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Book Reviews About Getting Unstuck

80/20 Power by Dennis Becker

The full title of this book by Dennis Becker is

80/20 Power: Following Pareto’s Principle to Maximize Your Small Business Success

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book Two Stars, meaning Disappointing.

Here is my book review.

A fundamental concept but this is not the book to start with

The 80/20 principle that a small numbers of things or activities produce the majority of results is a vital improvement concept. In theory, you can get more results by switching from low value activities to high value activities.

This is basic common sense that can all too easily get overlooked. [continue reading…]

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In my review of

Summary: The 80/20 Principle: Review and Analysis of Koch’s Book

posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the summary Three Stars, meaning Worthwhile.

Here is my review.

Useful summary of an important book

It must be ten years since i read Richard Koch’s book “The 80/20 Principle “. The main message is easy to remember but I thought I’d probably forgotten many of the nuances.

These book summaries fit into 80/20 thinking. You can learn most of the lessons by reading a summary that’s chopped away 80% of the bloat.

The big reminders I got were:

– be proactive. Think what are likely to be the key 20% of inputs?
– the scope of using 80/20 ideas in business is very wide. Most problems can be tackled with 80/20 thinking.

The 80/20 ideas can also be applied to your personal productivity and effectiveness as well as in your personal life. This about living life purposefully by deciding what you want and thinking about the most effective ways to do it.

The summary is useful because it’s quick to read all the way through when too many books are started and not finished. It will help you decide if you want to apply the 80/20 ideas but if you do, I suspect you’ll want to read the full book or one of the other books Richard Koch has written.

The ideas behind the 80/20 principle are important to understand and this summary provides an easy way to start learning.

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Breaking the Circle by Gabor Holch

The full title of this book by Gabor Holch is

Breaking the Circle: Vicious circles in business“.

In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I gave it a FOUR Stars rating, which means I consider it as good to very good.

Here it is.

An interesting book to help you get unstuck

I’m surprised that there aren’t more books about vicious circles to help to break the destructive forces that get people trapped.

I first became interested in understanding vicious circles when I was introduced to systems thinking by a book called The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge.

In technical terms, vicious circles and their opposites, virtuous circles are caused by positive (or reinforcing) feedback loops. They are positive because they build momentum, either up or down and contrast with compensating feedback loops that work like the central heating thermostat and work towards reaching a target. [continue reading…]

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Business SOS by Paul Avins

The full title of this book my Paul Avins is

Business SOS: 173 Proven, Fast-Acting Strategies to take Your Business from Surviving to Thriving“.

It won’t be a surprise for you to know that I couldn’t resist reading this since I abbreviate my free Business Second Opinion Sessions to Business SOS.

In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book a Four stars rating. This means that I feel it is in the good to very good category.

Here is my review.

Plenty of ideas to increase sales and profit

This is a good summary of how to improve the results of a business that draws on the ideas of many well known “gurus”.

If you’ve read many small business success books, I don’t think it will include much that’s new to you but, even so, it is a good reminder of what you should be doing.

[continue reading…]

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Hope Won’t Pay the Wages by Andrew R Miller – 5 Stars

The full title of this book by Andrew Miller is

Hope Won’t Pay the Wages: How to deal with the personal impact of a struggling business“.

In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I gave it the full FIVE Stars, meaning I consider the book to be excellent.

Here it is.

A great help for struggling business owners

There are plenty of books about how a business in trouble can be turned around but this is the first book I’ve seen that focuses on the business owner. [continue reading…]

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A Health Check for Your Business by John F. Gittus

I gave the book

A Health Check for Your Business

by John F. Gittus, Three Stars in my review on Amazon.co.uk.

Here is my review.

Help to spot problems in a business before they become too serious

I wrote my MBA dissertation on how small businesses in financial difficulties can be rescued and one of the important conclusions was to catch the problems early, before time and money are close to running out. [continue reading…]

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Getting Unstuck by Cara Stein

The full title of this book by Cara Stein is

Getting Unstuck: How to transform your life one step at a time“.

In my review on Amazon.co.uk, I rated this book at the Four Stars level. This means I consider to be in the good to very good range.

Here is my review.

A very helpful book to get your life unstuck

I’ve been reading and reviewing books about how to get a business unstuck but this time I have stepped into looking at how someone gets their life unstuck. There is some crossover as a stuck business owner will cause the business to be stuck and vice versa, business problems spill into personal lives. [continue reading…]

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Breakpoints by Larry Kesslin, Chris Winter and Susan Caba

The full title of this book by Larry Kesslin, Chris Winter and Susan Caba is

Breakpoints: Where Businesses Get Stuck. and How They Get Unstuck!

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave it Three Stars.

Here is my review.

An interesting book about the growing pains as companies get bigger

While this book has the subtitle “where businesses get stuck. .. and how they get unstuck”, it’s really about the growing pains from startup through to building a business of 100+ people. [continue reading…]

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The Small Business Life Cycle by Charlie Gilkey

The full title of this book by Charlie Gilkey is

The Small Business Life Cycle: The No-Fluff Guide to Navigating the Five Stages of Small Business Growth

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book Three Stars. This means Worthwhile.

The business life cycle from the entrepreneurial idea through to mature businesses is taught in theoretical studies of entrepreneurship and business. It also has real world implications because the challenges facing the entrepreneur change as the business grows and becomes more established.

This short book gives an overview of the stages which is useful for aspiring entrepreneurs. The challenging work is only starting when the business is formed and there will continue to be plenty to do. In fact, there is always more than could be done.

I think it’s less useful for business owners with businesses. They have problems that need to be solved and real life doesn’t fit neatly into a theoretical model. As the owner tends to work with a short term detailed focus, wherever the business is currently, the book doesn’t have much to say that’s relevant. This is inevitably the weakness of a book that looks along the life cycle and the shorter the book is, the less it can say that’s helpful to navigate away from any one stage.

I much prefer a book like The E-Myth Revisited which is packed with light bulb moments. Owners can relate to the frustrations, recognise themselves in why they started and then accept they need to change.

Perhaps it’s caught me on a bad day but I thought the book was quite dull and uninspiring.

Recognising that businesses differ with age and maturity is important to understand. There is an adrenalin rush at the start and then a series of frustrating problems. Some businesses stay very small and don’t experience many of the growing pains. In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on “scaling up” which can be thought of as an optional stage or perhaps a series of optional stages. There are a huge number of books telling you about the startup phase and an increasing number of books that look at the issues around scaling up.

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Unstuck by Keith Yamashita

The full title of this book by Keith Yamashita is

Unstuck: A Tool for Yourself, Your Team and Your World“.

In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book a Four Stars rating which means I consider it to be in the good to very good category.

Here is what I wrote.

A systems approach to why businesses get stuck and how to get them unstuck

This is a book of three sections. At one stage, I thought it was going to be the clear leader in books about how businesses get stuck and how you can get them unstuck. Sadly it tailed off in the main tactics section so we’re left with a 5 star start and a 3 star finish.

I’ll cover the looks of the book to start. It is one of those “designed” books that look stylish. [continue reading…]

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