From Good to Even Better
It happened when David Caruso left NYPD Blue and when the Braves traded for Crime Dog McGriff in 1993. It happens almost daily on Seth's Blog. It happened on New Years Eve when I became enraptured by the smiling blue eyes of an angel, and continues to happen every day those eyes rest upon mine. And it happened when Bell's came out with the Hop Slam (be careful with this one). What am I talking about? I'm talking about something really darn good getting even better. A solid TV show and a good baseball team both improved; one by subtraction, one by addition. A life, my life, a good life, reached great with the arrival of iBLF. And a Brewery announced their intention to remain my favorite when they added yet another great beer to their repertoire. Good things do get even better.
Case in point: the revised and updated new edition of Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work. Leslie Yerkes could have rested on her laurels with this book. It was already the best book about developing fun, productive working environments that are so instrumental in a company's efforts to achieve sustained success. But she didn't. She took a great book and made it even better.
Yerkes lays out eleven principles to integrate fun at the workplace, and each principle is backed by a case study of a company that has applied the principle - a different company for each principle. From "Celebrate" and "Capitalize on the Spontaneous" to "Embrace Expansive Thinking and Risk Taking" and "Hire Good People and Get Out of the Way", each principle is quickly defined then backed by air-tight case studies that not only validate the importance of the principle, but help us know how to implement the principle. Then, at the end of each case study the author does even more to "increase our ability to apply the principle." And if that isn't enough, each chapter closes with "Another Voice," a comment from an author, manager or some other dude or dudette in the business world who expands even further on the importance of each principle.
Shew! She really hit the ball out of the park with the first edition, so what else could Leslie do to make this book even better than it already is? How about going back and doing interviews with each company case-studied in the original? Ding Ding Ding!!! It's perfect. We've seen a lot of books use case studies to prop up an idea, only to have those companies fall flat on their faces. Isn't it important to know that the companies featured or studied sustained their greatness? Isn't it valuable to know that the companies are still practicing the principles originally discussed? Heck yeah it is!
And that's how something great got even better.
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