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I suppose I should start this review off with a disclaimer. I am Alan Webber’s target audience. He was a managing editor of the Harvard Business Review and the cofounding editor of Fast Company. I am a card carrying member of the Fast Company Nation and read HBR whenever something catches my eye.I am a change agent. I am a free agent. I bought into the Brand You the day it was published.

Oh – and Webber is an INDEX CARD GUY!

I don’t know when I started with the index cards. But I have been doing it for a very long time and I have even managed to get my 8 year old daughter sucked into it.

I really enjoyed this book. Webber collects insights from his global experiences with LEADERS. It seemed stupid for me to list the various types of leaders there. The common denominator is a strong sense of leadership. And really…this book is a primer on 21st century leadership skills.

Webber touches on many of my favorite thought leaders: Tom Peters, Jim Collins and Mike Abrashoff. He invokes Jerry Garcia -

You do not want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.

He even talks about Springsteen!

This is a book that I know I will be returning too again and again. It is meant to be paged through. Dog-earred. Underlined. Highlighted. It will provide a framework rooted in Toyota, John Boyd, systems thinking, and Drucker/Peters/Collins.

It will provide tools like the mathematical formula for change:

C(SQ) > R(C)

Change MUST happen if the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change. I seriously think I may go get this tattooed somewhere. Like across my chest – like Superman’s “S”.

And, in many ways, this formula is somewhat at the core of this collection. Let’s face it – whatever it is we we’re doing – was NOT working. And even in the face of the storm, we are still denying that change MUST happen. The status quo is killing us yet we won’t get over ourselves and embrace a tiny bit of risk for the potential promise of BETTER.

So – its a list of 52 rules. Here are my favorites – because these are some of MY rules too.

#3 – have a clear definition of success. This should be number 1. And maybe you don’t even need other rules. Why are we sitting in this meeting listening to someone read their Powerpoint to us?

#4 – Root cause analysis PREVENTS defects. It is not enough to solve problems.

#7 – “Systems thinkers see the relationships, not the functions. They see the processes…” (I am actually going to go update all my stupid social media profiles with the fact that I consider myself a systems thinker.)

#14 – genchi genbutsu

#19 – Drucker begat Collins – managers should stay out of the workers’ collective kool-aid and let them do their jobs. Stop interfering.

#20 – John Boyd’s OODA loops. Observation. Orientation. Decision. Action. “Speed IS a strategy.:

#41 – Abrashoff of the USS Benfold – grassroots leadership.

WELL worth your dollars, folks. This is a book you don’t have to read cover to cover. This is a book you can get INTIMATE with – keep it nearby. Pick it up when you can. Read a rule. Let it sink in. Kick it around. Talk amongst yourselves.