Get Everyone in Your Boat Rowing in the Same Direction: 5 Leadership Principles to Follow So Others Will Follow You

One of the biggest problems in business is getting everyone pulling in the same direction. The larger the organization, the more diverse the goals and aims of the different departments. This is a delightful book that gives some great ideas to make sure everyone is pulling in the same direction. The book presents five principles which any business needs to follow to ensure that its people are all pulling together. The first question to ask is "What is important here? What are the values of the individuals? The business?" The second question to ask is "Where is the busines headed? You must create a common vision based on shared values." The third question to ask is "What do we stand for? Who are we?" You need to concentrate your focus. Trying to stand for too many things means you stand for nothing. To be successful you must learn to fall in love with risk. Most managers shun risk. No risk no reward. You need to learn to view risk as a positive force. This certainly does not advocate taking foolish action. But learn to understand risk. To be successful you must learn to motivate people. The leader cannot mandate a vision. A leader must get everyone in the business to buy into the vision. The book is easy to read. It is well written and contains lots of examples. It would be helpful to read periodically to keep the ideas fresh.

Books about vision and mission are usually excursions into the ether of fine thoughts and noble thinking. I appreciated how Boylan reduced these concepts to very practical concerns and actions that once expressed will get an organization effectively pointed in the same direction. This is a book I recommend to anyone who needs to get an organization from here to there, when the group is unclear about which "here" and which "there" is intended.

I have used Boylan and the concepts from his book, at both KPMG Peat Marwick, and ARAMARK. Bob's ideas work because they are understandable, memorable and realistically actionable.

Leadership isn't a commodity, but a process - one that Bob Boylan lays out clearly, step by step, so that almost anyone can follow it and put it immediately and successfully into practice in their own organizations.

I learned more about leadership principles from this simple little book than from all the weighty tomes on the shelf. Boylan has distilled his thoughts on discovering and communicating vision, vales and mission, a subject that I feel is currently overthought and underdelivered. I highly recommend it to business consultants, CEOs, team leaders, self-help groups, schools, families. The author's practical, simple and profound message can help cure the sense of directionless that many of us are feeling. Great read, lots of fun, tons of wisdom