7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Okay, not great, June 18, 2006
The book covers three principles: Admitting you're stuck, Diagnosing why you're stuck, Getting unstuck.
It does provide an excellent insight into systemic repair using aspects of a system: Purpose (central), Strategy, Structure + Process, Metrics + Rewards, People + Interaction, Culture
There are many organizations that don't get this, and center their efforts on only one aspect. The book, I found, more applicable to senior or departmental management rather than individuals.
The conscious employee that reads this would become more knowledgeable (actually more valuable) than their supervisor. Using the knowledge in this book, they would then become threatening to insecure management (of which I would say most management is - merely because most people go into management not because they wish to help others succeed, but rather because they are simply tired of working themselves).
If you are going to purchase the book, purchase it for your department supervisor, CIO, CFO, COO, CEO as well. Otherwise you're going be seen as a problem raising such enlightened ideas in an unenlightened environment.
This, is not the fault of the book, but rather the structures of organizations.
The book advocates identifying informal leaders, making use of silent influentials. However, it also advocates cultural change activities that require the kind of power that only formal leaders have in an organization. The problem is that most dysfunctional managers will not be interested in change, they will not seek out this kind of awareness and if you (as a less powerful employer) try to bring things like progressive awareness into the arena you will be punished.
The problem I found with the book is that it is attempting to tell how you (a regular person) can institute change, but requires that you (as a change agent) have formal power within the organization - a very unlikely scenario, unless you are a progressive maverick type CEO.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good how-to guide for getting your team out of a rut, June 20, 2004
Unstuck is a great book for helping to get your team or your business back on track. Maybe you're not living up to your potential, or you sense there is a problem, but you're not sure what it is or how to fix it. With Unstuck, you first spend a little time diagnosing why you're stuck. The categories are explained really well, so it is easy to see where you fall. Once you know where your problem is coming from, there are over 100 pages of tools, techniques, and examples, including short case studies, that will help you get unstuck. What makes this book fun to read, in addition to the great design, is the fact that once you know what your problem is, it gives you page numebr for the ideas that will best help you. It is sort of like a choose-your-own-adventure book for grown-ups. Or you can read it all the way through for all of the ideas. The only thing that I wished were different was that I was searching for help getting out of a rut in my own life, and Unstuck focused on helping groups with problems.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top notch, June 17, 2004
By A Customer
I've actually read the book twice since receiving it as a gift (from my boss!). The first read took me cover to cover. On the second read, I "navigated" the book based on our organization's current challenges. I got the sense that this is how the book was written by the authors. For example, almost every page in the second half of the book contains 2-3 suggestions of where to go next based on how and why you are stuck. One of the final pages, cites "Recommended Paths" the authors have chosen for various types of being stuck. It's a brilliant book - whether you read it from start to finish or jump around. I recommend both!
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