Synopses & Reviews
Here's a business book that gets right to the problem that plagues so many organizations: Even the best performers are spending less than a fraction of their time doing great work or work that leads to great work-the kind of innovative work that pushes business forward, stretches creativity, and offers true satisfaction. The rest of the time (50 percent or more) employees are treading water with good work-the work that keeps the business going but will never move it ahead-and are mired in bad work (upwards of 25 percent of the time)-the endless meetings, the energy-draining bureaucratic processes. Michael Bungay Stanier, Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006, is a business consultant who's found a way to move us away from bad work (and even good work), and toward more time spent doing great work.
This inspirational, motivating, at times playful book uses fifteen short, thought-provoking exercises that effectively force the reader to look at what his or her work really is, and find ways to change the mix. The exercises, called Maps because of the quick, visual way they lead the reader from A to B to Z, begin with defining great work-assess your personal bad-good-great ratio; tap into the power of role models; analyze those moments when work turned into a flow. There are maps that explore personal creativity and inspire brainstorming. And maps to help put ideas into motion, including how to structure time, how to elicit help from members of your team, even how to navigate an idea through the organization. And along the way, there are tips for clearing time to move away from bad work-including how to use the drama triangle of transactional analysis and stop being a rescuer who takes on other people's problems, and how not to say no, but how to say yes more slowly, making sure you're doing what's most important.
Review
"If I had to pick a person to have dinner with, when I need to be prodded and challenged..., I'd pick Michael Bungay Stanier. He has an ability to shake our tree and make us more conscious and responsible. And the best part--he makes it easy and fun."
--David Allen, bestselling author of the Getting Things Done
Review
"This book may be little but the idea is big.
Do More Great Work will help you think bigger about who you are and what you offer the world."
--Michael Port, author of The Think Big Manifesto and The Contrarian Effect
Review
"Great work really does come in small packages! This little book is a dynamo of 'great work truths.'"
--Marshall Goldsmith, bestselling author of What Got You There Won't Get You Here
Synopsis
A Canadian Coach of the Year provides twelve short, thought-provoking exercises that effectively force the reader to look at what his or her work really is--and find ways to change the mix.
Synopsis
You work hard. You put in the hours. Yet you feel like you are constantly treading water with "Good Work" that keeps you going but never quite moves you ahead. Or worse, you are mired in "Bad Work"--endless meetings and energy-draining bureaucratic traps.
Do More Great Work gets to the heart of the problem: Even the best performers are spending less than a fraction of their time doing "Great Work"--the kind of innovative work that pushes us forward, stretches our creativity, and truly satisfies us. Michael Bungay Stanier, Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006, is a business consultant who's found a way to move us away from bad work (and even good work), and toward more time spent doing great work.
When you're up to your eyeballs answering e-mail, returning phone calls, attending meetings and scrambling to get that project done, you can turn to this inspirational, motivating, and at times playful book for invaluable guidance. In fifteen exercises, Do More Great Work shows how you can finally do more of the work that engages and challenges you, that has a real impact, that plays to your strengths--and that matters.
The exercises are "maps"--brilliantly simple visual tools that help you find, start and sustain Great Work, revealing how to:
- Find clues to your own Great Work--they're all around you
- Locate the sweet spot between what you want to do and what your organization wants you to do
- Generate new ideas and possibilities quickly
- Best manage your overwhelming workload
- Double the likelihood that you'll do what you want to do
All it takes is ten minutes a day, a pencil and a willingness to change.
Do More Great Work will not only help you identify what the Great Work of your life is, it will tell you how to do it.
About the Author
Michael Bungay Stanier is the founder and senior partner of Box of Crayons, a company that works with organizations, ranging from AstraZeneca to Xerox, to help them do more great work. A Rhodes scholar who earned both arts and law degrees with highest honors from Australian National University and an MPhil from Oxford, he is a popular speaker at business and coaching conferences, and was named Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006. He lives in Toronto.
SETH GODIN is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. His book Permission Marketing was an Amazon.com Top 100 bestseller for a year, a Fortune Best Business Book and it spent four months on the Business Week bestseller list. It also appeared on The New York Times business book bestseller list. He lives in Westchester County, New York.
Exclusive Essay
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