The full title of the book by Darren Stephens & Spike Humer is
The 10 Day Turnaround: How to Transform Your Business Virtually Overnight
In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave it 3 Stars.
Here is my review.
Not as good as I’d hoped
I have a lot of respect for one of the authors, Spike Humer although I don’t know Darren Stephens. I expected this book to be excellent but I was left disappointed.
My interest is professional because I enjoy helping business owners whose businesses aren’t performing as well as they’d like and I thought I’d pick up some new ideas and tips. Inevitably it’s hard not to think that because it’s different from the way I work, that the book is wrong and I’m right.
I think the book sets itself up to fail because the idea of a 10 day turnaround for any kind of business from the smallest one man band to a large business with many employees, perhaps at different locations is extremely demanding. To do it in just 20 hours as the book suggests is virtually impossible.
In the world of working with an advisor or coach, the process starts by trying to diagnose the problems by spotting the biggest, most important constraints that are holding back the performance of the business. Then prioritising analysis and actions on fixing those constraints.
This book has a more linear process and it’s short on tactics. Instead it spends a lot of time working on the mindset of the business owner, getting him or her to dig deeper by asking similar questions across a number of different days.
It also has plenty of advice on leadership and the importance of communicating and inspiring the team.
I’d have also liked the book to take a general look at turnaround situations since business owners will be very much focused on their own story. In my experience, the business problems can either build slowly as competitiveness is gradually lost (the boiled frog analogy) or it can be the result of a sudden change like a large bad debt or the sudden loss of a customer that’s been allowed to become too dominant.
It is one of those books that points to extra resources on a website. Unfortunately the website no longer exists and the book struggles to stand on its own. The missing website has cost it at least one star in my review.
I don’t like criticising the book but it’s not as good as I’d hoped or expected.
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