This book is full of excellent research and stories, but I found it slow and tedious. The first 2/3 of the book are full of stories selling you on the idea that Bad Behavior is bad. Seeing as I picked up the book, I think we can conclude that I knew this already, but is see their point.

I am a huge fan of the power of story, and reading stories about these companies, both successful and failing, can be inspirational, but I felt they needed to get into the important information of how to fix the problem. The stories typically had a single line comment on a fixable point, but I really wished for better integration of "how to fix it" into the early chapters, versus separating that into the back 1/3. Really, I'd just like to see the book be more than 1/3 fix-it. That's what we're here for.

I will also add that I was thoroughly annoyed with the math section. It is hard to quantify bad behavior, and I understand that companies want and need "hard facts" to present to resistant boards, but the math felt loose and false. If they had simply stated "this is an idea of how your company might be hurt financially" for each new math equation they came up with I would find it very reasonable. Instead it felt like the presented their math as cold, hard facts. Quantifying qualitative information is never cold, hard facts. I think it's the scientist in me that just rankles at turning a soft science into something with stationary math rules. I get that markets and companies like to do that, but the world doesn't work that way. Businesses are not natural systems. They do what they do, often for unquantitatable reasons (yes that words made up, work with me, if they can make up math, I can make up words.)

My second point of contention is whenever anyone points at a generation issue they lose about 1,780 points in my book (I calculated that using their math). In this book it's generation X (I suppose the Millenials were still to young when this book came out) and its the same old, same old. This new generation wants to work too fast, while not working at all, doesn't know how to interact, is narcissistic. You've heard it all before. Putting any group, especially a group composed of people born within a single time period, over a giant variety of cultural backgrounds, financial backgrounds, educational backgrounds, and so on, is useless. It will get you nowhere. Every time you make a generalization about a generation you are mislabeling at least 50% of them. Don't do it. It immediately sinks my opinion of you. (Love, this lazy Millenial who worked 2 jobs through high school, 4 through college, 2 in vet school, and has primarily experienced incivility issues within my parents' generation, and has often played mediator for large groups of much older individuals.)

Overall I do think this book provides some good pointers, some good research, and some useful information. It would be the book I would sit down in front of my bosses and discuss. ( )