Journey Into the Heroic Environment: A Personal Guide to Creating a Work Environment Built on Shared Values

by Rob Lebow

Book Overview

A Journey Into The Heroic Environment has changed hundreds of thousands of lives. In this book we unlock the secret to creating peace and fairness in any organization. The size of a company does not matter in the slightest. Industry, ethnicity, or religion does not matter. What matters is the knowledge that we are all in the People Business. That is the message of this book. The book itself is a simple story of two strangers' encounter on a train...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590790618
• ISBN13: 9781590790618
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Select Books (NY)
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

20th Century Rosetta Stone for Unlocking Organizational Performance

Living in what Alan Greenspan called an era of "infectious greed" with corporate titans facing serious jail time, Ex-WorldCom CEO, Bernard Ebbers, leading the way facing life behind bars, and sobering laws in place such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act making ethics and values increasingly important components in every organization, it would do well to learn how to help organizations create heroic environments based on higher standards of excellence. Mr. Rob Lebow, former Director of Corporate Communications for Microsoft, with over twenty years experience helping companies implement his Shared Values Process to create what he calls, a Freedom-Based Workplace, attempts to do just that for readers in his book, A Journey into the Heroic Environment. Resurrecting an abandoned, `failed,' 1972 study, undertaken by graduate students from the social psychology department of a major United States university, with over 17 million survey responses from workers and managers in 40 countries and over 32 Standard Industrial Codes, that was not able to reveal any conclusive connection between job satisfaction and individual or organizational performance, Mr. Lebow's research team started their own investigation. Bringing a fresh perspective to the study, Lebow realized that the key to solving the mystery of overcoming cultural challenges to create exceptional levels of performance, was not going to be found in the hard numbers and statistics of the survey, but in the actual, literal comments of all the participants. Using this creative intelligence, Lebow indexed the most often addressed topics in all the discarded surveys by country. And the revelation was that all the surveys from the different countries mentioned the same subjects. This became the Lebow Company's 20th Century Rosetta Stone that finally cracked the code to the secrets of unlocking high performance that were embedded in the previously undecipherable 17 million worldwide surveys that the original research missed. Under the scrutiny of this new lens, the Lebow research group discovered that it was Values, not job satisfaction issues, which resided at the core between performance and what managers and workers were really looking for. Lebow's research suggested that there were eight values that all people respected throughout the world regardless of race, religion, nationality, industry, gender, educational level, or organizational status. Furthermore, the Lebow research group concluded: "that these eight Shared Values...represent the major factors that contribute not only to job satisfaction and employee morale, but to an organization's performance, competitiveness, speed to change, innovation at every level, willingness to learn new things, and overall operational success. [That] this was the universal Cultural Return On Investment (ROI) linking people to performance." While the author does not mention exactly how he came to this revolutionary conclusion, he claims that the

Shows how anyone can influence an entire work environment

For twenty years Rob Lebow headed the Lebow Company in Bellevue, Washington, an organization dedicated to creating a people-based "operating system" as a new global standard for the work environment. In this newly revised and expanded third edition of A Journey Into The Heroic Moment: A Personal Guide To Creating A Work Environment Built On Shared Values, corporate mentor Rob Lebow shows how anyone from a line worker to a corporate CEO can influence and change the culture of an entire work environment. The key is in utilizing critical concepts (backed by academic research) that connect job satisfaction with performance. These concepts are what the author refers to as "shared values". Of special note is the new section on "Personal Workstyle Assessment". A Journey Into The Heroic Moment is wonderfully accessible reading and enthusiastically commended to the attention of anyone in a business environment, especially those charged with the responsibility for enhancing productivity and efficiency within the workforce.

A wonderful lesson on the soul of business; and life

=Treat others with uncompromising truth. =Lavish trust on your associates. =Mentor unselfishly. =Be receptive to new ideas, regardless of their origin. =Take personal risks for the organization's sake. =Give credit where credit is due. =Do not touch dishonest dollars. =Put the interest of others before your own. Ron Lebow's highly underrated HEROIC ENVIRONMENT is a wonderful allegory that goes beyond both moralism and psychology to teach great lessons about character and true, lasting success in life. While reading his chapter on the four dominant personality traits, in fact, I found myself in a rather ironic way. The hero is, of course, the central character/protagonist in this allegory. However, it was when I noticed an existential disagreement with the author's definition of a dissident--and how dissidents should be in essence dealt with in an organization--that I realized that my dominant personality trait is that of a Maverick. Ron Lebow (as his nom de plume character in the book Kip) describes the dissident as being "an integral part of almost every organization (page 90)." He then proceeds, however, to describe the aspects of the dissident's character and personality traits as being those that are essentially, and wholeheartedly, counterproductive to the growth and development of the organization. For him a dissident is more of, really, a codependent. While I don't know the actual etymology of the term, I do know that the word dissident comes out of the lexicon of politics, and has been historically tied to the intellectual structures of the revolutionary minded heroes that follow in their wake. Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, et. al. were very much the dissidents of King George III's colonists; Gandhi's Satyagraha--philosophy of non-violent resistance--was perhaps the most dissident theology of the modern era, influencing America's great 20th century dissident Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. With that kind of company (to say nothing of what's his name from the New Testament [smile]), it is obvious to me that when Lebow is being uncomplimentary he is not actually referring to a dissident but to a set of personality traits that are reflective of someone who exists somewhere between the dissident and his (badly used metaphor, considering the times we live in) terrorist. I would call them the wanna-be dissidents. Like paparazzi or simple groupie narcissists are to actual movie stars, the disgruntled wanna-be dissidents, whose intuitions do pick up on the structural integrity failures of an organization but focus on it only in order to avoid looking at themselves, are always in the company of real dissidents. They use the dissident's unique set of insights, awareness and profound courage as a technique to cover up their own character failings that they'd rather not be confronted with. As far as the negative impact on an organization however-in terms of both morale and actual profits and structure, etc.-though the natural inclin

Reads like a novel. Applications of a managment text.

This book is easy and fun read like one of Ken Blanchard's books. Contains lot's of practical applications for businesses, organizations, and families living in the fast paced, changing enviroment of the 21st Century.Although it can be read in 2-3 hours, you will probably want to re-read often. Contains an excellent self-evaluation quiz at the end of the book.

This book changed the way I managed my companies stores.

Before I read this book I was stuck in past of the one minute manager and the effective executive. After reading The Journey into the Heroic Enviroment I now live and die by it. I carry this book with me everywhere I go and have everyone I know read it. I do feel now that by making this book a must for all my managers and freinds alike, we all have a more productive enviroment that leads to a more productive financial statement. To Rob Lebow I salute you and say thanks.