Joe has a problem: everyone wants more, and no-one wants to do more than the bare minimum. Joe can't figure out what to do. He says "do a better job!" and they don't, he says "if you don't do a better job you'll get sacked", they don't do a better job, they get demoralised, and worse - they don't get sacked. Oh woe, poor joe, oh no, he doesn't know what to do, whatever can joe do? Of course... Zapp! [amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]
This book presents its 'message' as a 'fable' with "Joe Mode" as the hero. Sections act as 'excerpts' from "Joe's Notebook" where the authors summarise the 'key points' of the chapter.
In the 'fable' Joe discovers that his company departments have utilised the Hawthorne effect by trying many different things (pep talks, quality circles, higher pay, ...) but only achieved short term results and a lot of confusion. Hmmm... not Zapp!
Zapp... a key to success for ideas and programmes.
Hmm... Joe starts to classify some things as Sapp! and not Zapp!
| Sapp! things | Zapp! things |
| - Confusion - Lack of trust - Not being listened to - No time to solve problems - Office politics - Bureaucracy - Someone else taking responsibility - Not recognising success - Blanket rules and edicts - Not enough resources - Treated like an interchangeable cog - over controlled from boss - no control from boss - Fat organisations | - Responsibility - Trust - Being listened to - Teams: part of & 'making decisions as' - Praise and recognition - Knowing your value - Control and flexibility - Direction - Supported - Having resources - Knowledge - Communication - situational control from boss - Flat organisations |
- Maintain self-esteem
- Listen and respond with Empathy
- Ask for help in solving problems
Zapp! Offer Help without taking responsibility
Joe learns lessons about choices for delegation (and how to setup controls):- Give the task to the right person
- Give someone authority to do and make decisions
- Give someone the task to do, without the decision-making authority
- Keep the task
- understand progress and issues
- set direction
- make 'higher level' decisions, or decisions that get pushed up
- offer guidance and remove obstacles
- assess performance
Zapp! excites action, but does not guide it
Steps to guide action:- Identify the Key Result Area
- Decide how you will recognise success (measurement)
- Identify the goal (when to stop)
- provide constant feedback relative to the goal
- the people doing the work should manage the feedback
- Explain the purpose and importance of the process
- Explain how to do the process
- Show how to do the process
- Observe as they do the process
- Provide immediate and specific feedback
- Express confidence in their ability to achieve success
- Agree on follow-up actions
"Zapp!" seems like a good complement to "The Responsibility Virus". Where "Zapp!" presents useful information as a small summary (e.g. responsibility choices), "The Responsibility Virus" provides a fairly detailed chapter. But "Zapp!" read like a presentation from an LSD influenced motivational speaker, so I suspect more people will dip back into "Zapp!" more often than do the same with "The Responsibility Virus".
If the style of writing in this book works for you then you will have a great time. This small book sets up the scenario of a very 'down' environment and describes how the system maintains the lack of energy. Then shows steps to take to remove the dampers and become a leader. Then details what a department with 'real' teams could achieve to 'be greater than the sum of its parts'.
The 'fable' presentation did not work well for me, but I still pulled out a lot of value. The book really does present the elements of disempowerment really well. I've worked in environments where I really didn't have 'Zapp!' and I could relate to the elements presented.
I did find that the notion of the hierarchy of influence, presented towards the later part of the book overly simplistic. The authors present the premise that the following groups determine how Zapped or Sapped you get (in order): your immediate boss , other people, higher management, organisation and its systems. That didn't resonate for me at all. I can only see that working if people focus so intently on their job that they have no visibility into the system. I can see that your immediate boss can Sapp you very quickly, and more quickly than the system. But long term, the system can get you every time. Certainly, for me, at least, the system comes first, then your immediate boss, then the rest level out at pretty much the same.
So despite this minor quibble, I would recommend that managers read this book rather than, as a hypothetical example, run a six month programme of 'thinking' of 'action plans' for how to empower their organisation.
The book ends with a call to get trained in ZAPP! Which I found a sad and unnecessary ending. I suggest ripping these last few pages from the book - go on - you can exercise your own freedom, experimenting, decision making, learning, and risk taking. Zapp!
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