Beyond the Hammer: A Fresh Approach to Leadership, Culture, and Building High Performance Teams

by Brian Gottlieb

Overview

Employees that don't take ownership of their work. Friction between departments. Inconsistent results. These are the top challenges that face most businesses today. These common issues create high turnover and force managers into crisis mode where they're consumed putting out daily fires. Over time, the very nature of the business changes and a new culture emerges; one shaped by the lowest level of acceptable behavior.

Beyond the Hammer approaches these concerns in two highly engaging sections: First, a fictional story of George, a business owner struggling with burnt out employees, high turnover, and frustrated customers. Readers follow George as he discovers five foundational pillars of leadership that have the power to build teams that perform at a high level, consistently.

The second section shifts from storytelling to strategy, providing an actionable path to weaving these 5 pillars into any business, enabling leaders to integrate these principles into their daily operations seamlessly.

Written for managers and leaders alike, Beyond the Hammer offers a simple yet powerful approach to creating a team where everyone is aligned, and properly positioned to win.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798887504322
Publisher:	Forbes Books
Publication date:	09/10/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
Sales rank:	11,522
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

BRIAN GOTTLIEB is an inspirational business leader who founded a home services business in 2009—on a plastic folding table with $3,000. When he sold the businesses twelve years later, the organization had expanded across multiple states, grown to 600 employees, and neared $1B in lifetime sales. The company was recognized by INC 5000 as one of the fastest-growing companies in America.

Brian’s leadership principles are simple: Have a well-defined strategy, empower your teams, provide world-class training, and execute with consistency. This clarity of focus created a meaningful culture, making his company the best place to work in the state.

A Harvard Business School executive education alumnus, Brian is an active angel investor, board member, and keynote speaker who inspires businesses and individuals to reach their utmost potential.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One: A Business Parable
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15

Part Two: The Five Pillars
Pillar #1: Belief Is Transferable
Pillar #2: Leaders Shape Culture Through Purpose and Direction
Pillar #3: Leaders Are Aware of Their Voice
Pillar #4: Leaders Model Their Business as a Training Organization
Pillar #5: Managers Need a Checklist

Final Words
Acknowldgment

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Brian’s book inspires both successful individuals and future entrepreneurs, urging them to embrace challenges and pursue growth.”

Wolfgang Puck

"Reading this book, I found myself wanting to get back to it as soon as I could find time. I learned a lot and took careful notes of all five pillars as well as the questions one can use to learn more about what motivates employees. Everyone will benefit from this book (managers and parents alike)!"

Erica Canzona
Vice President, Goldman Sachs

“A number of leadership books use fictional vignettes to highlight their lessons, but they aren’t as well done as Gottlieb’s, which is genuinely engaging and reads like a good novel.”

Kirkus Reviews

“Brian Gottlieb’s superb leadership guide Beyond the Hammer uses an inspirational narrative to impart enduring lessons about company culture, team building, and management.”

Foreword Clarion

“Informative and inspirational. If you're a leader or a manager in any capacity in your work or business, this is the book for you.”

Readers’ Favorite

“Gottlieb’s advice is actionable, straightforward, and encouraging.

BookLife by Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

09/30/2024

“People want more than a paycheck. They want to feel valued and appreciated in the workplace” writes Gottlieb in this refreshing debut. Centered on performance improvement and effective leadership skills, Gottlieb’s guide starts out in parable form, with a fictionalized story of remodeling company owner George and his fizzling business, caught in a downward spiral of unhappy customers, disgruntled employees, and a constant state of being “behind, miserable, stressed, and failing.” George eventually meets a mentor who imparts the wisdom needed to turn things around, a development that allows Gottlieb to introduce his five pillars approach to leadership—an “actionable blueprint” for team alignment and business success.

Gottlieb is engaging, peppering his lessons with insightful vignettes from his own life and career while sprinkling in bits of gentle, often self-deprecating humor to lighten the tone. But what most stands out is his distinct vision: Gottlieb goes to great lengths to illustrate that, though perfection is unattainable, you should still strive to achieve it, by developing the necessary skills, thinking creatively, and always staying positive. Leaders are responsible for the culture of an organization, Gottlieb asserts, and he offers simple ways to purposefully direct that culture, including generating team vision statements, keeping the company’s mission front and center, and more.

Much time is dedicated to the role of managers in successful business organizations, but readers will also find several concrete suggestions here to improve general business performance. Whether it’s the importance of maintaining a learning mindset or grasping how to get a failing business back on track, Gottlieb’s advice is actionable, straightforward, and encouraging. He includes plenty of hands-on exercises, too, as well as several entertaining graphics and informative tables to help clarify the main points. Ultimately, teams “thrive in an environment filled with meaning and purpose” Gottlieb writes—useful advice that echoes throughout this uplifting guide.

Takeaway: Uplifting business guide to creating positive leadership.

Comparable Titles: Mark Goulston’s Just Listen, Joe Calloway’s The Leadership Mindset.

Production grades Cover: A- Design and typography: A Illustrations: A- Editing: A Marketing copy: A

BookLife Reviews

2024-08-26
Gottlieb presents a story-focused guide to improving managerial attitudes.

The author begins his debut volume with a “parable”—a fictional segment that tells the story of a man named George Warren. He’s a single dad, raising his daughter, Amelia, and struggling with the many challenges of running Warren Construction, the company he owns. “Ever since I became owner…my life has felt like one of those horror movies where you invite the friendly vampire into your house, and before you know it, you’re one of the undead,” George reflects. He has clients and projects, but his work is often hampered by his inability to get all his workers on the same page. He’s feeling hopeless when he meets successful businessman Marty Gold, owner of True North Improvements, who gives him a tour of his own company, whose employees have gratitude and enthusiasm. Marty then introduces George to the five pillars of management: that one’s belief is transferable, that managers need checklists, and that effective leaders shape their business’s culture with purpose and direction, are aware of their own voice’s “echo,” and use their business as a training organization. Marty’s mentoring turns George’s business around, and in the book’s second half, Gottlieb shifts from storytelling to exposition to elaborate on the five pillars, using charts, graphs and other illustrations to provide “actionable insights that will help you create a more aligned team.” A number of leadership books use fictional vignettes to highlight their lessons, but they aren’t as well done as Gottlieb’s, which is genuinely engaging and reads like a good novel. The second half, however, is less effective, in part because it offers a view of work as a life-consuming experience that many leaders, and many prospective employees, may not share, as when he asserts that stress can be erased by not believing in it: “Stress won’t kill you unless you believe it will. That is because belief is one of the most powerful energies in the universe. A positive belief about yourself will inspire a limitless mindset.”

An earnest business book that offers a readable but ultimately uneven blend of fiction and nonfiction.

Kirkus Reviews