Beware This Dangerous Little Book

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: Be Big: Step Up, Step Out, Be Bold

Competencies: self-development, diversity, team building, interpersonal skills

Who benefits: employees, teams, organizations

Consultant Usage: diversity training, team building, one-on-one coaching

What’s it about? I interrupt my six-part Summer Reading List to bring you this warning: Beware of this dangerous book.  The authors want you to want to change.

I don’t like it.

I don’t like it one damn bit!

I live in a comfort zone and they want me to move out.

These people write a straightforward, easy to read, unambiguous book about being more than you are.  If you read this book it like holding a mirror and taking a good look…you are forced to see the fat and blemishes.  I hate books that know me better than I know myself. 

Until I read this book I was smugly satisfied being small, living blissfully in permanent denial, universally critical of all but you and me.  I read the book “Small is Beautiful” once and decided small was for me.  The Army once had a motto: “Be all you can be”.  Small.  That is all I can be! 

These people are trying to take away my god-given right to criticize others mercilessly.  They want to deprive me of my American right to complain about everything and everybody.  Hey, I am a card-carrying curmudgeon.  Curmudgeonning (is that a word?) is what I do.

Working together?  Why why why?  I tried that once but all those other people were constantly getting on my nerves.  They didn’t do things the way I do them.

Creativity, innovation?  Piffle.  I had a good idea once, but where did it get me.  They couldn’t see the brilliance.

I took a risk once, but they shot me down.  Better safe than sorry, I say!

These authors think we all have potential to be more that we are.  That each of us has important contributions we can and should be making to our work teams and organization.  They think each of us has something of value to contribute to work and to society.  They think some of us would like to express and engage others fully.  They think some of us seek higher goals and bigger challenges.   They think we have the capability of trying and handling something new, all the while contributing something important to our teams and organizations.

They see the BIG in each of us.  They see the BIG in you and me together.  They see better workplaces, societies and world if we would all learn to leave our small behind and bring our BIG to the game. 

So you have been warned.  Now, are you BIG enough to risk reading this powerful little book? 

 

[tags] self-development, diversity, team building, interpersonal skills, bill bradley, william bradley,  bradley[/tags]

 

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.