Rise: How to be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life [Paperback]

Patty Azzarello (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 18, 2010

Patty Azzarello's RISE is like getting all the answers to the career final exam up front! It is a buzzword-free playbook with startlingly useful strategies for increasing your career value and satisfaction: DO BETTER: Discover the vital difference between working hard and succeeding. Have more impact. Deal with frustrating obstacles and stupid people. LOOK BETTER: Be visible, but not annoying. Good work doesn’t stand on its own. Build your credibility with the people who can help (or black-list) you. CONNECT BETTER: Develop your network without being political. Get an insider view of how to get on “The List” of people who get the best opportunities. Whether you are mid-career, transitioning, graduating, or going back to work after 50, with Patty as your personal mentor, you avoid dead ends, enjoy greater payoff, and suffer less on the way up.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Patty Azzarello became the youngest general manager at Hewlett-Packard at age 33, ran a $1B software business at 35 and became a CEO at 38 (without turning into a self-centered, miserable, jerk). Whether leading massive business transformations or advising CEO’s 1-to-1, her insights, integrity, and generosity have fused with her work to create life-changing impact on the careers of thousands of people in large and small companies across the world. Patty is a remarkably down to earth executive who has a rare gift for making you realize your success is more achievable than you ever imagined. This has made her one of the most highly sought after advisors in business today. It’s simple: When you work with Patty, you get better. Patty has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Sales, and Product Development, including Vice President and General Manager of HP OpenView, President and CEO of Euclid Software, and Chief Marketing Officer for Siebel Systems.

Product Details

• Paperback: 332 pages
• Publisher: Newton Park Publishing (November 18, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0615415776
• ISBN-13: 978-0615415772
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #905,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Executive, Author, Speaker, CEO-Advisor (not painful).
What is that business initiative that is so important you must not fail? Was it the same one last year? Are you stuck?
Patty works with Companies to improve their business execution and develop their leaders.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply the Best "Business" Book I Have Ever Read July 6, 2011

By MJH

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have started and stopped many, many a business book in my 20+ years in high tech. With the best of intentions, I started the material excited that I was on some path to enlightenment only to abandoned ship due to sheer and absolute boredom. I also seldom offer reviews (of any kind) but then Rise is not one of "those" business books.

I cannot recall, in a long time, a book so well organized, so thought provoking nor so damn relevant to today's business community as Rise. Ms. Azzarello speaks to the reader in plain, direct English with tremendous passion and purpose for the insight she provides. Insight and perspective forged from real experience. Experience that significantly "moved the needle" in leading, large-scale, high tech organizations where all too often real performance and how to achieve it is lost amid politics, power plays or just plain incompetence. Her style is genuine and casual. Like the ol' friend next door you've known for years. A friend, in this case, whom the reader comes to feel, really does want you to benefit from her advice and experience, both good and bad.

Whether you are an industry veteran or a recent college grad, you'll benefit from the value the book provides. Honestly, one of the best books, of any kind, I have read in quite some time.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Required/desired reading December 4, 2010

By Other Traveler

Format:Paperback

I read a lot of business/career books and they typically have 3 or 4 insights that I can take from them and use in my day job. I stopped folding pages back and highlighting passages in RISE because just about every page had a mark or a bent page...this book is that good.

Patty provides actionable insight on a more efficient and effective way to succeed in your career, raise your credibility and build a bulletproof network. RISE is required/desired reading for individual contributors and execs alike. Patty's insights are screamingly simple and extremely effective achieving a breakthrough in your career...to the point that I actually quote her book to friends and colleagues. All the sections contain valuable information, but if I were going to call out one item from each section that I've found the most valuable from a return on investment perspective based on Patty's book, I'd highlight these 3:
* Ruthless Priorities (Do Better): I can't tell you how many times I've been frustrated that team members "just don't get it!" Based on RISE I've changed the way I frame issues in terms of Ruthless Priorities that has had a measurable impact on the success rate of initiatives.
* Your Personal Brand (Look Better): Who do you think you are: The Innovator? Operational Expert? Closer? Who do OTHERS think you are is the more relevant question. Your brand is not something you just write down, it needs to be reinforced over time through deliberate behavior.
* Authentic Networking (Connect Better): Patty has a pretty pragmatic approach here and the best advice I've gotten from anyone regarding networking. Specific examples on how to leverage the people around you in a way that's value add for them in order to expand your network....

I can honestly tell you that the time you'll spend reading this book and putting it into action is the best investment you will have made in your career in a long time. Like the other review in this section, my only regret is that I didn't have access to this earlier in my career. Read more ›

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for people working hard but not yet getting career success December 3, 2010

By CH21HD

Format:Paperback

I really enjoyed this book.
Having read and re-read it, this really is like getting the answers to the career final exam.
I only wish I'd read it years ago. It would have saved me a lot of time and puzzlement.

This book is a real 'how to' guide for people that are working hard but not getting career success.

Unlike many "career" books, it is not full of platitudes about "visualize your goal" or "smile down the phone". This book combines practical insight ("As you advance in a company, success becomes less about the specific work you do and more about who you are as a person and a leader") with a template for building your own career success.

Writing in a quirky but obviously informed style, Patty Azzarello bases the book in her own, often funny, experience of what works and what doesn't when you are building a career, moving up the ladder or running an organization.

I loved the story of how in her first management job she turned around a struggling software organization but didn't get a raise because, in her bosses words, "no one knows you". As Patty makes clear, doing a great job is not enough - you have to make your work relevant to the people above you AND make sure they know about it.

This is real-world stuff. The book talks about the whole chain of how you get your first management job and takes you all the way through to managing, in her case, a billion dollar global business. Like she says in the section 'Executive Confessions - "It's OK to be scared. It's not OK to get paralyzed by it."

Highly recommended.
Rise: How to be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life (Volume 1)

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Plain-Spoken Yet Smart Guidance to Accelerate Career Success December 10, 2010

By Highly Opinionated Man

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

In "Rise," Patty Azzarello has done what no other successful executive before her has: analyzed, codified and recorded the steps and techniques required to achieve success in, and more importantly, to gain more fulfillment from one's career.

Patty provides a simple three-step program (1. Do Better; 2. Look Better; 3. Connect Better) one can follow in a prescribed and pragmatic, step-by-step manner. And she provides a measurable amount of the wisdom and specific guidance in a freakin' $19 book that one would pay many hundreds of dollars for in one of her in-person trainings. I would know this, because I've spent several hundred dollars to take one of Patty's training sessions. And I thought THAT was money well spent.

After reading this book, I'm buying multiple copies for my wife, friends and associates. Because it's a bargain. In fact, I don't think you'll find this type of counsel, written in plain-spoken language and designed to provide you a myriad of short cuts, anywhere else. I know that I haven't.