I LOVE MONDAYS

An instructive allegory about building better managerial skills.

Jessica, the fictional hero in this debut book by leadership coach Anastasopolous and author LaMarre, is a team leader in a bustling sales business, and even though she and her team are operating in “the blissful ignorance that comes from a growing market,” lately they feel like they’re making no progress, despite their hard work. The company’s leaders seem mired in outdated, ineffective strategies, and Jessica feels mired in her own malaise: She has a loving husband, a wonderful daughter, and a high-paying position, but she’s lost her passion for her job, which seems to be overwhelming her. Then she receives help from an unexpected source: a mysterious voice, apparently coming from a woman in an Edward Hopper painting, who offers disarmingly simple advice for how to turn things around. This counsel begins with something far simpler and more direct than anything Jessica has heard in the business world before: “If you expect your people to leave their humanity aside as soon as they enter the office, it’s going to tear them in two,” the voice tells her. “We’re all kids on a playground wanting to be loved, celebrated, and acknowledged.” Jessica begins to implement this new humanistic approach, with immediate positive results. As the story goes on to follow Jessica’s adventures with her new worldview, the authors very effectively personalize what might otherwise have been rather rote business motivational tips about being more empathetic toward one’s employees. It transforms Jessica into a fine example for any struggling middle-manager who might be looking to improve the way they approach their job. Along the way, it even presents readers with a few basic tenets of Stoicism: “We cannot control the way others react to the things we do and say,” Jessica is told. “We can only control the way we react to their reactions.”

An invitingly readable and inspirational story about managerial change.