KIRKUS REVIEW
A book about leadership methods that focus on personal transformation.
In this debut, entrepreneur and management consultant Meroff lays out a socially oriented management style called “alignment leadership,” which involves making sure that every employee is enthusiastically committed to the company’s goals. Aligned employees, Meroff asserts, feel personal fulfillment in their work—a higher and more sustainable bar than mere involvement. Indeed, he takes his “social process” to an almost transcendental level by applying a word that’s rarely used in the workplace: love. By this, he means a leader’s love for humanity: “if you truly love people and want the best for them, you will find the motivation you need to keep cultivating the culture that allows your people to feel fulfilled.” It’s certainly not a concept that the stereotypically cutthroat Mad Men business culture would have embraced, and even today, Meroff says, it may face resistance. The key, he says, is that every single employee needs to understand and wholeheartedly agree on what, when, and why he or she needs to perform a particular assignment, as well as what the communal goal is. The author has a knack for conveying complex nuances in clean, uncomplicated prose. His four-step recipe, which involves “Culture, Tasks, Resources, and Employee Success,” is, as he says, “simple, but not easy”—it’s a cinch to grasp, but applying it will take communication and persistence. His methodology promises a workplace dynamic in which no one will consider his or her job to be work—which is definitely a tall order in a company with hundreds of employees. Still, Meroff ably covers important what-ifs along the way: “What if you assign a particular task to an employee and their question to you—either spoken or unspoken—is Why do I have to do this?” The book sets itself apart from more typical management guides, which often see pizza parties, happy hours, and corporate retreats as ideal ways to make employees feel valued.
An innovative and polished look at an unusual management model.