Contagious Success – Susan Lucia Annunzio

Nov. 2005 – This is a really great book that is probably not destined for the best seller list. It is definitly designed to educate and inform more than entertain. It’s based on a monumental amount of global research across many industries, which is in and of itself quite fascinating. But what the author has done is to take all that research and try to distill what separates high performing work groups from those who just think they are in that category. That was a surprising result of her research – the enormous gap in the percentage of participants who considered themselves high performing and those that could actually substantiate that claim. Only ten percent of those participating could actually show that their results supported their own assessment. So this book is a very practical nuts-and-bolts approach in identifying the best practices that make for a high performing work group. It’s only in that way that such success can be replicated and spread throughout an organization, hence the title of the book as contagion. There are some real “aha” moments in this book and some practical concepts that are not difficult to implement. I found it very useful in working with my own team.