BEYOND THE HAMMER

Gottlieb presents a story-focused guide to improving managerial attitudes.

The author begins his debut volume with a “parable”—a fictional segment that tells the story of a man named George Warren. He’s a single dad, raising his daughter, Amelia, and struggling with the many challenges of running Warren Construction, the company he owns. “Ever since I became owner…my life has felt like one of those horror movies where you invite the friendly vampire into your house, and before you know it, you’re one of the undead,” George reflects. He has clients and projects, but his work is often hampered by his inability to get all his workers on the same page. He’s feeling hopeless when he meets successful businessman Marty Gold, owner of True North Improvements, who gives him a tour of his own company, whose employees have gratitude and enthusiasm. Marty then introduces George to the five pillars of management: that one’s belief is transferable, that managers need checklists, and that effective leaders shape their business’s culture with purpose and direction, are aware of their own voice’s “echo,” and use their business as a training organization. Marty’s mentoring turns George’s business around, and in the book’s second half, Gottlieb shifts from storytelling to exposition to elaborate on the five pillars, using charts, graphs and other illustrations to provide “actionable insights that will help you create a more aligned team.” A number of leadership books use fictional vignettes to highlight their lessons, but they aren’t as well done as Gottlieb’s, which is genuinely engaging and reads like a good novel. The second half, however, is less effective, in part because it offers a view of work as a life-consuming experience that many leaders, and many prospective employees, may not share, as when he asserts that stress can be erased by not believing in it: “Stress won’t kill you unless you believe it will. That is because belief is one of the most powerful energies in the universe. A positive belief about yourself will inspire a limitless mindset.”

An earnest business book that offers a readable but ultimately uneven blend of fiction and nonfiction.