Taking People With You

The book is really more like a workbook. Each chapter is a lesson, building on the ones before. There are useable tools, questions, and strategies throughout each chapter that help reinforce what you just learned, and help you apply the skills or strategies with your own team. And there are plenty of inspiring quotes, and yes even a few case studies, to keep you inspired and motivated.

"Taking People with You" is most relevant for people in a leadership position. It's also useful for those who want a leadership role in the future. The lessons in here are insightful and powerful, and if taken to heart they'll help anyone become a more inspirational and successful leader.

That being said, this isn't a book you'll want to sit down and read from cover to cover. At least, not if you take the author's advice. Because the book is more like a workbook, he advises readers to tackle just one chapter at a time, and no more than one chapter per day. Working through the book slowly will give you the time you need to do the exercises, and reflect on the lessons and personal changes you need to make.

David Novak is the CEO of YUM! Brands, a company with 1.4 million employees spanning 117 countries. He's ranked by Harvard Business Review in their "100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World." He's developed and taught the leadership program "Taking People with You" in his own organization over the past 15 years.

So, keep listening to find out the three key questions you need to ask to get your team aligned, why you need to champion other people's ideas far more than your own, and a simple technique for challenging the routine thinking patterns of your team.

"Taking People with You" is divided into three main parts, with 14 chapters in total. Part one focuses on developing the leadership mindset. Part two covers developing a plan and building alignment. Part three shows you how to follow through on your plan, including the strategy itself and how to support your people.

Chapter one is really more like a short introduction, and it helps get you thinking about what you want to accomplish with your team.

There are three key questions you need to answer in this first chapter. The first is, "What is the single biggest thing you can imagine that will grow your business or change your life?" The answer you come up with is called your Big Goal.

Here, as for each of these questions, there's an insightful and practical tool to help you find the answer.

The author stresses that most leaders don't dream big enough to inspire their people. They settle for being good enough, instead of being great. He brings up a good point here when he says that it's far easier to make a powerful idea practical than it is to make a practical idea powerful.

The second question you need to ask is, "Who do you need to affect, influence, or take with you to be successful?" Think of this as the target market for your Big Goal. Your team is part of this. But your boss, other colleagues, customers, and vendors might be as well.

Your last question is, "What perceptions, habits, or beliefs of my target audience do I need to build, change, or reinforce to reach my goal?"

Although there are tools and personal insights throughout the chapter, the author provides a good wrap-up questionnaire at the end to help reinforce the importance of these three key questions.

Chapter two is where the real meat of the book begins. It starts with a powerful story about mindset and its importance to success.

Two shoe manufacturers arrive in a new country looking to expand their market. But the local people don't wear any shoes at all, even during the worst weather.

The first manufacturer looks at the state of things, and says, "There's no market here. These people don't wear shoes!" The second manufacturer looks around and says, "There's a huge market here. Not a single person is wearing shoes!"

Now, he might have gone on to discover there really was no demand for shoes. But at least he would have explored possibilities that could have led to something big. The other manufacturer didn't even open that door.

The point is simple and powerful. Your attitude and perception has a huge influence on the actions you take, and the results that follow. You can't get your team on the same page with you until you first fix the limiting mindsets you have right now, and work on creating a more open and positive attitude.

It's a good lesson. And, as elsewhere in the book, the author gives us practical steps we can use to identify our limiting mindsets, and overcome them.

Another important lesson lies in what the author calls Extraordinary Authenticity. This means being yourself, even in the toughest circumstances. If you can learn how to truly be yourself, your team will quickly like and trust you. The author includes a great story here that shows how you can easily demonstrate your authenticity with your team.

It's the story of Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo. Nooyi is from India, and when she came to America to manage PepsiCo she felt like a fish out of water. Instead of changing herself, Nooyi found ways to connect with her team that fit with her own interests, personality, and passions.

One way she did this was learning to love baseball. In India, Nooyi was a big fan of cricket. Since baseball also uses a bat and ball, Nooyi became interested in the game. It wasn't long before she was a fan of the New York Yankees, which helped endear her to her work team.

What Nooyi did was simple. She found a way to fit in with her new team and culture. But, she did it in a way that was authentic to herself, and the things she cared about.

This story shows leaders they don't have to be something they're not to connect with a new team or organization. By finding things you have in common with others, even if it's something unexpected, you help them realize you're a person just like them.

One of the exercises we liked in this chapter is called the Lifeline Exercise. You start by plotting your lifeline, using key events in your life. This includes stands you've taken, lessons you've learned, crises you've endured, marriages, promotions, and anything else that's been personal and influential in your life.

Next, place points above and below each event, rating the intensity of emotion you felt. Last, make notes, draw pictures, or do anything you want to make your lifeline even more personal.

What's the point of this exercise? Well, it's a fun way to look at the major events of your life, and essentially see the forest for the trees. Knowing where you've come from will help later in the book, when you work out where you want to go.

The other exercises in this chapter offer more insights on how to be yourself, and how to help others be themselves.

Chapter three covers the importance of learning. And one of the insights we think is especially useful for leaders is to champion other people's ideas. The author says that when we say, "I've got a great idea," people are often a bit skeptical, because everyone loves their own ideas. But if we say, "Steve has an idea, and I think it's really great. Here's why," people are more likely to listen.

Another benefit is when you champion other people's good ideas, you create a culture where people will want to bring you their ideas instead of holding them back.

Chapter four is where the author really starts focusing on your team, and what you need to do to get them aligned and excited about where you want them all to go. The foundation for this starts with trusting the people on your team. Your team members don't always know what they're capable of. And, they'll never know unless you give them the trust they need to find out.

What happens when you start trusting your team? They get more invested in the work they're doing for you. And, they often rise to the occasion because they don't want to let you down.

So how do you establish trust with your team? As usual, the author has some really practical and useful tips and exercises to help.

One of them starts with your attitude. Realize that 99 percent of people come to work wanting to do good and try hard. To build on that good will, you need to show you trust and respect them. One way to do this is to keep your team informed. Sharing information is a sign of trust. And the more your team knows what's happening, the more they'll care.

There are some really useful exercises in this chapter to help you establish the trust of your team, build accountability, and unleash their power.

Another chapter we really liked is chapter seven. Here, you learn how to develop a shared vision for your team – that is, what you'd like the world to look like when you and your team achieve your Big Goal.

Many companies in the past have tried to create a shared vision, only to come up with something that sounds good, but is completely lacking in emotion or personalization.

One good example is the old tagline of Johnson and Johnson, which was, "The most diversified healthcare company." Sure, it sounds important. But can you imagine getting excited about this vision if you worked there? Probably not.

The company recently reworked this vision. Now, their tagline is, "We care for the world, one person at a time." This new message really drives home to everyone what Johnson and Johnson wants to do.

The vision you set for your team must be bold. Boldness is inspiring. But it also must be personal and have an emotional element, so people will connect with it.

Now, most readers are probably not running a company, and aren't charged with reinventing their company's vision statement. But creating a vision for your team is just as important as creating a vision statement for an organization.

One of the ways you can get your team excited about your vision is to use a tool the author calls "System A to System B." This tool helps you show your team how you can achieve your vision. And when they see that, they'll get excited.

Think of System A as the actions that allow you and your team to get by in your work. These are the things you do every day that lead to acceptable, ordinary results.

System B covers the things that are extraordinary, the things that are a big step away from how you're doing business right now. System B is the actions that lead to really big results. System B is your vision.

The author gives an example from his own company to show how this works.

One of his visions was to build more know-how within his company. So System A thinking was the sentence, "Innovation is not my job." System B thinking was, "Innovation is everybody's job."

Another example is the sentence, "Knowledge is power," which is System A thinking. System B thinking is, "Ridicule the barriers to knowledge... sharing is a must!"

Put simply, you want to define the routine, everyday actions or thinking patterns you see in your team now, and create a simple but powerful sentence that describes how things could be under your vision.

The third part of the book is just as insightful and practical as the first two. You learn how to market your goals and ideas to your team, and take action to get everyone on board and moving in the right direction. If you've struggled with follow-through before, then you won't want to miss these last few chapters.

So, what's our last word on "Taking People with You"?

We really like this book. It's engaging, friendly, and very easy to read. It's also packed full of useful information, practical exercises, and helpful tips. We could only cover a fraction of the lessons and exercises the author included. Whether you're a seasoned professional or new to your leadership role, you're going to find something of value here.

The book's recommendations are impressive too. Business greats such as Warren Buffet and Jack Welch have endorsed the book, and once you get through the first few chapters it's easy to see why.

The author is passionate and enthusiastic about leadership and team building. It's obvious he took great care to come up with exercises that help readers gain a deeper insight into their own leadership style, and areas for improvement. It's a useful workbook that can really make a difference with any sized team.

"Taking People With You," by David Novak, is published by the Penguin Group.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Click here to buy the book from Amazon. Thanks for listening.