Customer Reviews

Zapp! Empowerment in Health Care: How to Improve Patient Care, Increase Employee Job Satisfaction, and Lower Health Care Costs

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Many people fail to focus on whether or not their message is received. More effective people focus on whether the message is received as they attempt to improve communications so their company can be more successful. ZAPP! also focuses on WHAT message is received. As the book shows, a perceived message can be dispiriting or empowering.

I liked the fact that the book spent as much time on explaining about bad communications as it did on good ones. That is a great way to help people improve.

The only thing I did not like about the book was that the end led into a sales pitch for consulting rather than tips for how to pursue this on your own. It seemed out of keeping in a book about empowerment. Skip the last 2 pages, and you will be left with a better taste in your mouth.

Buy, read, think about, apply, and share this book and the lessons above with your colleagues. That will help you get heart-warming results to go with the heart-warming feeling that reading this book provides. Enjoy!

Zapp! is a book that my company uses in the management training seminars we give to employees who are taking on management responsibilities for the first time. Lessons on empowerment are told through a fictional (even science fictional) story of managers at a large company coming to understand why their organization is so disfunctional. The story, although initially pretty hokey, serves nicely as a landscape upon which to illustrate extremes of highly successful and highly unsuccessful management techniques. The people on my team who have read it have learned quite a lot and are applying the learnings regularly. It is not at all uncomon for one of them to raise a concern over some a counter-productive management incident by describing the "Sapp!" that occured. And it is rewarding to hear one of them respond to a positive and empowering interaction by smiling and simply saying "Zapp!"

I highly recommend this book for people managers and leaders who want to build a healthy business organization based upon ownership and leadership.

Written in the form of a fairy tale, this book provides situational examples of issues that greatly affect employee performance, attitude, and motivation. It's a quick easy read, one that details situations most readers have undoubtedly experienced at work. It's wacky, funny, enlightening and entertaining. Once you get zapped you'll remember just how simple empowerment and motivation can be, and have some tools to improve your organization.

This short book is really one of the best I've found for winding a manager through the dynamics that can disrupt a team. I went through an 18 month management training course and still come back to this book more often. Managers can inspire their teams or deflate their will to keep giving their best. This book uses a fictional world to illustrate how to do that.

For our leadership class at college, this was one of the books we had to read, along with "The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People." I remarked, upon receiving it, that it was quite a thin book. But it demonstrates such an economy of information that it is certainly the equal of books many times thicker.

This book illustrates good management practices with a wonderful story that I think may be as great a benefit for educators and authors as it is to managers. It employs an educational principle that I had only seen before in foreign language teaching: that wild, vibrant, creative imagery can make things easier to remember. And the more ridiculous, the more memorable. Also, it illustrates the importance of metaphors. Indeed, the Ralphalator described in the book is, in fact, a metaphor generator for interpersonal relationships. These metaphors put the reader on the same track of discovery as the characters, who find themselves with a wonderful new way to explore their options and examine the results. I'd even go as far as to say that this book could be used in high schools to explain what metaphors are, and what makes them such a strong literary element.

With that in mind, I'd really really really like to see the Ralphalator used to examine the world of dating. The third dimension is almost certainly inadequate to explain such a concept.

Great, super, couldn't put it down! I carried it in my car with me in case I had time between sales calls. I have used this book for the whole company, sales, store operations and office staff. It was perfect. It started a real conversation between my associates. The best thing that happened was we all saw a differnt side to what we do. This book does more for staff attitude and performance than any of those trainers/speakers ever did.

It is the perfect tool for non-profit groups. Get more done with your community service time.

This book got a big build up by my prof, so it's not surprising it didn't quite measure up, thus no 5 star. You have to like allegorical illustrations, you have to have a bit of an imagination, and you should have some work experience. Don't go into this book looking for data or illustrations from life or statistics. It's a morals tale for the new business world--you may learn something from it as you would reading Aesop or Brothers Grimm, but don't look for an epic or a treatise. Good readers can finish it in under 2 hours. The hard-headed should probably not waste their time (enpowerment, bah, humbug!) The rest of you, relax and enjoy.

When I first started reading this book I was not sure what to expect. I wasn't all that excited about the fairy tale setting. As I read on I found myself suprised at how much I could relate to the situations being described. After reading the book I think the Fairy tale setting was great because it helps you visualize more the way others feel and how you may not recognize that from the outside. I think this was a very good book with some wonderful ideas and insight. I would reccomend it to anyone who has trouble relating to associates from a management standpoint or just associate to associate.

The author took a different approach to identifying all the nuances associated with employee/management relations, and its interface with the concept of employee empowerment. I was impressed with the fantasy world forum he created to illustrate his empowerment points. He cleverly created a parallel between the fantasy world and the real world; mirroring each world's activities, and allowing me, the reader, to visualize in my mind the points of each world, and more importantly, visualize the differences in a familiar practical context. Too often, these books are extensive lectures, providing hoards of information, but running the words and concepts together in rapid fire form.

Zapp! provided a real life organizational scenario, familiar to all whose ever had a less than desirable manager, and illustrated an alternate organizational reality; one clearly attainable and understandable, and complete with the real life obstacles common to many companies. Whenever comparing two approaches to the same problem, I will be influenced by this author's ability to state the same moment in time in two mediums, governed by differing rules. It is akin to providing the alter egos common audience, to be reviewed, questioned and compared. To visualize both together, and have the ability to observe the manifestation of cause and effect from different perspectives, is fascinating, and handles the `compare' function without saying compare. I thought the differences identified by the contrast of the two worlds were thoroughly explored, and gave a clear visual of the organizations being compared. This was important, as I found myself feeling the frustration of the main character attempting the implement the new ideas derived from the fantasy world. I felt in tune with the challenges he faced in remaking his group's behaviors. I thought it was very effective to go through the mistakes encountered by the main character in implementing the changes. Every mistake experienced, resulted in a journey back to the information source (the fantasy world), which helped reinforce the concepts, as well as, illustrate common barriers to be encountered.

I appreciated the book's perspective on the implementation of the concepts. It did not portray a smooth and easy approach to the empowerment culture. Nor did it indicate any overwhelmingly taxing event. It walked the fine line of explanation and realization, without intimidation.

Having worked for too many bosses who are micro-managers, I wish this book was required reading for all such managers. This book, although lacking in realistic settings, is nonetheless a good read. Managers can't expect employees to be excited about their work if they don't have Ownership of their task. How many times have I been given a project to do only to find out that I've been left out of the analysis phase of the project. All information is on a Need to Know basis, and I obviously don't. What do I do for a living? I'm a programmer/analyst.