Jeffery Harvey
It's hard for me to write a review for this book. There were passages I really liked, and many phrases and statements resonated with me. My issue was the premise that there would be 15 leadership lessons, but each of the 15 lessons read like a series of lessons in and of themselves. As such, I have a hard time imagining anyone being able to commit the majority of this book to memory and then implementing its lessons.
I'll admit I had no knowledge of the All Blacks (not being a rugby fan nor having access to extensive rugby coverage in the U.S.), so that part of the book was interesting to me. I appreciated learning a little bit about the Maori and New Zealand culture.
So, here I am again - finding difficult writing a review. I study leadership, and I consciously try to not overly scholarly, leadership studies expectations on all leadership books. I recognize there are authors who provide contributions to the business literature with observational books like this. It's clear the author is insightful, and it's clear that he was strongly influenced by his work with the All Blacks. However, the book - as written - does not demonstrate a lot of rigor within the leadership canon. It falls into a category of book like Collin's Good to Great; I recognize the author's scholarly efforts underneath it, but I struggle with the writing (even though I know it's targeting a wider audience). As I read the book, I was able to name my issue with the chapters. The author chose to present material in a quasi-checklist fashion. That's okay, but many of the chapters read like pithy leadership seminar quotes, with one quick phrase serving as the "support" for the previous pithy phrase. The chapters unfolded like an old-school Twitter thread, 140 characters at a time.
In conclusion, not a bad book - not a great book in my estimation...it squarely earns the middle of the road ranking. I mean no disrespect to Kerr; I appreciate his efforts. It's just that the text, as presented, didn't land as solidly as it could have.
It's hard for me to write a review for this book. There were passages I really liked, and many phrases and statements resonated with me. My issue was the premise that there would be 15 leadership lessons, but each of the 15 lessons read like a series of lessons in and of themselves. As such, I have a hard time imagining anyone being able to commit the majority of this book to memory and then implementing its lessons.
I'll admit I had no knowledge of the All Blacks (not being a rugby fan nor having access to extensive rugby coverage in the U.S.), so that part of the book was interesting to me. I appreciated learning a little bit about the Maori and New Zealand culture.
So, here I am again - finding difficult writing a review. I study leadership, and I consciously try to not overly scholarly, leadership studies expectations on all leadership books. I recognize there are authors who provide contributions to the business literature with observational books like this. It's clear the author is insightful, and it's clear that he was strongly influenced by his work with the All Blacks. However, the book - as written - does not demonstrate a lot of rigor within the leadership canon. It falls into a category of book like Collin's Good to Great; I recognize the author's scholarly efforts underneath it, but I struggle with the writing (even though I know it's targeting a wider audience). As I read the book, I was able to name my issue with the chapters. The author chose to present material in a quasi-checklist fashion. That's okay, but many of the chapters read like pithy leadership seminar quotes, with one quick phrase serving as the "support" for the previous pithy phrase. The chapters unfolded like an old-school Twitter thread, 140 characters at a time.
In conclusion, not a bad book - not a great book in my estimation...it squarely earns the middle of the road ranking. I mean no disrespect to Kerr; I appreciate his efforts. It's just that the text, as presented, didn't land as solidly as it could have.