For whatever reason, a Bus is a popular metaphor of
authors of business and leadership books. Bestselling business author Jim
Collins most famously utilized the bus in his book Good To Great when he wrote about getting the right people on the
bus, the wrong people off the bus and the right people in the right seats on
the bus as a way for businesses to make the often difficult transition for
being good to being great.
Now educator and leadership trainer Ron Clark is trying
his hand at moving from training educators to taking his unique leadership
principles to the business world in the form of Move Your Bus: An Extraordinary New Approach to Accelerating Success in
Work and Life.
Clark breaks his bus passengers down into four categories:
·
Runners –
those workers who consistently go above and beyond for the good of the
organization
·
Joggers –
workers who do their jobs without pushing themselves
·
Walkers –
the workers who are just getting pulled along
·
Riders
- those who actually hinder success and
in the process drag the team down
The trick is for the bus driver; you, the leader to
recognize those qualities in your workers and then integrate the strategies to
bring out the best in your team. The goal isn’t to have a bus full of runners
who often can’t balance work and life, but to balance the team and if necessary
kick those who aren’t pulling their weight out at the next stop.
Groundbreaking? Probably not, but Clark’s track record
of success combined with workable strategies you can implement quickly and
mostly painlessly make this one worth the price of admission. It’s accessible
and easy to develop a plan of approach based on the tool Clark presents.
