Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?Īnyone in business. I'll probably be recommending this book to everyone I ever speak to. You have to take a step or two outside your normal zone to really assess what is going on, but I believe that most people can learn a huge amount from this book and the way it has been structured with the story. I hope it highlights to many people out there, that our relationships need work, and our families and partners need our time, just as much as our businesses do.There are clear lessons to be learnt throughout this book and they can be applied to any business we might work for or own. Maybe that is more of a moral issue than a downside to the book. It's painful to listen to how he treats her, how he talks to her, but I guess that it might have been more normal behaviour for men back in the 80s. Also as part of a mixed class family with expectation to be married, have a family, work hard and move up the ladder.The only let down in the story for me and what I didn't like, was Alex Rogo's perspective of his wife's behaviour in the early stages of the book. 17 hours in three days!The storyline was very relatable for me as someone who has grown up in a family that is always looking to move forward and improve. I'm not much of a reader, so the audiobook, with all it's character voices, sound effects etc was incredibly easy for me to consume. Having worked in financial services for 19 years without this knowledge, it has dawned on me that I could have really benefitted from hearing/reading this book 10 years ago when I first wanted to get into management.
This book has highlighted so many things to me. Is this a must read? Absolutely, few books have had the impact this has on my perspective of management. The narration is first rate and the voice acting was immersive and sympathetically executed.
It made me realise that we need to have flex when it comes to capacity, and this is just as true in knowledge work as it is in manufacturing. Since I've read it I always ask myself ' What is the goal here?' whenever I am in a new project or even a business meeting, is it just to complete a project to time and cost? What is the bigger picture, how does this feed into the overall goal of the organisation? One part that really resonated with me was when two workers were idle next to a machine, and their supervisor had them start moving boxes from one side of the factory to the other - for what purpose? Just to they can be 'perceived' to be busy rather than contributing to the goal of the plant. Whilst the story is based on a manufacturing plant, and how their focus on efficiency was ironically killing their profits, it also has so many overlaps into a whole host of different industries.
This is one of those books that will stay with me for the rest of my working life.
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