Software for Your Head: Core Protocols for Creating and Maintaining Shared Vision

Author: Jim McCarthy, Michele McCarthy List Price: $39.99 Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price ISBN: 0201604566 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co (27 December, 2001) Edition: Paperback Sales Rank: 90,610 Average Customer Rating: 4 out of 5

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Customer Reviews

The lack of polish is a result of poor editing, not necessarily poor experiments. My main gripe is that the sentences and paragraphs are just too hard to read- there's no flow. "By accepting or practicing a lack of integrity, you leave the better parts of your presence behind." Sentences like these make me feel like the authors pulled "eureka!" type statements from their bootcamps and plunked them down in the book naked. The surrounding material often doesn't support complicated statements like these well, and so the complicated material is that much more ambiguous. "What are they trying to get at here?" is the sort of question I found myself asking too often while reading the book.

I disagree with the statement in the Richard Dragan review that says this book is "long on theory but consciously short on any practical examples." SFYH is *mostly* concrete things you can do to foster a team that is engaged and strives for excellence. However, it puzzles me that the book does not provide any anecdotes from their bootcamps that support the protocols they are proposing. I think the material would have been a lot more friendly if it would have stepped away from technicality now and again to illustrate the material with examples: "this one time.. in bootcamp.. Frankie was acting like such an ego dork and we.."

I see a lots of parallels between the ideas from Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and this book. Covey does a great job of explaining how highly effective people operate, and SFYH implements many of their habits in its patterns. Additionally, Lencioni's "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" does a great job of illustrating a dysfunctional team and I see a lot of synergies between the dysfunctions outlined in that book and the problems that SFYH aims to address with concrete things you can do, and mindsets that you must take.

Despite my criticisms, there are lots of ideas in this book. I happen to like a lot of them. The way you think about how you work will be different after reading this book. It's just a shame the authors didn't express their ideas more clearly and more succinctly.

It wasn't until I was already signed up for BootCamp that I read Software For Your Head and I found out that it isn't about developing software. It's about developing the most important product, the product from which all other products are developed - the team.

It was a tough read, but that was because it challenged so many assumptions, so much received wisdom for my years in large corporations. I was proud of the fact that I was adept at managing my time, understanding interpersonal politics, leading teams, facilitating meetings, leading change, and trying to produce great products instead of mediocre ones.

But when I read SFYH I had to stop many times to rethink many of the situations I had been through. I was challenged to find a single one which I could not have handled better and with more positive results had I known and used the protocols properly.

Also the sheer number of ideas presented in a single book is quite astounding. I have read the Blanchard books, for instance, which give you only 4-6 ideas in all of 120 pages for $$ Canadian each. SFYH gives you several ideas per page for a whopping 381 pages for just over twice the price - $$ Canadian.

It is a disquieting read. Many business books set up a comfortable "we both know this subject is tough (otherwise you wouldn't have bought the book), but I'm on your side and I won't ask too much of you" companionable voice. It's a voice that says, "I know you're going to have a hard time making this work, and I don't really expect you to try."

With Software For Your Head the writing is unequivocal. Jim and Michele assume you are a thinking capable, curious, intelligent adult who wants to learn and use that learning to do great things. They have learned from the teams they've observed in BootCamp, and they want to share the best practices of those teams with anyone who will listen. This book is about getting results. I found their challenge quite refreshing. It gave me hope that there really is something I haven't tried yet, and it really could work if I apply it consistently. I just have to be accountable for my own results.

Having taken BootCamp, twice now, and committed to become a BootCamp instructor, the protocols are now second nature to me, and I use them every day, in product development, family decisions, personal goal setting and resolving conflicts. Because I can get results fast, and only results matter, I have more time with my family. I can resolve conflicts with folks I work with and people I live with and therefore have more time to have fun, spend with people I love, and work on things that give me joy.

I can't think of a more challenging, and therefore useful, book to read for anyone who must work or live with others.

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