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The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life (J-B Warren Bennis Series) |  | Authors: Steve Zaffron, Dave Logan
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $15.82
as of 11/24/2009 18:57 CST details
You Save: $12.13 (43%)
New (38) Used (13) from $15.82
Seller: indoobestsellers
Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 2846
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 0470195592
Dewey Decimal Number: 650.1
EAN: 9780470195598
ASIN: 0470195592
Publication Date: February 3, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
When a hurricane warning is announced, everyone's concerns and actions become focused on that expectation; the hurricane essentially becomes the future which people are "living into." Similarly, when an organization needs to transform or make the leap to a higher level, everyone involved should be "living into" the vision of the organization's new, improved future. But in the majority of organizations, the future people are living into is based on past performance and experience, and so major transformation is almost impossible. Steve Zaffron is, CEO of Vanto Group which has helped hundreds of companies envision and effectively implement major change and performance improvement. Zaffron and Dave Logan outline this proven system for rallying all of an organization's employees around a new vision, and more importantly, making it stick. Their focus is on making such transformations permanent and repeatable, providing practical examples from Vanto Group’s clients such as Apple, Lockheed Martin, Reebok, BHP-Billiton, Johnson & Johnson, Morgan Stanley, and many others.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 38
 Performance with elegance and full ownership November 8, 2009
Mocanu Dan (Bucharest, Romania)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The book serves as a great reference about a completely new perspective regarding performance. The concept of performance is broadened here to cover any intention that is to become reality and that the way one looks at that which is to realized determines the outcome. The book describes the power of this approach through unquestionable breakthrough results obtained in a surprisingly short amount of time... but it takes something to develop change agents to become proficient in the new model for performance. While some old problems get easily solved in the new frame of reference, new problems arise such that the need for managers and leaders to move from solution driven management in which one propels the other to the solution, into an aspiration type of management which requires significant work in developing the listening skills to distinguish the paradigm of the individual performing and enable the performer from whence he/she is. This is not trivial work... but it can be done and it is worth it. Why not having performance with elegance and enabling people to be responsible for their own performance?
Great Book for OD Practitioners September 29, 2009
Willem Vinders (New York, NY USA)
The endorsements of this book alone impressed me, but what I really resonated with are the narratives of the companies and organizations featured in the book. By using these real life stories to illustrate "the three laws" the authors managed to engage me and I found myself taking a more critical look at my own organizations and the change efforts we have under way. This book is more than a good read, it is an exercise in new thinking about your organization and it's future.
 It's not that the leaders know it not. They do it not. September 27, 2009
ServantofGod
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
An alternative review title would be: Philosophical, idealistic, inspirational, socialist but not pragmatic. Obviously I had picked another. I do admire the authors for their pitching of those three laws which I truly believe are great for mankind. However, only a handful of gigantic corps can practise so as South West Airways with its famous "Shared vision/goals/knowledge and highly transparent culture". May be Toyota is another example. Sorry that I cant recall a third one at the moment. Even the authors in pg131-3 admitted, "One of the flaws of management in this day and age is that we fragment accountabilities and then everyone focuses on their own piece." People often see their role as making proposals and leaving the decision making and implementation to others. Often executives see their jobs as makng the hard decisions. Both sides get frustrated that the other isnt doing enough...We need to have working teams and networks thinking broader. Such networks dont care about who is in charge, and they move seamlessly from proposals to implementation....Perhaps the biggest limitation of businesses is that thier network of converations is managed from the notion Only involve the people that we need to involve or Keep the barbarians outside the gates.....Why doesnt this happen internally in the course of business? The answer is brutally simple. It threatens management." Pardon me for writing too much about my frustration with the real world (in particular amidst the current financial tsunami). To facilitate change, we really need "heroes" at the top. No matter what, if you really want to read a good book, you will be satisfied. However, if you want to read a book that can change the world (influenced by the many endorsements) or others (not yourself, I bet), please give this a pass.
p.s. Below please find some of my favorite passages for your reference.
The Three Laws/Leadership Corrollaries are: 1) How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them/Leaders have a say, and give others a say, in how situation occurs. 2) How a situation occurs arises in language/Leaders master the conversational environment. 3) Future based language transforms how situations occur to people/Leaders listen for the future of their organisation.
People live into the future they see coming at them, not the actual future they'll get to someday. Unless people have done something radical to alter their course, the future they are living into is their default future. pg70
Futures exist inthe moment of speaking (by the true leaders). pg87
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. - Leo Tolstoy pg143
 A Lot of Filler and a Lack of Building and Creating Great Takeaways September 19, 2009
A Reader from Chicago (Chicago, IL USA)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
While the endorsements on the back cover are impressive, that is the only positive impression I got from the book. I imagine this could have been a great three to six page book. Unfortunately six pages of quality information have been diluted to fill 205 pages.
Quote 1:
The First Law of Performance: How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them.
Quote 2:
So what exactly does "occur" mean? We mean something beyond perception and subjective experience. We mean the reality that arises within and from your perspective on the situation. In fact your perspective is part of the way that the world occurs to you. "How a situation occurs" includes your past (why things are the way they are) and the future (where this is all going).
End of quotes.
People are empowered or limited based on their individual perspectives--that is the point of the first law, isn't it? People respond to their subjective realities. So I found the supposed distinction gained by using the word "occur" to be pointless.
The beginning of the first chapter starts out with a story about a South African black woman telling a South African white woman about suffering under apartheid and how she had hated all white women because of that, and that she apologized for having hated the white woman merely because she was white. The white woman offers to help her deal with her issues by confronting the source of her pain (a white woman who treated her very poorly in the past).
With that opening, we are asked what if interactions like this were common in our companies, families, and lives. That seems to be the takeaway of the story. But what can one do with it?
Perhaps my problem is what I expect of a book. I don't want to figure out what the points are and draw principles out of the writing that has not been made clear and obvious. I want a book to have a direction and be structured such that I get a good understanding of what the author is talking about and it is fun to read because it is shining a bright light on something important. This book mostly talks and goes nowhere.
This book has as influences both Werner Erhard and est--and both are phenomenal sources of solid lively perspectives for personal growth, and I have read many related books which were really good.
If you like The Three Laws of Performance, perhaps you will like Games Business Experts Play. Both books have very useful ideas that I found to be presented in a very confused manner and completely failed to engage me.
Related books I DO like: The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life written by a big fan of Landmark Education. Also est Playing the Game The New Way. And Getting Real: Ten Truth Skills You Need to Live an Authentic Life.
 Hopeful pitch for organizational openness September 1, 2009
Rolf Dobelli (Switzerland)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan recognize that businesses and their leaders face radical shifts in the corporate climate and confront pressing organizational problems. But rather than wallow in negativity, they offer communication-based solutions called the "Three Laws of Performance" that they believe can transform companies and individual relationships. Zaffron and Logan explain how to energize and sustain your organization - and your personal life - by using candid language, fostering open discussion, confronting past wounds and voicing a positive future vision. Their ideas may not be revolutionary, but getAbstract finds them interesting, sensible and worthy of close examination.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 38
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