Book Review: Repeat The Remarkable By Perry M. Holley

Summary of Important Points

The book “Repeat the Remarkable” is written by Perry M. Holley, who is program director at IBM, as an inspiration out of an experience while leading teams towards achieving organizational goals. The author focuses on achieving remarkable performance and highlights that achieving a remarkable outcome do not offer insight for continued performance if an organization settles out of contentment from what they have achieved. Within the context of the book, Perry M. Holley asserts that being good is no longer good enough (Holley, 2014).

Therefore, for an organization to maintain a competitive advantage, more effort should be incorporated time after time amid success by ensuring consistent delivery over the long haul. The book does not only give a theoretical approach towards attaining remarkable results, but it also offers tools and procedures that enable corporate stakeholders to adopt remarkable mindsets and pass the same to the team that they lead (Cameron, 2012). In this regard, the author’s model which was formulated out of his experience as a team leader at IBM depicts how remarkable choices can become the hallmark towards the establishment of concrete and functional structures for continuous excellence in any field.

The purpose of the book is to offer acumens on the parameters that organizations ought to undertake in order to remain relevant and on top of the rest, and this trickles down to the administrative leadership. The book acknowledges the fact that the success of the management of a working group usually depends on many variables: the environment, motivation, knowledge of the members, and in delegating and delivering functions. The purpose has been clearly highlighted in the sense that the author focuses on resilience in leadership positions through institutionalization of ideologies that drive success and aid in placing an organization on better platforms in maintenance of a competitive advantage (Holley, 2014). The purpose advocates for routinely high performance and the desire to constantly maintain that top-notch position often used as a parameter for discerning great companies from fairly performing ones.

 The target audience are the stakeholders who are mandated to implement the strategies meant to compel an organization to scale its heights and keep running full throttle. The aforementioned aspects enrich the contents of the book with groundbreaking measures which dwell on a proven model for remarkable execution of activities. Based on these ideas, institutions stand an opportunity to compel their organizational perspectives towards success by striving to make a difference, not accepting average performances, and viewing challenges as new gateways to victory (Hafeez, 2012).

Addressing Purpose and Audience, Authority, Accuracy and Reliability, Objectivity, Currency, and Coverage

The book is a primary source of information. Primary sources often involve an interpretation of events especially by a witness who was involved. The account of events of the book were written later by Holley who witnessed the ideology of repeated remarkable performance while working at IBM and how it proved functional.

The author has adequate qualifications given the fact that he was the Director of Leadership Development at IBM who implemented the strategy. He displays his expertise through three building blocks for success to avoid which include foundation, framework, and functionality. Foundation is instituted on the definition of goals and their purpose while framework involves exceptional behavior, discipline, and preparation for action (Holley, 2014). Excellence and character is what defines performance based on functionality.

The sponsoring agency is McGraw-Hill Education which has licensed and reserved the rights of the work from getting decompiled, modified, or sublicensing it and publishing for the purpose of selling. The work has been cited in other works such as William Shakespeare’s, “Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.” (Holley, 2014). Additionally, Darren Hardy, CEO and New York Times bestselling author of The Compound Effect cited Perry as remarkable in his work.

Jack Zenger, Coauthor of, “The Extraordinary Leader and the Inspiring Leader,” quoted, “One of the demons that overcome individuals and organizations is complacency,” as utilized by Perry to bring out a powerful metaphor regarding the value of discipline. The bibliographic details are not presented in the book but the information presented is trustworthy because the rights of the book are reserved by McGraw, a reputable organization.

As the title of the book suggest, the author wants to carry the audience through a step-by-step analysis of the plans necessary for attaining self-remarkable performance and those of the organizations. The aim for this study is quite appropriate since these perspectives can be applied across all spectrums in life. Considering all factors, the opinion presented is factual and appropriate because through the plot, the author makes reference to customer services, clients, or the audience to whom people ought to be remarkable and how the idea is extended to households as well (Clark, 2008).

The evidence presented to reinforce being remarkable and repeating remarkable is credible because the author shares the facts from his past experiences as a leader at IBM and how he learned to be remarkable and led the organization to achieve it. The information being instilled in the audience is current since it sends an awakening call to organizations that need to enhance and maintain a competitive edge at this current epoch that going remarkable cannot guarantee continued success, but the desire to practice the culture of repeating remarkable is healthy for any firm amid the high competitions in the global spectrum (Holley, 2014). The current research and findings are adequate since the lessons acquired are applicable to any organizations whether SMEs, large corporations or even within the context of a family unit.

Identification of Interesting Things Learned and Applications in the Workplace

For example, it is important that the leaders of the organization inform their collaborators of what the rules of the game are, of what is the role that each one must develop, of explaining how each one contributes with his work to the achievement of the objectives, always in a totally transparent to achieve the commitment (Schmiedgen & Hasso-Plattner-Institut fu?r Softwaresystemtechnik 2015). These objectives must be in line with the strategy that has been established in the organization and must be controlled in their evolution and achievement through the indicators appropriate to the balanced scorecard. Planning and acting as planned will lead to a feeling of respect for one’s work and towards the one developed by the rest of the team.

Non-planning will lead to improvisation that will not guarantee the desired results. This harmony achieved by working as a team will allow to increase the performance of work and the effective use of this important resource called time. Combining the achievement of both, the process of continuous improvement will be something natural in the day to day (Roberts, 2007). The motivation to do things well and develop personally and professionally can be achieved by preparing appropriate training programs, as well as personalizing career plans in the key people of the organization. In addition, people should not forget that practicing assertiveness, active listening and empathy will make it easier for communication channels to work efficiently and lead us to achieve our goals (Liedtka, Bennett & King, 2013).

The book adequately covers all its topics because the Model for Remarkable has been employed to ensure sufficient coverage of the details without leaving out the soft spots. To support this, the author has utilized all sets of tools and processes geared at developing remarkable mindsets from a tender age (Holley, 2014). Omissions are not acknowledge because there is need to integrate all the provisions provided by the structures involved across all areas of life to enhance this agenda.

Thus, the book profoundly contributes to the field because today’s business environment is hypercompetitive due to the completely unpredictable market niche (Hargreaves, Boyle & Harris, 2014). Therefore, trying to remain good and relevant without engaging good remarkable in performance will cost the firms because it will lead to inconsistency. However, it is important to note that leadership is a difficult subject to address, because leaders do not abound and because the environment, economic factors, technology and competition are always changing (Sibbet, 2013). This requires a leader in constant renovation and adaptation (Stickdorn, Schneider & Andrews, 2011).

The most interesting things I learned about the book is that it attempted to take a holistic approach towards leadership. Unlike other books, the author attempted key variables influencing success. The book, for example, revealed that the success of the management of a working group usually depends on many variables such as the environment, motivation, knowledge of the members, and in delegating and delivering functions. Based on this, when presented with management issue, I will have to consider all these variables in order to diagnose the problem.

I would recommend the book to anyone willing to succeed in life’s ventures because it is a package of ideas that helps one develop a mindset of self-drive and also offers some facets for leading others to greater heights. I have learnt success is not always sufficient or remarkably good unless more effort is employed to bolster success to aid in meeting a competitive edge. Notably, I have transformed my mindset to suit the ideologies of remarkable performance now that it does not only apply to firms, but it is channeled down to family sets and every individual.

References

Cameron, K. (2012). Positive leadership: Strategies for extraordinary performance. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Clark, R. C. (2008). Building expertise: Cognitive methods for training and performance improvement. John Wiley & Sons.

Hafeez, M. H., Rizvi, S. M. H., Hasnain, A., & Mariam, A. (2012). Relationship of leadership styles, employees commitment and organization performance (a study on customer support representatives). European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences, 1(49), 133-143.

Hargreaves, A., Boyle, A., & Harris, A. (2014). Uplifting leadership: How organizations, teams, and communities raise performance. John Wiley & Sons.

Holley, P. (2014). Repeat the remarkable. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

Liedtka, J., Bennett, K., & King, A. (2013). Solving Problems with Design Thinking. New York: Columbia University Press.

Roberts, J. (2007). The modern firm: Organizational design for performance and growth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schmiedgen, J., & Hasso-Plattner-Institut fu?r Softwaresystemtechnik. (2015). Parts without a whole?: The current state of design thinking practice in organizations. Potsdam: Univ.-Verl.

Sibbet, D. (2013). Visual leaders: New tools for visioning, management, & organization change. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Stickdorn, M., Schneider, J., & Andrews, K. (2011). This is service design thinking: Basics, tools, cases. Amsterdam, The Netherlands : BIS Publishers, Amsterdam.