Contagious Success: Spreading High Performance Throughout Your Organization

by Susan Lucia Annunzio

The Hudson Highland Center for High Performance recently completed the largest and most in-depth global study ever done of the factors that accelerate or stifle high performance. The alarming conclusion: only 10 percent of knowledge workers are part of a high-performing workgroup, one that makes money for the company and is creating a new product or service.

Contagious Success reveals Susan Lucia Annunzio’s proven strategies for identifying, nurturing, and replicating business units that are already high performing. These workgroups tend to be ignored while senior management focuses on fixing its lowest performing units. But Annunzio argues for the opposite strategy: Focus on the groups that are doing the best work in the organization, learn their secrets, and help spread their expertise to the average groups.

Annunzio focuses on groups, not individuals, because even a great individual can’t succeed in a weak environment. By using the high-performing groups to improve just the top 20 percent of the average performers—what Annunzio calls “moving the middle”—a company can achieve dramatic, sustainable growth in revenue and profits.

This is a book for leaders who want to unleash the hidden potential in their organizations.

Genres: Leadership, Management, Business

272 pages, Hardcover

First published November 4, 2004

Reviews

[Neibaur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Purports data that suggests that the value that employers put on their employees, as individuals, leads to greater success and innovation than any other factor. Go figure...

[The Dirty Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book the author studies what she calls high-performing workgroups. These groups are known for creating and maintaining environments where people flourish and where stellar collaborative accomplishments are achieved. This is the main thesis of the book; every subsequent chapter builds on the assumption that each company has a group that can be defined this way, and how it should be protected, nurtured, and emulated. The goal for every company should be to consciously foster an environment that attracts and encourages this kind of productive interaction. However, not all employees aspire to a career of excellence in the same way, or even for the same reasons, all things being equal. I was impressed by the brevity of the company bios in her case studies, as well as the “Variations Among Knowledge Workers by Country and Region” in Appendix 2. Pretty insightful observations on the differences of work ethic between countries.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was an assignment for my Communication for Leadership class (required for my GSLIS program). I liked this a lot better than I expected to - most of what Annunzio says makes sense although some of her examples could be better (In a book that advocates valuing employees, the first company that's mentioned is Wal-Mart - but fear not, Wal-Mart hasn't reappeared as of yet.). While it is firmly based in the business world, many of the concepts for enhancing performance can be translated to other situations. I wish I had read this book when I was actually in a management position, but all in all I think I will finish it despite being past the point when I will need it for class.