[.ca] 1001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work (ISBN 076111405X)

From Amazon.com:
In 1001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work, Bob Nelson applies the formula behind his two previous books, 1001 Ways to Energize Employees and 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, and shows how any employee can advance his or her career by taking action, questioning authority, and thinking "outside the box." The book is filled with hundreds of stories about how workers, through simple initiatives, have made a difference at their companies--from the familiar story about the origins of Post-Its at 3M to how a Home Depot store manager helped a customer in a wheelchair. These stories are flanked by dozens of sidebars filled with short prescriptions for bettering the workplace and one's career (e.g., "Tactics for Influencing Others," "Don't Settle for Just Good Enough"). For Nelson, the key to fostering initiative is getting past the roadblocks that inhibits creativity. He cites a UCLA study that showed that by the "age five we engage in creative tasks 98 times a day, laugh 113 times, and ask questions 65 times. By the age of 44, however, the numbers shrink to 2 creative tasks a day, 11 laughs, and 6 questions." If your professional aspirations center on just getting by, then take a pass on this one. Those looking for practical career advice, however, would do well to give 1001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work a good look. --Harry C. Edwards

Misleading Title...For the Real Deal, Look Elsewhere!:
What a misleading title! This book should have been entitled 'Chicken Soup for the Worker.' It is that genre of books that this one should be compared to, not any book that REALLY provides genuine advice to "take initiative at work" (see some "real deal" suggestions below). As others have already pointed out, this book consists of anecdotes about people making a difference at work...and that's really it. Some shreds of 'advice' are included, almost seemingly as an afterthought. Save yourself some money and read these kinds of cutesy anecdotes in any number of magazines. A review of 2 or 3 stars may be defendable but the misleading title annoys me to the point where I took stars away because of it. Not impressed. For the real deal; for books that REALLY advise you on "Ways to Take Initiative at Work" as well as your career, check out Tom Peters' "The Brand You 50" and Jeffrey Fox's "How to Become CEO." Good luck!

Good but not the Guidebook the Title Suggests...:
This book consists primarily of anecdote-length stories of people making a real difference in their work, including a couple of oft-told tales (you'd have to be living under a rock to not have heard of the 3M Post-It Notes story). That's all fine and good, but it is not quite what I was expecting. The title suggests the book is more of a workbook of HOW to take initiative at work as opposed to primarily being a collection of stories of people who already did it. True, there is a gray "tool box" advice section on a portion of some pages (the book is laid out more like a magazine than a typical book), but the advice was hardly an action plan to take initiative at work. A "good" book but hardly a "great" one.

Disappointing:
This book should be renamed "1001 Stories About People Who Took Initiative at Work". There was very little actual advice to guide the reader on how to take initiative at work. Almost the entire book was composed of short anecdotes about others who did something special on the job. I found these stories to be somewhat interesting for the first 50 pages or so, but tired of them quickly. If you're looking for inspiration on how to increase your performance at work, I'd recommend looking elsewhere.

20 great pages, 200 pages of filler:
As others have pointed out, this book would have been great if it was called something along the lines of "101 ways to take initiative at work". Lots of useless "examples". I use the word examples lightly, because they are really stretching what they consider initiative. For example, there is a chapter called "Learning and Education". There is a story in there about someone who felt he was due a promotion but didn't get it because he lacked an MBA. So what did he do? He quit and found a different job. I'm not sure how that is showing initiative at work. Perhaps it can be considered showing initiative in his personal career, but initiative at work would have been him either getting the MBA part time or convincing his management that he didn't need it. All this showed me was that if there is an obstable at work, my "initiative" should be to quit and find a different job. Hardly motivating. There are many other anecdotes along these lines. There are a few good ones, but it isn't worth reading through the 900 bad ones to discover them. What this book does really nicely though is make it easy for you to read the good stuff without reading the warm and fuzzy stories. Seperated from the main text in the borders and at the bottom pages are grey boxes with some good information. I have photocopied a couple to hang up in my cube. There are some great ideas and suggestions in these. But not all the grey box stuff is good. There are alot of quotes that came from an Internet based poll about initiative, such as "If your employer sees your initiative, then all else will fall into place". This quote is attributed to "Maria, from the Internet". Well, thanks, Maria, but if I wanted to read quotes from people who like to post little nuggets of wisdom online, I could save $10 and search through the many job sites out there. Obviously, I know that initiative is a good thing, or else I would have never picked up this book. I don't need to read the wisdom of semi-anonymous people telling me why I need to show initiative. Give me examples HOW. Finally, this book was written in 1999. It reflects the Dot Com era of the day. Many examples are how to improve my working condition, and how this person did such a great job showing initiative and bringing a day care center to work. Well, with all due respect, my career is not going to advance in 2003 by pushing an initiative that is going to cost my company money. It may gain me the respect of my co-workers, but I've already got that. I need to know how to impress my management. That's why I read this book. All in all, the stuff that was good in this book was REALLY GOOD. I would have given it 5 stars if it wasn't surrounded by other \ostuff\c. Take it out from your local library, but save your cash.

20 Ways and 981 Anecdotes:
Author Nelson went to the Internet for a big portion of this book, and I've found that quotes people from the web ("A truly great worker does such and such" --netblabbymom) undermine the credibility of a business how-to book. I want EXPERT advice and ideas, not pithy sayings from the slacker in the cubicle down the hall. Some of the stories *are* inspiring, but they aren't organized in such a manner that a reader can quickly assess what they address. I don't want to read through 15 anecdotes of how line workers in Wisconsin performed acts normally assigned to management to get the bolts to Michigan overnight-- not when I'm trying to figure out how to break the "we don't do it that way" cycle in my nonprofit association. If you're pressed for time, leave this one on the shelf. ******As a side note-- "Top 10" reviewer Robert Morris gave this a five-star rating. I noticed that only one out of his last 40 reviews received under five stars-- it got four.********