Propeller: Accelerating Change by Getting Accountability Right

by Tanner Corbridge, Jared Jones, Craig Hickman

The newest addition to Partners In Leadership's accountability series that began with the classic The Oz Principle .

The Oz Principle has sold more than a million copies since it debuted in 1994, establishing it as the go-to reference on workplace accountability throughout the world. By embracing its practical and invaluable advice, tens of thousands of companies have improved their organizational accountability -- the key to achieving and sustaining exceptional results.

Now, the team at Partners In Leadership is applying thirty years of proven success to a whole new concept: Propeller. This book presents a modern take on accountability, while remaining faithful to the elegantly simple premise: When people take personal ownership of their organization's priorities and accept responsibility for their own performance, they become more engaged and perform at a higher level.

With all new examples and stories, Propeller builds on the The Oz Principle's legacy to inspire the next generation of readers to tap the incredible power of personal, team, and organizational accountability.

Genres: Business, Leadership

224 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 25, 2019

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good take on accountability, with a guiding principle of "what else can I do to achieve the key result?" Rather than fostering a culture that doesn't take risks or blames rather than owns, good guidance and framework for empowering leaders and teams to SEE IT, OWN IT, SOLVE IT, and DO IT.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a formula to these types of books, and the authors follow it to a tee - small pages with formatting and larger type to make it seem longer; length less than 200 pages; sprinkle references to other books in the same system; numerous examples of struggling individuals and firms that embrace the concept and experience complete turnaround.
All that said, I think there are some good insights in the book and it provides a framework and language for organizations and teams to improve performance. The authors also don't hold to a single silver bullet solution - they stretch the fabric of the accountability solution to also add important areas in their view - focused objectives, shared objectives, how to communicate concepts - to name a few.
This books seems to be a re-packaging of the "can do" approach to things.
One flaw of this book, in my view, is that the authors focus a lot on attitude and approach but don't even touch some of the key contextual items that need to be addressed - ethics and life-work balance.

[Stacey Moffitt · Rating 1 out of 5]

The ideas are not all bad - it's mostly common sense. But this is geared towards CEOs who want to believe a dream of how their companies can run. There's very little practical application. There's a story in here about a truck driver who risks his job (and possibly his license) because his customers were just so great at embodying the ideals of this book that he felt like he was on their team. This guy was compelled to do something shady for people he had just met all because of the power of accountability. BS. If it is true, it's not something to be proud of.

[Amanda Knutzen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for work and I would have not picked it up otherwise. There’s a saying at work ‘this meeting could have been an email’ and I think this book could have been an article. Taking accountability is an important guiding principle for an organization and I back my company’s promotion of this book for that reason. There’s a bit more to book’s main points (being a good teammate, having clear goals, ‘see it, own it, etc.’) but I’ll leave it at.

This would not be the first book I’d recommend to a friend.

[Sumika · Rating 3 out of 5]

In its own category I guess you could say the book is a five star since I finished it. And I don’t read motivational anything. With that being said if I’m comparing it to other books I read , it’s a one star. But i didn’t think it would be fair to rate a book low just because I hate the category of it 😂

[Larry Gerber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically a different telling of The Oz Principle, but that is such a strong topic and approach that more of that is better than most books on the subject.

[Missy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Susan Kerr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emergizing

I loved the self assessment at the end of the book. A great way to sharpen one's skills as a leader.

[Matthew Kutilek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Above the line leadership book. Certainly warrants a corporate book club read and discussion.

[Hannele Kormano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would, and even quite liked reading the examples (although many are a little too successful since this book is trying to sell you something).

My biggest criticism is: because it's written for executives, its quest to eliminate "below the line" finger pointing doesn't give quite enough space for people who are struggling under bad or toxic leadership -- and that starts to give the flavour of "no excuses", an unwillingness to acknowledge basic realities.

In fact, I would still say it's necessary for leadership to start with common complaints so that leadership can understand the problems that people are facing -- and then you reframe "above the line", help your employees feel heard, and eventually move past what can't change. (This was a common pattern in a number of examples -- and somewhat obviously the most successful examples involved a top-down change.)

But that nitpick aside, I still enjoyed the book overall! Even as a non executive it helps to understand the pattern of thinking and figure out the best opportunities for seizing ownership, and strikes at the essence of natural leadership.

[Raul Gerardo Garcia Boughton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Indispensable lectura para lograr cambios organizacionales. Un libro pensado para mejor organizaciónes y equipos, que resulta en trabajar mucho más en ti mismo.