Customer Reviews

Miller's Bolt: A Modern Business Parable

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Miller's Bolt is a gem! This is one of the best business/psychology(ish) books that it seems nobody has read. It's a story, a parable, about a guy at work. He's got a family, lots of responsibilities, and recently lots of frustration. At work, things aren't going as well as they have in the past, for our man Jim Manion. Jim has a history of outstanding achievement at the company, however, his recent performance has attracted the attention of the CEO and other executives at the company.

Jim needs to change, he needs to work better with the team, and regain is star performer status. He's got two choices, stand his ground and assert that the problem is not with him, or dig deep within and make some changes.

He chooses the latter and confides in his friend Peter Miller. Over the course of a few months Jim and Peter work together to get Jim back on track. Throughout the turnaround time, the reader is exposed not only to Jim's trials and tribulations, but also to the thoughts and emotions of the executive team. The book demonstrates how Jim's situation affects family friend, co-workers, and those wielding the power of the ax. It's a brilliant work, full of fresh perspectives, insights, and techniques for bringing about change in yourself, or helping others to do so.

Millers Bolt is a fictional story that gives concrete advice on how to view many aspects of interpersonal relations in the business world. In a nutshell, Jim Manion, our hero(?), learns that changing his attitude towards his peers can indeed drive his professional relationships in the right direction. If I had only known that years ago, I could have really made a difference in the ruts that I felt I was in. A must read for those who are disillusioned with their current jobs. It just might save your career.

Miller's bolt is an excellant parable about relationships at work. Jim Manion is one of the top performers in the management board of the company. But for sometime his productivity comes down considerably which puts him in defensive. Because of excessive defensive game, he starts destroying his relationships with his colleagues which takes him to the danger of getting fired. His family life also gets affected because of this condition. Peter Miller, helps Jim with some nice techniques to see the reality and stage a come back for rebuilding relationships which eventually makes him a winner again. Written in typical corporate environment, this book explains how project management capabilities can be used for any kind of project execution. This is a must book for all those managers who tend to feel more and more defensive about their work and start disliking their colleagues. This book presents a fresh direction which can help us understand our colleagues at work from right perspective and rebuild the relations for success.

Parables are a great story telling mechanism. This book provides the reader with relatable experiences, practical tips and a keen understanding as to how people view change.

The use of parables has become quite common for many writers and story tellers. In this book, the author, Thomas Stirr, employs a story to illustrate his main point that change comes from within each individual.

What was interesting is the story was easy to read and for many people could quickly relate to the experiences of Jim Manion, the main character, who is at a crossroads of his life, but he knows and yet doesn't know it.

With so many books on personal development, organizational effectiveness and change management, the story is quite refreshing in how it addresses these issues along with a few more such as team collaboration and relationships both personal and professional.

In many parables the character development is presumed, weak or takes an enormous amount of time, ink and paper to develop. This was not the case in this book. Very quickly the reader could identify not only with the main character but the other supporting characters.

As the story proceeded, turning each page was easier and easier. Additionally, the inclusion of practical skills such as visualization and affirmations supported the reader who might also be seeking some new strategies for improving his or her own life.

To give the storyline away would ruin the essence of the message within this book. For those who want to deal with negative individuals to just taking their interactions and consequently performance to that next level, Miller's Bolt just might support those efforts.

I liked the book. One of the confusing things was that the characters names were sometimes mentioned first name and in the next sentence the name was of the last name. The book was interesting.CJ

I am always looking for interesting business books that are told through story and have innovative and inspirational messages.
Miller's Bolt fits the bill perfectly! I really enjoyed reading the book and learned some effective techniques for both project management and dealing with challenging work situations & colleagues. Only sorry it took me 14 years to find this one of a kind gem! Thank you Thomas for writing Miller's Bolt!

This book has not only saved many a career, but it has saved many a reader.

Tom Stirr has the insights and wisdom of someone who "has been there" and in a style that will hold you to the story, you will journey along a path to greater understanding of the practices and principles that make for a successful life.

I have enjoyed recommending this work to many many people in the past 12 years and am looking forward to doing it all again when the new edition hits the stands. I can only recommend that you get both to enjoy the journey Tom takes you on.

Wow! I knew this was a book I had to read. Great story. I read with anticipation about repairing / re-establishing relationships with co-workers. But found straight-forward talk about project management and other encouragements and challenges. I have had a similar experience with the fictional Jim Manion. I only wish I had heard of this book earlier. It is a book that everyone should read regardless of their background or career. Great job on the "office politics" side also. It was interesting to get an "inside" view of the CEO and how she reasoned through and keep her view of what was right for everyone in place. I just loved it. I'm buying copies for my friends. Thanks.

Good story, great advice. If you or your team needs guidance or a different and practical way to look at things, then you should read this book. Sometimes we forget the basics of team work and dealing with people. This book helps to reintroduce concepts that we all learned and forgot along the way.

Where personal identification is yours to recognize, personal responsibility is yours to develop, and personal improvement is yours to live.