Who's Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success--and Won't Let You Fail (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Exclusive: Dr. Mehmet Oz Reviews Who's Got Your Back

Mehmet C. Oz, MD, is the author (with Michael F. Roizen) of such New York Times bestselling books as YOU: The Owner's Manual, YOU: Staying Young, YOU: Being Beautiful, and YOU: On a Diet, and the health expert of The Oprah Winfrey Show. He is professor and vice-chairman of surgery at New York Presbyterian Columbia University and the medical director of the Integrated Medicine Center and the director of the Heart Institute. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of Who's Got Your Back:

So many of us are caught in a constant tug-of-war between work and wellness. Keith Ferrazzi’s Who’s Got Your Back offers a strategy to execute on your most ambitious plans without costing your happiness, well-being, or sanity--in fact his program promises to enhance them by building deeper, more supportive relationships. Ferrazzi offers a nine-step approach to building what he calls “lifeline relationships,” an inner circle of deep, trusting peer support partners who serve as advisors, cheerleaders, and accountability watchdogs. These are more than colleagues, more than friends--they are true, caring comrades in arms who respect you enough to tell you like it is. The gem of this program is that Keith pays attention to the mechanisms that have been proven to make change stick--a striking difference between most self-help programs and Ferrazzi’s signature “let others help.” What’s more, with Who’s Got Your Back you’ll create relationships that are meaningful well beyond your shared success--a rare and welcome gift in the world of professional development.

From Publishers Weekly

Six years ago, author and management consultant Ferazzi wrote Never Eat Alone, about networking and developing empathy with clients; since then, he's founded his own company (Ferazzi Greenlight), and the challenge has taught him the value of "a group that cared about and encouraged" him, "totally infused with excitement, optimism, energy, creativity and hope." Trying to recreate the dynamic interactions that defined work at his former employer, Deloitte & Touche, Ferrazzi discovered that, in every sphere of life, fostering a "peer-to-peer collaborative process," based in interlinked support groups, creates a safe space where criticism, accountability and self-correction flourish (think Weight Watchers or Alcoholics Anonymous). This bit of understanding, Ferrazzi concludes, is something "great leaders and peak performers throughout history have always known," and his lively, anecdotal style welcomes average readers to the practice of building "lifeline relationships." Though Ferrazzi's upbeat spirit is encouraging and his lessons valuable, an over-emphasis on the ideal ("There's nothing inherently nonsupportive about today's corporate culture") fails to address many hard realities facing today's American worker.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Broadway Business (May 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385521332
• ISBN-13: 978-0385521338
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,455 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as Never Eat Alone, June 20, 2009

By	Thomas J. Bates "putlovr" (New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book was o.k. and all in all worth reading. However to me, the good concept could have probably been conveyed fully in twenty pages or so. The concept is to form a personal board of directors/advisors, not necessarily family or friends but people you can trust to give you good and honest advice and direction, and that this group can change over time. Not an exactly new concept but a good one. The previous book, Never Eat Alone, had a similarly basic concept--the value of networking--but for me, the elaboration, illustrations and anecdotes in that book were more valuable.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Back Support, June 12, 2009

By	M. Josephson - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I usually hate this kind of book. By page 20, the blinding insight is delivered and then the next 200 pages just repeat it. Not here. Keith draws you in quickly but then keeps deepening his points. By page 205, I was more absorbed than I was at page 20. (The profiles of various types of people whose personal glass ceilings get in their way (section 3) was priceless. I re-read it three times, then tried fitting everyone I know into one or more of them.)

Keith uses an interesting device to keep the reader engaged: he makes you complicit in his own mentoring or "lifeline" process, as he calls it. Far from lecturing, he is often, and very appealingly, an imperfect student of his own insights. Severals times I found myself saying "Keith, you are doing it again...". Just as his treasured lifeline people must do. This quirk really makes his point and lets the reader immediately relate to the value of what he suggests.

I read this book at an interesting time: finding myself at a personal plateau with no obvious mentors and, as well, being asked to mentor someone whom I had no clue how to help. This book was very provocative for me on both fronts.

24 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars We all have a dream ... we all need a dream team!, May 19, 2009

By	Tami Conner "Instructional Designer" (Virginia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Why you should read this book:

1) The Four Mindsets: Intimacy, Generosity, Vulnerability, Candor
This follows up on the mindsets Ferrazzi explored in his first book, Never Eat Alone. Building relationships, and repairing relationships, using these mindsets will greatly enhance and fuel all types of relationships, and increase your chances of maintaining strong, successful alliances. These four mindsets are core to building trust.

2) Building a Dream Team: We all have dreams, and we need strong relationships to help us realize those dreams. Once we've accepted that conducting our relationships through the lens of the four mindsets contributes to our success, building a dream team to help us fuel our success is the next logical step. Ferrazzi outlines nine steps to building a dream team. Not sure if the steps work or not, since Ferrazzi doesn't present hardcore evidence that actual, real live individuals have used these steps successfully, but Ferrazzi's nine steps includes many practical and tactical ideas that logically should work, and seem worth trying.

3) Holding Each Member Accountable: Without accountability in the group and among individuals, teams become lazy, complacent, loose focus, and derail. Ferrazzi does a nice job of explaining safe ways to implement accountability measures into your organizational, or dream, teams.

What I Didn't Like About This Book:

As was the standard in Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi does lots of name dropping. In Who's Got Your Back, my eyes again glassed over with all the name-dropping. Ferrazzi's message would have been much stronger and clearer without all the lip service.