Summary of Don't Fire Them, Fire Them Up by Frank Pacetta - Book Report/Review Example

Book Report: Dont Fire Them, Fire Them Up As the implies, Dont Fire Them, Fire Them Up by Frank Pacetta is about motivating the team members enough to inculcate fire in them rather than firing them because they lack motivation and their performance is not up to the mark. This book teaches the audience ways to earn the trust and confidence of the team, make the team members loyal and inculcate immense excitement and enthusiasm in them. It is a wonderful guide for the leaders. They can learn how to build an organization and make necessary changes in its processes in accordance with the changing needs of the time. Audience learns ways to energize the environment and keep the morale of the team members high. This book is unique in that the author has not only unveiled the secrets of team leadership for the audience, but has also proposed a holistic approach to them which they can adopt to fully acquaint themselves with the wonders of the knowledge encapsulated in the book. The author tells how he has designed the book and clearly dictates how the book should be read and what guidelines should be considered while understanding the concepts. Before starting to write about the subject, the author divides the audience into two basic categories; First, readers who directly want to read the secrets of team leadership like magical verses and the second are the kind of readers who like to read moral-generating stories. “In designing the book, I decided that business readers fall into two basic types: those who want a no-fooling around “repair manual,” and those who are interested in case histories and a story line within which ideas are presented and developed” (Pacetta, 1994, 18). This enables a reader to have an in-sight into his own kind so that he may maintain the same radical approach right from the conception till the end of the book. At the time that Pacetta was assigned the duty of district manager in the sales office of Xerox’s Cleveland, conditions were weird in the organization. It took Pacetta no more than just one year to identify loopholes in the organizational system and take necessary measures to change the organizational culture for the better. After a year since Pacetta had taken the charge as the district manager, Cleveland had become first in the region and ranked forth among the sixty five sales districts. His services proved very favorable for the organization and within four years, the revenues in Cleveland became two-folds. Before, they were only $56 million and after four years, the revenues had become $106 million. Pacetta tells that he made this happen by maintaining the right kind of team and the right team spirit. Since then, Pacetta moved to the Mid-Ohio District with his team. In this book, Pacetta has explained the secrets one needs to know in order to take the organization to the apogee of success. Pacetta has referred to employees’ motivation as fundamental to the organizational success. Leadership leads an individual to success provided that the individual makes use of common sense along with learning the leadership principles. Through his book, Pacetta has offered a number of bulleted questions and checklists to the learners in order to let them have timely advice. As more of this book is read, the audience gains a sound understanding of the methods employed by pancetta, the way and the reason they work and the way they have to be applied in a particular work environment. It is Pacetta’s elaboration of the way he has written the book that makes it all the more interesting for the reader. This book is user-friendly in all manners. While reading the book, the audience gets an impression as if they are getting live lecture from some instructor in the class and are having face-to-face interaction with the instructor rather than reading the book of some author. In order to address the concerns of audience that are running short of time and cannot read full chapters to gain the concepts or the ones that are not very fond of reading books, Pacetta has provided a concise bulleted explanation of each chapter at the book’s back. Pacetta involves the audience in his strategy to acquaint them with the concepts in the best way. This is what makes this book a complete guide that one can avail without external help. I’d hate to think that I had written a book I wouldn’t read myself. The fastest way to turn me off as a reader is to show me a pie chart or a bar graph. I hate baselines unless they run between third base and home plate. So there will be none of that. The emphasis is on usable information; cash-and-carry, take-away stuff. I hope that at the end of each paragraph you’ll put the book down and go do it. (Pacetta, 1994, p. 19). The book contains a wide array of anecdotes. Pacetta talks about the various programs he has been using to lead his organization to the top. Reading this book completely rejuvenates an individual’s conviction in the human spirit. The book reinforces the belief in an individual that if he/she trusts someone and remains enthusiastic and consistent in it, that belief works wonders of transformation. It does not make any difference whether that someone is a group of belligerent children, a team of disgruntled employees or the individual himself/herself, consistency of belief transforms that someone into the best cheerleader. Pacetta rightly holds “leader’s confidence in subordinates” as the most fundamental key to the development of team members. When subordinates realize that their strengths are identified by the leader and following his/her advice would enable them to optimize upon their skills, they given in their most to help the leader achieve the organizational goals with their effort and cooperation. This promotes unity and harmony among the workers and they tend to develop a family culture into the workplace. Thus, the leader gains their consent and is best able to make them play their respectively roles in the achievement of goal. References: Pacetta, F. (1994). Dont Fire Them, Fire Them Up. NY: Fireside. Read More