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Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work
Master the Art of the Workaround to Boost Your Productivity!
"With the variety of challenges leaders face every day, Russell Bishop has hit on an amazingly simple and highly effective solution: the 'workaround.' This is a brilliant approach to facing day-to-day business challenges, and it works!"
--Marshall Goldsmith, world-renowned executive coach and author of the "New York Times" bestsellers "Mojo" and "What Got You Here Won't Get You There"
"If you want to succeed big, there is no substitute for sticking your neck out. Russell Bishop shows how to do it without getting your head chopped off. "Workarounds That Work" offers practical, down-to-earth advice on overcoming obstacles on the job--both big and small. It's a must-read for anyone trying to navigate the bumpy road of the modern workplace."
--Arianna Huffington, cofounder and editor-in-chief, the Huffington Post
""Workarounds That Work" tackles one problem area after another, busting myths and giving practical advice along the way."
--Dave Logan, professor at the Marshall School of Business at USC and bestselling coauthor of "Tribal Leadership"
""Workarounds That Work" goes where none of the other productivity books go--into the messy, cky, hard-to-control stuff that we all face every single day. You'll finish this book with a fresh ake on how to think about productivity and at least a half-dozen new ways to get things done."
--Les McKeown, "Wall Street Journal" and "USA Today" bestselling author of "Predictable Success"
"Today's relentless demands of work require a new model of how we get things done. "Workarounds that Work" envisions work as a continuous stream of free-flowing accomplishments instead of the headaches, inefficiencies, and stresses we associate with work today. You'll never experience red tape again."
--Tony Schwartz, CEO, The Energy Project, and bestselling author of "The Way We're Working Isn't Working"
About the Book:
You've experienced the frustration dozens of times: you need approval on a project, but a key sign-off person is out of town; a product is on a crash schedule, but you're missing an important detail; you need to move ahead in a process, but company rules cause delays. What you need is a workaround.
In "Workarounds That Work," Russell Bishop--an expert in personal and organization transformation--teaches the art of the workaround: a method for accomplishing a task or goal when the normal process isn't producing the desired results. Workarounds help you break through the tasks and systems that keep you from the important stuff. They even help you bring lasting change to your organization by doing away with frustrating institutional inefficiencies once and for all.
Workarounds aren't only about getting things done. They're about getting the right things done. To ratchet up productivity, your organization needs someone who will ask the big questions, such as: How can our systems--from operational infrastructures to management processes--be more efficient and effective? Do we make the most of our talent? Do our teams work in isolation when collaboration would be more useful? Are we wasting time, placing blame, and fighting fires when we could instead be fixing problems? Is our direction clear, aligned, and focused?
"Are you ready to be that person--the one who gets things done, no matter what?"
"Workarounds That Work" explains how to identify problems that make workarounds necessary and then create the best solution available--without sacrificing quality or doing a less-than-stellar job.
With Bishop's strategies at your disposal, you can conquer anything that stands in your way at work--even when it seems like your organization's culture is pitted against what you know is best for it.
"With the variety of challenges leaders face every day, Russell Bishop has hit on an amazingly simple and highly effective solution: the 'workaround.' This is a brilliant approach to facing day-to-day business challenges, and it works!"
--Marshall Goldsmith, world-renowned executive coach and author of the "New York Times" bestsellers "Mojo" and "What Got You Here Won't Get You There"
"If you want to succeed big, there is no substitute for sticking your neck out. Russell Bishop shows how to do it without getting your head chopped off. "Workarounds That Work" offers practical, down-to-earth advice on overcoming obstacles on the job--both big and small. It's a must-read for anyone trying to navigate the bumpy road of the modern workplace."
--Arianna Huffington, cofounder and editor-in-chief, the Huffington Post
""Workarounds That Work" tackles one problem area after another, busting myths and giving practical advice along the way."
--Dave Logan, professor at the Marshall School of Business at USC and bestselling coauthor of "Tribal Leadership"
""Workarounds That Work" goes where none of the other productivity books go--into the messy, cky, hard-to-control stuff that we all face every single day. You'll finish this book with a fresh ake on how to think about productivity and at least a half-dozen new ways to get things done."
--Les McKeown, "Wall Street Journal" and "USA Today" bestselling author of "Predictable Success"
"Today's relentless demands of work require a new model of how we get things done. "Workarounds that Work" envisions work as a continuous stream of free-flowing accomplishments instead of the headaches, inefficiencies, and stresses we associate with work today. You'll never experience red tape again."
--Tony Schwartz, CEO, The Energy Project, and bestselling author of "The Way We're Working Isn't Working"
About the Book:
You've experienced the frustration dozens of times: you need approval on a project, but a key sign-off person is out of town; a product is on a crash schedule, but you're missing an important detail; you need to move ahead in a process, but company rules cause delays. What you need is a workaround.
In "Workarounds That Work," Russell Bishop--an expert in personal and organization transformation--teaches the art of the workaround: a method for accomplishing a task or goal when the normal process isn't producing the desired results. Workarounds help you break through the tasks and systems that keep you from the important stuff. They even help you bring lasting change to your organization by doing away with frustrating institutional inefficiencies once and for all.
Workarounds aren't only about getting things done. They're about getting the right things done. To ratchet up productivity, your organization needs someone who will ask the big questions, such as: How can our systems--from operational infrastructures to management processes--be more efficient and effective? Do we make the most of our talent? Do our teams work in isolation when collaboration would be more useful? Are we wasting time, placing blame, and fighting fires when we could instead be fixing problems? Is our direction clear, aligned, and focused?
"Are you ready to be that person--the one who gets things done, no matter what?"
"Workarounds That Work" explains how to identify problems that make workarounds necessary and then create the best solution available--without sacrificing quality or doing a less-than-stellar job.
With Bishop's strategies at your disposal, you can conquer anything that stands in your way at work--even when it seems like your organization's culture is pitted against what you know is best for it.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 15, 2010
18 people are currently reading
250 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 4, 2017
This book leads to new perspective of looking at problems or situations, and tips on how to breakthrough some of the organizational problems which we think cannot be resolved. It poses some questions worth pondering at the end of every chapter and by attempting to answer those questions it will lead us to think and act differently than the conventional way of doing things which have imposed lots of self-limiting barriers.
January 11, 2013
I picked up the book because of David Allen's endorsement and I can say the book is great. I kept saying with each page "so that's how I should have handled that situation at work!". Highly recommended especially if you work at highly bureaucratic places.
March 23, 2013
The author defines workaround as follows: "For our purposes, we will define it (workaround) as a method for accomplishing a task or goal when the normal process or method isn't producing the desired results...Once a problem is fixed. the workaround is usually abandoned when subsequent releases come out addressing the bug that created the problem in the first place." The purpose of the book is best summarized by Russell: "In Workarounds That Work, you will learn tools, systems, practices, and processes that make important initiatives easier to accomplish. Sometimes these workarounds will require additional effort, but not because the task or desired result takes superhuman skill. The additional effort comes because in order to effect the workaround, you may have to do some extra work, or even someone else's work, so as to get yours moving."
The book then goes on to present seventeen workarounds ranging from vision, to communication, accountability and culture to name a few. Each workaround has three basics. The first being the intention, the second is around assuming control of what you can, and last but not least influencing the remaining elements. The questions included at the end of each workaround/chapter, guide the reader to the application of the material presented. This makes this work very pragmatic and applicable. A quick and educative read in the productivity space.
Below are key excerpts from the book, that I found particularly insightful:
1- "This is where three workaround basics become operative. The first and most important issue: what is your intention? The second critical aspect is your willingness to assume control of whatever you can that will move you forward. Once you are clear on your intention and have taken control of what you can, you then face the third element: how to influence others to go along."
2- "If you need to get someone on your side, working with you rather than against you, start by considering what the other party is charged with doing in his or her job, and then begin imagining how that person can win with helping you."
3- "Workarounds can vary from the rudimentary and tactical to the complex and strategic. Even at the most basic levels, it's important to keep in mind what your intention is in coming up with the workaround. Determining what the issue is and why it matters needs to come before charting what you can do and how you make it happen."
4- "Start any "communication" with a discussion about your individual perceptions of the intended purpose, outcome, and goal. Make certain that both of you can explain the desired outcome in terms that the other can both repeat and visualize."
5- "Once you have asked yourself the basic starting question - "What can I do that will make a difference?" - and asked the other party if there's anything else you can do, you can then turn the question toward what the other party could conceive of doing to make the situation even better."
6- "Rather than treating the other person, team, or group as your enemy combatant, you will gain better purchase by following Larry Senn's advice and assuming innocence. In all likelihood, these parties are making choices based on differences in understanding owning to causes such as different goals or differences in how they are being measured."
7- "Rather than assume that some other group will behave the way your group behaves, you should assume that there may be differences and plan accordingly."
8- "The real goal of decision making, what we are calling "choice" here, is not about being right; it's about being effective. If you can choose toward a desired outcome rather than kill off all other possibilities, you may then have the freedom to learn, to course correct, and to keep making progress as new data and experience are acquired."
9- "Remember: it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission. If you keep asking for permission and seeking buy-in, you may merely be giving people reasons to object."
10- "Keep in mind that your primary response-ability comes down to your willingness to control what you can, seek to influence from there, and then simply respond as best as you can to everything else. People routinely lose sight of where they are headed, of what their true intentions are."
The book then goes on to present seventeen workarounds ranging from vision, to communication, accountability and culture to name a few. Each workaround has three basics. The first being the intention, the second is around assuming control of what you can, and last but not least influencing the remaining elements. The questions included at the end of each workaround/chapter, guide the reader to the application of the material presented. This makes this work very pragmatic and applicable. A quick and educative read in the productivity space.
Below are key excerpts from the book, that I found particularly insightful:
1- "This is where three workaround basics become operative. The first and most important issue: what is your intention? The second critical aspect is your willingness to assume control of whatever you can that will move you forward. Once you are clear on your intention and have taken control of what you can, you then face the third element: how to influence others to go along."
2- "If you need to get someone on your side, working with you rather than against you, start by considering what the other party is charged with doing in his or her job, and then begin imagining how that person can win with helping you."
3- "Workarounds can vary from the rudimentary and tactical to the complex and strategic. Even at the most basic levels, it's important to keep in mind what your intention is in coming up with the workaround. Determining what the issue is and why it matters needs to come before charting what you can do and how you make it happen."
4- "Start any "communication" with a discussion about your individual perceptions of the intended purpose, outcome, and goal. Make certain that both of you can explain the desired outcome in terms that the other can both repeat and visualize."
5- "Once you have asked yourself the basic starting question - "What can I do that will make a difference?" - and asked the other party if there's anything else you can do, you can then turn the question toward what the other party could conceive of doing to make the situation even better."
6- "Rather than treating the other person, team, or group as your enemy combatant, you will gain better purchase by following Larry Senn's advice and assuming innocence. In all likelihood, these parties are making choices based on differences in understanding owning to causes such as different goals or differences in how they are being measured."
7- "Rather than assume that some other group will behave the way your group behaves, you should assume that there may be differences and plan accordingly."
8- "The real goal of decision making, what we are calling "choice" here, is not about being right; it's about being effective. If you can choose toward a desired outcome rather than kill off all other possibilities, you may then have the freedom to learn, to course correct, and to keep making progress as new data and experience are acquired."
9- "Remember: it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission. If you keep asking for permission and seeking buy-in, you may merely be giving people reasons to object."
10- "Keep in mind that your primary response-ability comes down to your willingness to control what you can, seek to influence from there, and then simply respond as best as you can to everything else. People routinely lose sight of where they are headed, of what their true intentions are."
December 28, 2011
You know those books that you want to buy for everyone you know, because you know everyone will get something from it?
Workarounds That Work (WTW) is one of those books.
Written by Russell Bishop, a colleague of David Allen (of Getting Things Done fame), WTW leads the reader through a series of both theoretical and practical examples of workplace roadblocks, and offers simple questions you can ask you help navigate around those roadblocks.
** It’s all about you **
WTW starts with a simple premise popularized by Stephen Covey – that you can divide everything into three categories:
1. Things you can control
2. Things you can influence through other people
3. Things you can respond to (and respond to more effectively if you have done the first two things)
Bishop comes back to this principle throughout the book, and repeatedly re-centres problems around the first two points – things you can control and things you can influence. While it’s obvious when you think about it, the fact that Bishop repeatedly calls this out is a useful reminder not to fall into the “it’s all their fault” school of pitiful thought.
** Everyone faces roadblocks **
WTW is the kind of book that, while it’s a great read from cover-to-cover, is also a useful resource when facing specific issues. So, for me, while I enjoyed the whole book, my ears perked up when I hit a few specific sections, which are now dog-eared and marked for future reference.
The book covers a broad series of challenges:
- Getting the right things done
- Misaligned leadership and unclear direction
- Framing the problem properly
- Moving from passive communication to action
- Accountability and response-ability
- Organizational silos
- Culture clashes
- Analysis paralysis
- Moving beyond concensus
- Avoiding becoming a corporate firefighter
- When others are wrong
- Making the most of meetings
- Dealing with the email avalanche
- When processes get in the way
- Overcoming criticism, complaints, and resistance
- Multitasking (or not)
As I moved through the book, I found myself getting more or less engaged in certain chapters. Workarounds That Work is never a slog to read – the real-life examples and wry insights ensure that – but I could tell when points were hitting home, as at some points I just didn’t want to put the book down. When I hit my own pain points it became a real page-turner. I suspect that most people would experience the same thing, as most of us face at least some of the challenges above in our working lives.
** Yay or nay? **
Should you buy this book? In case you couldn’t tell, my answer is an unequivocal “yes.” If Bishop’s advice means you’re able to move the needle on at least one of your roadblocks at work, it’ll be worth it. If you work in an office or a big company, I suspect you’ll be able to improve on two or three.
That makes reading Workarounds That Work a very good use of your time.
Workarounds That Work (WTW) is one of those books.
Written by Russell Bishop, a colleague of David Allen (of Getting Things Done fame), WTW leads the reader through a series of both theoretical and practical examples of workplace roadblocks, and offers simple questions you can ask you help navigate around those roadblocks.
** It’s all about you **
WTW starts with a simple premise popularized by Stephen Covey – that you can divide everything into three categories:
1. Things you can control
2. Things you can influence through other people
3. Things you can respond to (and respond to more effectively if you have done the first two things)
Bishop comes back to this principle throughout the book, and repeatedly re-centres problems around the first two points – things you can control and things you can influence. While it’s obvious when you think about it, the fact that Bishop repeatedly calls this out is a useful reminder not to fall into the “it’s all their fault” school of pitiful thought.
** Everyone faces roadblocks **
WTW is the kind of book that, while it’s a great read from cover-to-cover, is also a useful resource when facing specific issues. So, for me, while I enjoyed the whole book, my ears perked up when I hit a few specific sections, which are now dog-eared and marked for future reference.
The book covers a broad series of challenges:
- Getting the right things done
- Misaligned leadership and unclear direction
- Framing the problem properly
- Moving from passive communication to action
- Accountability and response-ability
- Organizational silos
- Culture clashes
- Analysis paralysis
- Moving beyond concensus
- Avoiding becoming a corporate firefighter
- When others are wrong
- Making the most of meetings
- Dealing with the email avalanche
- When processes get in the way
- Overcoming criticism, complaints, and resistance
- Multitasking (or not)
As I moved through the book, I found myself getting more or less engaged in certain chapters. Workarounds That Work is never a slog to read – the real-life examples and wry insights ensure that – but I could tell when points were hitting home, as at some points I just didn’t want to put the book down. When I hit my own pain points it became a real page-turner. I suspect that most people would experience the same thing, as most of us face at least some of the challenges above in our working lives.
** Yay or nay? **
Should you buy this book? In case you couldn’t tell, my answer is an unequivocal “yes.” If Bishop’s advice means you’re able to move the needle on at least one of your roadblocks at work, it’ll be worth it. If you work in an office or a big company, I suspect you’ll be able to improve on two or three.
That makes reading Workarounds That Work a very good use of your time.
January 24, 2011
I was surprised by the content of the book, having only known the title before I started it. It seemed like the author had a pretty loose definition of “workarounds,” which ended up including things like taking meeting minutes to “work around” people being confused by meeting outcomes, and cleaning out your email inbox to “work around” having too many emails. The book, to me, was really a collection of tips and tricks to stay organized, and navigate a wide variety of challenges commonly faced at work. The challenges were certainly common, and I found that I experienced many, if not all of them at one time or another. And many of the tips and tricks were useful. However, I couldn’t identify any new thinking or revolutionary ideas. The author borrowed heavily from many influential productivity experts like Stephen Covey and Henry Ford. Well-known, somewhat clichéd concepts were described, such as seeing problems as opportunities, approaching situations with a positive mindset, and the difficulty in making decisions. The book would be most useful to me as a reference book for when I was encountering challenging situations in all aspects of life. I could go back through the collection of concepts and see if any could be applied to what I was facing, with useful questions offered by the author to think through the situations. I will give the author credit for providing a number of examples from his valuable work experience to highlight the points being made, but I also found the tone of the book to be a little juvenile (with no shortage of exclamations points).
July 21, 2012
It's embarrassing to admit, but I read this book because "Russell Bishop" is the name of a New Zealand education researcher and I couldn't for the life of me figure out whether they were the same person. Now it's clear they aren't, but I have read a book in a field I'm interested in. The world is full of life hackers and self-improvement gurus, but I've been having a lot of conversations lately which have hinged on a common thread of regaining control of one's life.
"Workarounds" is an interesting chimera: part cookbook ("if you want X, do Y!") and part rehash of proven technologies, there's nothing here that isn't available elsewhere. They even say that. I choose to look on this positively: nothing in the book came as a surprise, so I already know what I need to know.
The basic principles are: if you want a good outcome then look for it ("how you see the problem is the problem"), take responsibility for your actions (say "what can I do by myself to improve this?"), seek to understand before reacting ("assume innocence"), and be clear about decision-making. Plus, of course, the Getting Things Done system of brain dump, list of projects, list of todos, list of waiting actions, and a calendar for scheduled obligations. They go through a bunch of common situations (culture clash, silos, meeting overload, etc.) and show how these principles apply. And, credit for honesty, they talk about some situations when the principles weren't enough to solve the problem.
"Workarounds" is an interesting chimera: part cookbook ("if you want X, do Y!") and part rehash of proven technologies, there's nothing here that isn't available elsewhere. They even say that. I choose to look on this positively: nothing in the book came as a surprise, so I already know what I need to know.
The basic principles are: if you want a good outcome then look for it ("how you see the problem is the problem"), take responsibility for your actions (say "what can I do by myself to improve this?"), seek to understand before reacting ("assume innocence"), and be clear about decision-making. Plus, of course, the Getting Things Done system of brain dump, list of projects, list of todos, list of waiting actions, and a calendar for scheduled obligations. They go through a bunch of common situations (culture clash, silos, meeting overload, etc.) and show how these principles apply. And, credit for honesty, they talk about some situations when the principles weren't enough to solve the problem.
April 2, 2012
Think of this as GTD for dysfunctional organizations. Bishop was David Allen's partner at one time. Workarounds focuses on creating temporary solutions to organizational problems, such as silos, conflicting priorities among work groups, etc., so individuals and their companies can move ahead when they are seemingly stuck.
July 26, 2011
good book. Similar feel with Getting Things Done by David Allen (which makes sense since the author and David Allen worked together in the past). Many concepts that help people look beyond the roadblocks and look for solutions to keep going
March 16, 2011
Great book. In the vein of David Allen's work. I particularly appreciate his thoughts on decision-making and conflict.
April 23, 2011
Just not a lot of good content. A lot of reworks of fairly common knowledge.
September 17, 2011
Eh.
The book started ok and then develoved into tired case studies and a mini-review of David Allen's Getting Things Done. I'd rather reread Getting Things Done.
Mark
The book started ok and then develoved into tired case studies and a mini-review of David Allen's Getting Things Done. I'd rather reread Getting Things Done.
Mark
Currently reading
April 19, 2012Got bored with it.
May 3, 2012
good book n very inspire
October 15, 2014
A lot of examples, but at the same time, a rehash of multiple books and common sense.
January 20, 2016
Nice -- practical, if not exactly world-shaking advice, on how to solve common managerial problems with simple workarounds.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews