Term Paper on "Guts! The Book Guts: Companies That Blow"

Term Paper 4 pages (1389 words) Sources: 3 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Guts!

The book Guts: Companies That Blow the Doors off Business-as-Usual, by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, is essentially a "how to" book centered around making a company a success with creative thinking put forward by fearless leaders. The central thesis in this book is that by treating employees like gold instead of dirt, by empowering workers to build your brand and by making them far more than just "satisfied," companies will make more money and save the money other companies spend training their new employees because of high turnover.

The reason the companies featured in this book have become successful is because the leaders in those firms put an end to "fear-based management." The authors have written an entertaining book in which they pull no punches about their over-riding philosophy: Gutsy leaders have "bravery and vision" which enables them to "dismantle fear-based management" and replace it with "heart, soul, discipline, loyalty, humor - and long-term record profits."

The concept of strategic leadership is alive and well throughout this book. This is a thoroughly relevant book vis-a-vis strategic leadership in business. Leading a company in today's global and highly competitive market requires forward thinking and the ability to link the various components of an organization into a strong culture that absolutely believes in taking chances rather than settling for the old ways of doing things. The authors have examined a number of successful businesses - where management had the "guts" to step out of the box and design a strategy that makes employees feel important and loved - including Southwest Airlines (which they also featured in Nuts, their first book), Whole Foods, Starbucks, and many more.

Classic strategic leadership is practiced at Whole Foods; it's "gutsy founder and chief executive" John Mackey has "largely given over the operation to his employees" (Freiberg, 69). What that means is Mackey has somehow trained his employees to "think and act like owners" (Freiberg, 72). The authors explain on page 78 that just offering profit sharing and stock options isn't enough; "You must educate them," Freiberg writes, by "demystifying the language of business." And it goes beyond that too at Whole Foods; every employee's salary is posted for all to see. There must be a sense of progressive thinking and openness that is part of strategic management's mantra, where the boss teaches workers how to "bend, stretch, or even break rules that don't serve the customer."

The theme of this book should work well in almost any business. For instance, Chapter 4 describes how to hire people "...who don't suck," which is a common cliche but the authors go into great detail about strategic hiring. Before hiring people to fill responsible positions - and this portion applies to any business in any sector of the economy - a company should define "what it takes" to be a "great employee" in that company. The money saved by keeping employees instead of constantly hiring and training new employees can add up to enormous sums.

Mark Hendricks - writing in the journal Entrepreneur - points out that the Freiberg book offers good advice on how a company can succeed with "unusual, visionary, courageous and sometimes outrageous approaches" (Hendricks, 2004). But a company cannot succeed by just offering employees perks like "on-site fitness centers" and "free dry cleaning" to "retain and inspire employees." Instead, the idea in hiring is to put forward something "truly heroic" in what the company does and then make certain that "every employee knows what it is." By teaching employees to think of their company as their own, and by inspiring them to be heroes within the company, the company is likely to keep employees longer.

In the Library Journal writer Carol J. Elsen suggests that Guts offers a formula for making successful companies by creating leadership within the entire workforce. This is a radical switch from what many companies do with regard to their employees. Creative managers understand that employees should not be treated "as cogs in a wheel but as human beings with the potential to connect with their customers and transform their companies while having fun in the process" (Elsen, 2003). The writer was impressed by… READ MORE

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