Product Description

According to Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner, vision does not have to be magical or intangible, bestowed only by great leaders. Everyone is capable of creating a vision and bringing it to reality. Full Steam Ahead! shows how. This practical and inspiring guide uses an entertaining story about two people who are each struggling with the need for vision. Readers journey with them as they discover the three elements of a compelling vision and the guidelines to create a shared vision that unleashes energy and potential. An appealing, easy-to-read book, Full Steam Ahead! clarifies the differences between an enduring vision and a time-bound goal; shows how to create a sustaining vision that will provide focus, energy, and direction over time; and presents a foolproof plan for engaging people in organizations to become involved in shaping a vision that resonates with their own hopes and dreams.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #305260 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Blanchard, co-author of the bestselling One Minute Manager series, and consultant Stoner use a parable to convey the importance of vision to a company's success. Ellie has just returned to her job at an insurance company after an unpleasant divorce. She's startled by the e-mail messages the company's new president, Jim, sends to all employees. They're honest, upbeat and filled with personal anecdotes. One morning, Ellie gets to the office early and joins the only other person there-Jim-for coffee. Their first conversation is the start of a long and productive friendship. Jim encourages Ellie to think about herself and her career, while she helps him create a vision and plan for changes at the company. This story takes up the bulk of the book, as Blanchard and Stoner incorporate Jim and Ellie's discussions of vision (which includes recognizing your purpose and values and having a firm picture of the future) into the parable. Although the book rarely breaks from Jim and Ellie to offer general counsel, the authors' simple, straightforward writing style makes their advice obvious.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

About the Author
Ken Blanchard:

Few people have impacted the day-to-day management of people and companies more than Ken Blanchard. A prominent author, speaker, and business consultant, Ken is characterized by friends, colleagues, and clients as one of the most insightful, powerful, and compassionate men in business today. When Ken speaks, he speaks from the heart with warmth and humor. He is a polished storyteller with a knack for making the seemingly complex easy to understand.

Ken's impact as a writer is far reaching. His phenomenal bestselling book, The One Minute Manager, coauthored with Spencer Johnson, has sold more than ten million copies worldwide and is still on bestseller lists. The One Minute Manager has been translated into more than 25 languages and is regarded as one of the most successful business books of all time.

Ken has received several awards and honors for his contributions in the field of management, leadership, and speaking. In 1991 the National Speakers association awarded him its highest honor, the "Council of Peers Award of Excellence." In 1992 Ken was inducted into the HRD Hall of Fame by Training Magazine and Lakewood Conferences and received the 1992 Golden Gavel Award for Toastmasters International. In 1996 Ken received the Distinguished Contribution to Human Resource Development Award from ASTD.

Ken is chief spiritual officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies, formerly Blanchard Training and Development, Inc., which he and his wife, Dr. Marjorie Blanchard, founded in 1979 in San Diego, California. The Ken Blanchard Companies provides expertise in organizational change management through training programs and processes, seminars, and consulting. Ken is also a visiting lecturer at his alma mater, Cornell University, where he is a trustee emeritus of the Board of Trustees.

Jesse Stoner is a highly regarded and experienced organizational consultant, trainer, and author. Her work in vision development has helped companies to create a compelling vision and identify the strategies to capture it, ensuring a culture that is aligned with business direction. Her clients have included a wide range of companies such as: Stanley Tools, Southern New England Telephone, Edelman Public Relations, American Honda, and Jackson Hole Resort.

She is coauthor of Creating Your Organization's Future: Building a Shared Vision, a trainer's guide to help teams develop a shared vision for their department or organization.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful! Should be required reading for all team members.
Everyone on our team was expected to read this book before beginning our project. I must admit I was initially not very enthusiastic about being given a book to read. But once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. I read it in one sitting! I had always looked at vision as "soft." This book shows how it is practical and necessary and it shows how to easily apply the ideas. Using the book as a reference, our team created a shared vision for our project that was supported by senior management. I have never been on a team that accomplished so much in such a short timeframe--we were focused, energized and easily moved Full Steam Ahead!

Note: This book is applicable to all aspects of your life (not just work).

Well Written, Well Worth It!
If you're like me, and have spent countless hours in countless meetings trying to develop a "vision statement" for your organization without ever really getting to the point, then this book is for you. Blanchard (The One Minute Manager) and Stoner have skillfully crafted an allegorical tale of Jim and Ellie, one a successful but uninspired business owner, and the other a recently-hired employee who serves as a sounding board and confidant. In their conversations, Jim confides to Ellie that running the insurance company his father created just isn't all that exciting anymore. Notes Jim: "When my father was president, everything here was full steam ahead." He goes on to say that his father really inspired the employees - they felt like they were doing important things at work, and there was real joy in the agency then. When Ellie asks whether "full steam ahead" means being reckless, or moving ahead blindly in the face of danger, Jim responds, "No, I think it's the opposite. It means having vision - being so clear about your purpose, so committed to it, and so sure about your ability to accomplish it, that you move ahead decisively despite any obstacles." This characterizes the tone and sentiment of the book - discovering the ability to unleash transformative power by developing a clear vision of where you want to take your organization and your personal life.

The authors delineate the three elements of a successful vision: significant purpose, clear values, and a picture of the future. This last element, what the future will look like, resonated especially strongly for me as I read the book- the idea that you know you're on the right path when you can see a clear picture of what it's going to look like when you reach your goal. Examples abound here: JFK's vision of putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, Soviet athletes' technique of "mental rehearsal" in the 1976 Olympics, even skiing down a difficult hill. Using Ellie as a creative muse, Jim comes to realize that his insurance company does have purpose (peace of mind) and values (ethics, relationships, success) which permit him to develop a picture of the future where employees look forward to coming to work each day and strive to provide unparalleled customer service. Of course, the process of creating the vision is perhaps as important as the vision itself - working together to develop a common theme invests members of the organization as stakeholders, and that can build cohesion and a common sense of purpose.

In the final analysis, this book is extremely well-written, engaging, and hard to put down!

Highly recommended reading
There's something about this book that's different. Other business novels I've read often seem light and superficial--motivational but not practical. There is nothing superficial about this book. The authors' messages are powerful and can easily be applied. Instead of just telling you how important it is to have a vision, they show you how to create one. I was impressed that I could learn so much from a short, enjoyable to read book.