Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
From ordinary task to cool, sexy, memorable WOW! projects, 5 Feb 2003
Tom Peters is an ex-McKinsey & Co. consultant, who become a management guru by being the co-author of business super-bestseller 'In Search of Excellence' (1982). He has written several books after that huge success, but nothing has come close in quality. This (little) book is part of his 'Reinventing Work' series.The aim of this book is to make us "believe that work can be cool. That the work matters." The reason? "Work - yours and mine - as we know it today will be reinvented in the next ten years." Perhaps you believe this, but I do not. Yes, we can make work and, in this case, projects more interesting. Tom Peters comes up with a list of 50 ways how to do this. The list is split up in four parts: (1) Create; (2) Sell; (3) Implement; and (4) Exit. Each of the 50 ways raised consists of a short introduction, the main point ("the nub"), the impact, and some examples and quotes. Most of the 50 ways are quite interesting, but they could have been cut down to some 25. I always feel disappointed when I have to write a negative review, but this time I have no choice. Tom Peters is a famous management guru and an excellent motivational speaker. I feel that he tries to bring his famous energy from his seminars across by using plenty of capitals, wild colors, abbreviations, and exclamation marks. But it just does not work (for me). There are some interesting points, but he would have been better by producing a video of his seminars or writing a proper book - like 'In Search of Excellence' (1982) - on projects. For people interested in projects and project management there is plenty of choice elsewhere. Although the book is small and consists of only 200 pages, the book is not that simple to read due to its format and structure.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Turn the Mundane into the Sublime -- WOW!, 8 Dec 1999
By A Customer
This book is Pilgrim's Progress for those who head up projects (which will be more and more people as organizations downsize and outsource). I liked the way that Tom Peters shows that everyone can make every project meaningful and a valuable, worthwhile contribution. This is a wonderful gift, and one that all can benefit from. Tom, when you redo this book (and with your theory of fast prototyping, I assume that this will come out next month), I think you missed a big opportunity -- helping people pick the project to work on that will make the most difference. If you subscribe to the 80/20 rule, then 20 percent of the projects will make 80 percent of the difference. By picking the right areas to work on, you can multiply your influence by more than 20 times than if you pick the low-potential areas. That is like getting to live 20 times over in one lifetime. Wow! I agree that high potential projects often come disguised as unimportant ones. A good companion book for this one is The Fifth Discipline, to help you understand systems thinking so that you can pick the areas to work on that will influence everything else. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook and the Dance of Change also have very valuable ideas for running projects. Having spent my working career running projects, I especially subscribe to his notion that projects should have a stealthy beginning, so that you can have the freedom to create what is really needed. Too much publicity and money too soon are killers. I found the advice to closely parallel my own experiences and those of best practice cases that I study. This is a very valuable book for anyone who wants to make a difference. I also recommend the other two books in the series, Brand You 50 and Professional Service Firm 50. Thanks for sending copies to me, Tom Peters!
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4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Transform YOUR world of work!, 7 Jun 2000
By A Customer
In search of simplified excellence. This great pocket size guide will help anyone who wants to make their daily work count more. Peter's talks about WOW products and services and this book is an illustration of his walking the talk. On reading the first half I had a dozen new ideas for immediate application to my own latest project - creating exciting handbooks to accompany a series of consulting, service, sales and facilitating.com workshops - within just 2 days these ideas are paying dividends. If you are ready for revolutionary approaches to impact your business performance buy this book now.
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