Patterns of High Performance: Discovering the Ways People Work Best [Paperback]

Jerry L Fletcher (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1881052702 | ISBN-13: 978-1881052708 | Publication Date: January 1, 1993

Everyone can be a high performer, according to Jerry Fletcher. Not just in occasional, heroic bursts of success, but consistently, in everything we do. It's not a matter of imitating star athletes or successful entrepreneurs. In fact, you just have to be fully yourself at your best. The key to energized performance, heightened creativity, and consistent excellence lies in discovering our individual high performance pattern. This is the distinctive sequence of steps we naturally follow when we are at our best: when we feel enthusiastic; when work flows easily; and when results exceed our expectations. Through 16 illuminating case studies, Jerry Fletcher shows how people can discover and apply their high performance patterns to sustain outstanding results in a variety of complex, real-life situations, such as choosing the right person for a job; finding ways for individuals and teams to get the job done faster and better; improving problem relationahips; and reducing time spent on supervision, control and checking up on people.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Managers and business consultants are forever forming theories about what makes people work better. Fletcher, a California-based consultant who eschews any particular "it" because individuals are different, interviewed people "about times when they had experienced doing something extraordinarly well." Using this data, he here breaks down the "consistent and unique sequence of specific actions" an individual follows "when achieving his or her personal best." Fletcher presents his techniques along with case studies analyzing characteristics of effective managers, organizational realities, motivators and individual patterns of behavior. Can high performance profiles be developed and utilized by everyone? Fletcher thinks so. But the fact that his procedures rely on the cooperation of participants and have no quality control mechanisms to ensure consistency makes this is an interesting but underdeveloped study. 10,000 first printing; $20,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Some books by management consultants offering advice on how to get ahead in the business world do provide results, though many more seem to be written to promote the author's name and company. Fletcher is himself a management consultant and is, indeed, promoting his firm's program for increasing an individual's performance. The difference is that he isn't stressing how a person should change but instead showing how a person can discover his or her own unique pattern of high performance. He also gives numerous case studies showing how this insight can be applied. Interesting, practical, and unique, this work is recommended for larger public and academic libraries.
- Robert Logsdon, Indiana State Lib., Indianapolis
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers (January 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1881052702
• ISBN-13: 978-1881052708
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,104,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great coaching approach., November 7, 2003

By 

Michael Chiodi "author, The Art of Building P... (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Patterns of High Performance: Discovering the Ways People Work Best (Paperback)

One of the assumptions in this book is that clients have "high performance patterns." This assumption goes along with what the relatively new field of professional coaching assumes -- clients are creative, resourceful, and fully capable of high performance. The "trick" is to discover what those high performance patterns are. The authors use client stories to draw out these often hidden patterns. I think that's a simple approach that can build deep personal awareness. It's from both this awareness of how one operates best, and the selection of appropriate roles that are a good fit for one's personal high performance patterns, that individuals can truly perform at high levels of excellence. One caveat with this approach, the analysis required to recognize high performance patterns might not be an easy thing for many people to do. Yet, it's very much worth it to look for them. Often, asking several others what they see about your strengths is a great shortcut.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars career consultants read this, August 22, 2001

By 

Coert Visser "solutionfocusedchange.com" (Driebergen Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Patterns of High Performance: Discovering the Ways People Work Best (Hardcover)

In this original and relevant book, Jerry Fletcher describes how each person has a consistent an unique pattern of high performance. This high performance pattern is a precise description of the unique sequence of steps that an individual consistently follows when he or she carries out an activity that has highly succesful results. The book shows how high performance patterns can be identified and how they can be used (for instance in making career choices, understanding and correcting performance problems and solving conflicts). The book is a joy to read (many examples) and is very recommendable for career consultants.

4.0 out of 5 stars Patterns of High Performance, January 30, 2011

By 

cr - See all my reviews

This review is from: Patterns of High Performance: Discovering the Ways People Work Best (Paperback)

great shipping and quality of item for a great price. The book is wonderful for coaches and people interested in appreciative inquiry. I recommend it.