processes. This wiggle room is necessary to allow people to be creative and innovative in how they solve problems. Most organization's don't stress that employees be creative and use processes at the same time...they'd prefer that an employee 'stick to the process'.

For example, the book uses the author's attempt at ordering a milkshake from room service at a fancy hotel. The hotel didn't have milkshakes on their menu and the room service personnel didn't quite know how to handle the request. The author asked if the hotel had milk, ice cream, a bowl and a spoon...the answer was yes. The author ordered these items and made his own milkshake.

The author uses this simple example to point out that the room service personnel were stuck in a process and just because they didn't sell milkshakes, they couldn't provide one and didn't have a `process' in place to get one to the author.

The book provides a good overview of what it means to be process bound, but also steps into the role of trying to teach the reader how to take simple actions to change these processes to follow a more common sense approach.

A professional eNewsletter I am subscribed to featured this book earlier this spring. It was a quick blurb, and the book sounded fantastic! My company's library added it to their collection at my request and let me borrow it first... having read the entire book, I must now profess disappointment. I was left underwhelmed. Sure I like the cultural references, and Steve is not without his humor. But on the whole, I felt this was a jumble, Steve gets on certain soap boxes (jailer study results; WW II Nazi rant) that to me didn't add to his presentation, just distracted from it, and left me scratching my head about his core points. In another section about an automaker, he comes off pissy about how he was not hired to consult for them. His concept via title sounds great, his execution was lacking. Sorry Steven, you left me with a glass and some whole milk when I wanted a skim milk full milkshake!

I skimmed to page 100 before ripping the book apart to make sure I didn't give it to the local library. I gave up on page 35. There in a chapter that ends with the exhortation to be authentic, the author gives us the the acronym TRUST for 5 distinctive growth leader attributes (attributes, now there's an inauthentic word). The S stands for sensitive. The author points out that the word has many definitions but the one the author means is perceptive. Well, the authentic word for perceptive is perceptive but TRUPT just isn't as cutesy as TRUST.

From it's inane Mix it up! to its disintegrating EXTRA TOPPINGS ), the latter like the bonus rooms in poorly conceived houses, the book is a contrivance. The milkshake moment is so watered down by the fifth reference to it that it loses its meaning, and that makes it the perfect centerpiece for this book.

I apologize to my dentist for telling him about this pap before reading it. I hope he hasn't spent any of my fee for pulling a tooth on a copy. I'll send him this review and hopes it deters him. If not, he can add the price of the book to his fee for the crown he'll do for me.

A quick, easy read but lots of good "extra toppings." Could have inserted the name of the company I work for in too many of Steven S. Little's examples, particularly NoClu Motors, Inc. Appreciated knowing that I am going in the right direction but also appreciated the warning that risk takers face daunting odds.

This book had some interesting points, but most of them I had heard before. The main idea I liked was that managers need to be able to lead. Most managers don't.

Just got done reading Mr. Little's second book and what a great read for any business leader. No doubt the title Milkshake Moment catches your attention and that is not where it stops.

I am an owner of a small business and after reading Steven Little's first book I could not wait for the second. Steve gets to the points quickly and confirms it with real life stories and not theories.
The book makes you re-think all of your process and how you approach problems and business issues. Without question this book keeps your mind thinking so that when that moment comes our organization is prepared. One of the stories that just jumps off the pages and really makes you realize that it can happen in any industry has to be the one on Pomegranates. This alone make the book worth reading.
I will be making this a must read for all EMPLOYEES (to often leaders stress Managers) but this is 1 book every employee should read and can truly help the organization.
If you are working in any size organization I would highly suggest you read and pass onto the next person.

William Binder

Little makes some excellent points in this book, and provides valuable insights. He also provides a decent number of chuckles. I especially like his clever cultural references, such as "Stairway to Freebird" and "Who Moved My Customer's Chicken Soup?"

However, Little stumbles in some places. Interestingly, two of those are culturally-oriented.

He starts off the book talking about an incident in which he called Room Service and asked for a vanilla milkshake. The reply from "Stuart" was, "I'm sorry, Mr. Little, but we don't have milkshakes." Little then asked the man for a glass of milk, a bowl of vanilla ice cream, and a long spoon. Stuart brought those to the room and with them he made a milkshake. Little then used this incident as evidence that the hotel is a victim of its own stupid policies. As the reader, however, I didn't know what a milkshake was. I don't believe I've ever had one. If you had shown me one before I read this book and had asked me to identify it, I would have been unable to. So, I'm with Stuart on this one.

The second stumble is Little's references to professional sports. This is a common failing in the business book world--the assumption that all serious business people watch professional football, basketball, and baseball. I have never watched any of these. This particular cultural area is a specialized area of interest, not a universal one.

Another place he stumbles is his statement at the end of Chapter 7, "Systems can, at best, only deliver inefficiency." He would have been correct to say something like, "Systems are the tools by which engaged people deliver results, not the other way around." From his earlier comments, the reader can determine that his point was that you can't rely on systems alone. But this statement doesn't make that point. In later chapters, he illustrates his "real meaning" in examples. In fact, he shows how some systems are profoundly inefficient (and what simple things can be done to fix them).

In Chapter 8, Little talks about "Office Space," a movie that illustrates profound dysfunction. I lived "Office Space." In 1999, my (then) girlfriend called to say she had just been to see the movie "Office Space" with a friend of hers. She was sure the movie was a documentary about our workplace. So, I watched the movie and agreed. As she had pointed, even the company name was almost identical. Every character in the movie had a direct counterpart in our company. The list of dead-on accurate items was long. Not long after the movie came out, our company's senior management made it very clear that we could not discuss "Office Space." The company's response would have been perfect material for the sequel, if one had come out.

Little uses many examples, not just a movie and a hotel experience. Some of these are from his own experiences as a customer, some are from his consulting work. All of them are instructive. Some are hilarious.

"The Milkshake Moment" consists of 28 very short chapters. They have titles like, "Lessons from the Cubicle Farm" and "Peeve from Below." I would characterize this book as a series of magazine articles. But let me clarify that. A good magazine editor will plan out a series such that each article stands on its own. It "connects" with the others, without rehashing. When a book reads like a purposeful series of articles, as this one does, you end up feeling satisfied instead of overstuffed at the end of each chapter.

For a business leader, this construction is perfect and easily fits into the typically fragmented schedule. Little talks in this book about identifying and meeting a need. The very structure of this book does that for the target reader.

Little's style is upbeat, he's occasionally witty, and he has something to say in each chapter. That could make "The Milkshake Moment" a plug for his speaking engagements, but this book isn't self-serving in that way. It focuses on providing the reader with a "takeaway" in every chapter. Just to make sure that happens, Little closes each chapter with "Mix It Up!" (a reference to mixing a milkshake). That "Mix It Up!" provides a concise lesson from the chapter, though several chapters provide multiple insights and "Ah Ha!" kinds of things.

The book doesn't provide any formulas for achievement. It doesn't even cover all of the bases. What it does do is get you thinking about how you may be a slave of unnecessarily complicated processes. Are you missing the whole point of doing your job in the first place? How can you tell?

Today's business leaders (and those working on being leaders) are flooded with book recommendations. Some of those titles are good for some people and situations, and not good for others. I think The Milkshake Moment will be appropriate for just about anyone who holds a job anywhere. You can read this book without a huge investment in time, but the ROI on that time could turn out to be very high.

This book is pretty much what one of the other reviews suggested that it was good stories but not much in terms of giving an action plan.