Customer Reviews

The Secret Life of the Corporate Jester: A Fresh Perspective on Organizational Leadership, Culture and Behavior

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Sure, you've seen all the terrific reviews about The Secret Life of the Corporate Jester, but what you're not reading is how fantastic Dave Riveness is as a facilitator and trainer! After reading his book and sharing it with my team, we enjoyed it so much that we invited Dave to join us for a leadership development event. Dave's dynamic, interactive learning sessions brought to life the entertaining stories, effective exercises, and thought-provoking questions in his book and enabled us to realize the potential of uncovering blind spots. Thank you, Dave, for inspiring new ways of thinking and guiding people to do the right thing.

After you read a book, a good book, something sticks with you. What sticks with me is the author's idea of blindspots. We all have them. The question is do you have a jester to help you see them?

"The Secret Life..." uses analogy and story to highlight an opportunity to be our own jester and seriously reflect on our behavior.

Wish I had learned how to do this earlier in my career!!!

Keith Lewis

President

To Point B

If you've ever wanted to get past the gatekeepers to the Truly Big Cheese in your organization - or somebody else's - read this book. And if you Are that Big Cheese, read the book too, because otherwise you'll never know where to go, and whom to ask, to find out what's really going on in your organization and how to fix it.

This is a great read for sitting on the beach or waiting for your plane to stop circling and land at LAX. And you'll find out that don't have to wear a funny hat to be a jester.

One of the hardest things in any organization, whether you are the leader or the admin, is to point out the pink elephant in the room. Sometimes we see the elephant but we don't want to name it. Other times, like playing an organizational game of hide and seek, we know there is an elephant in the room but we can't find it. David Riveness gives us the tools we need to find the elephant and have the difficult conversations that hold us back. He teaches us how to give ourselves and our employees the PERMISSION to name the elephant. Who new that organizational culture change could be so fun?

I do nonprofit management consulting and the notion of jestership really gets at what is often at the core of breakdowns between executive directors and their boards....no one wants to be the jester. David's book addresses head on what isn't being said in the organization that should be said, how board chairs and executive directors could take on the vision and the actions of a bold jester. I am so inspired that I am using David's book as to shape two upcoming training!

On a personal level, I am the consummate jester but I have often allowed the judgments of others to cloud my best judgment, to tone down my style because it doesn't fit with the traditional view of how coaching and organizational development works. Who says you can't laugh and lead? Why not keep the FUN in nonprofit FUNdraising? David's book has given me a deeper understanding of why I am effective in my work and the words to articulate to others how I can play and go deep at the same time, producing measurable and often significant organizational change in a mood of lightness and play.

So, to David Riveness, thank you for a wonderful and fun approach to leadership and organizational change! in lightness, gretchen

This is a brief but important book for anyone concerned about the propensity of most organizations to focus more on pleasing the higher-ups than on telling them what they need to hear.

The book draws on the centuries-old tradition of the court jester who it turns out was the one individual who could tell the king (or queen) the truth about the goings-on within the castle. Humor became a way to soften the "tough love" messages the jesters so often conveyed.

As author Dave Riveness puts it on the back cover, "True jesters have the rare ability to uncover and address hidden blind spots in thinking and action that negatively affect companies, organizations, and individuals."

Riveness wrote the book itself as a fable, and underscores his message and advice by retelling several well-known stories and fables of organizational leadership, conflict, and disaster using his concept of corporate jestership. Among the retold stories are such classics as Snow White, the Cat and the Fox, the six blind men and the elephant, the weakness of Achilles. The jester perspective sheds all kinds of new light on the important lessons to be learned from these familiar tales.

This is an easy, and even compelling, read. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

I work in a frontline customer service role and I have been having much more fun at work (and so have those working with me!) since reading this book. Very useful in helping me see how I can have fun and play with problems and issues that I notice in myself and others on the job. Much better than getting all stressed or upset about them! The stories and fables are simple yet illuminating -- if you allow them to percolate for a few days, you will come up with some fresh insights.

I had the pleasure of seeing Dave Riveness in action during a program he gave in Moscow, Russia in 2006. He is a highly skilled speaker and trainer, and has a phenomenal grasp of issues dealing with management, leadership, and the honest identification of the strengths and weaknesses of an organization. I was so impressed by the program that I immediately read his book. "The Secret Life of the Corporate Jester" IS INDEED a fresh perspective, and one which should be read and understood by anyone wishing to lead an organization into a new age in which the market is as global as the challenges faced.

This book is a quick and fun read that packs quite a unexpected punch. The concept of "Corporate Jestership" is refreshingly fresh and easily understood and leveraged. I read a lot of "business books" - this one stands above the rest. In fact, we have contacted the author about coming to deliver a keynote at an upcoming conference at our company.

A big recommendation!

This book gets to the heart of what HR should be working towards in an organization. Great insight into how to influence your organization and make a difference. Dave does a great job of making this a very easy to read book, while still enabling the reader to get a lot of insight. After being in HR for 15 years, it's nice to see something a bit refreshing and useful come out. I ended up buying copies for everyone on my team

In his book, David Riveness points out that leaders need to know the "unedited truth" to effectively move an organization forward. What I liked best about The Secret Life of the Corporate Jester was that it offered a fresh approach to organizational leadership while grabbing and holding my attention as I turned each page. His entertaining story and style show readers that a person in any position can help discover hidden blind spots so that positive action can be taken.