As Michael Bungay Stanier explains, "This book is the sum of my work with thousands of people around the world as a coach and facilitator. It uses just fifteen key tools - conceptual maps to help you identify what really matters to you, what drives the choices and the actions you take, and how you can get onto a path to more creative, motivated, and inspired work that's good for you and for those you work for." Presumably some purpose-driven people can be happy, content, and fulfilled by obtaining great wealth, power, etc.
As I worked my way through Stanier's narrative, I was again reminded of Teresa Amabile's admonition, "Do what you love and love what you do." In her various writings, she also stresses the importance of having a purpose that includes but is not limited to achieving personal goals. For Dave and Ulrich, this means "the why of work." For Simon Sinek, it suggests the imperative to "start with why." Stanier joins the discussion when expressing the first of six "Great Work Paradoxes": You don't need to save the world but you do need to make a difference...a positive, productive, beneficial difference. More about the other paradoxes later.
Stanier invokes the journey as his central metaphor and presents his information, observations, insights, cautions, caveats, and recommendations within the framework of a journey that involves both sustained effort (e.g. reflection, completing separate but interrelated exercises, maintaining commitment and focus) and significant discovery (i.e. revelations of what really is -- and isn't -- most important). The ultimate objective is to Do More Great Work. This is not a destination because the journey of discovery should never end until one's life does.
The reader is asked to complete a series of exercises in a sequence of 15 Maps, each posing a question. The first, logically enough, asks "Where are you now?" because "you need to know your starting point" and the last asks "Lost your Great Work mojo?" if and when "you wander off the oath." The 15 Maps are organized within Seven Parts: Laying the Foundation, Seeds of Your Great Work, Uncovering Your Great Work, Pick a Project, Create New Possibilities, Your Great Work Plan, and finally, Continuing Your Great Work Journey. It is important to note that Stanier immediately establishes and then sustains a direct, personal rapport with his reader and throughout the "journey" serves several different functions: instructor, mentor, travel agent, bodyguard, cheerleader, and for some of the "pilgrims" who read this book, he also serves as a mirror that offers reflections that may be unpleasant to behold.
With regard to the map exercises, Stanier offers four tips: (1) make them yours, (2) find five minutes in your day to work on them, (3) use the maps in the order that makes the most sense to you, and (4) don't worry abut getting everything perfect. As for the "Six Great Work Paradoxes," the first asserts that "you don't need to save the world" but " you do need to make a difference," followed by Great Work Can Be Either Public or Private, Great Work Is Both Needed and Not Wanted, Great Work Is Both Easy Difficult, Great Work Is About Doing What's Meaningful But Not Always About Doing It Well, and finally, Great Work Can Take a Moment or It Can Take a Lifetime. Here's my take:
1. Start now.
2. Do the best you can.
3. Keep doing the best you can.
4. Expect surprises.
5. If you get knocked down, get back up.
6. Keep going.
7. Review 3-6.
This is a visually stimulating book, with the material well-organized and exercises clearly explained. That said, I should also suggest that it really will require a great deal of rigorous thinking and therefore I strongly recommend that key passages be highlighted and reviewed frequently. Actually, this is not a book; it's a WORKbook. Bon voyage!
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Popular Highlights in this book
What can you do more of that makes a difference, shifts the balance, has an impact, adds beauty, changes the status quo, creates something worth being created, improves life, moves things forward, reduces waste, engages people, or allows love?Highlighted by 737 Kindle readers- The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.Highlighted by 579 Kindle readers
- Great Work is what we all want more of. This is the work that is meaningful to you, that has an impact and makes a difference. It inspires, stretches, and provokes. Great Work is the work that matters.Highlighted by 454 Kindle readers
About the author
Do the Work.. and it works.
If you actually DO the work that this book gives you every opportunity to do... easily and right IN the book in some places, you WILL do More Great Work. The downloads that accompany online give this book a lot more than it appears at first glance. I recommend you 1. Buy the book and an empty notebook to do work in. I recommend a good sized one at least 8.5 x 11. 2. Put in your calendar a period of time each week to work on it (better yet, do it with another 1-4 people as a way of supporting each other) and 3. Add a time in your calendar to just THINK about that week's work.... you will see fantastic results. Thank you, Michael. You truly add to my week with your wisdom and videos.
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2010
- Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2013
- Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2010
Top reviews from other countries
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PowerdocsReviewed in Italy on September 29, 2013
Sono troppo occupato per la recensione...non piú
- Stephen GreenReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2013
Working on your life
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Mia WallaceReviewed in Germany on July 10, 2012
Eine Empfehlung für jeden, der seinem Arbeitsleben mehr Sinn geben möchte!
- Gino GélinasReviewed in Canada on March 30, 2019
Exactly what I need and really fast shipping
