In the early 1980s, a small book launched a major business book trend. The One Minute Manager, written by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, brought to the forefront a new type of book: the parable business book.
The idea was as simple as it was brilliant: a short book (one that the hectic business person could read during a short flight) that told a story containing insights that could be applied to the workplace. The parable business book genre quickly grew to include hundreds of volumes on a wide variety of business topics. Ken Blanchard wrote or co-authored an entire One Minute Manager series of small books. Spencer Johnson wrote the well-known Who Moved My Cheese. Both books sold millions of copies and have become business book classics, not only in the U.S., but internationally.
Both authors have endorsed a new entry into the parable book line-up: Juggling Elephants? Be the Ringmaster of Your Work and Life. Written by Jones Loflin and Todd Musig, this latest parable book takes the best from its predecessors. It focuses on an urgent workplace topic, tells an insightful, interesting story with universal appeal, and finally, is just plain fun.
Borrowing a metaphor from Ken Blanchard, Juggling Elephants can be described as the third leg of a three-legged stool of business parable books. The first leg is The One Minute Manager, which deals with the problems of managing. The second is Who Moved My Cheese with its tale of change. Juggling Elephants, the final leg, is about how to balance the other two. While they were not intended this way, the three books make for an interesting trilogy of the journey that is the contemporary workplace.
Juggling Elephants is a simple story. The hero, Mark, discovers that he can get more than an interesting outing with his daughter when he begrudgingly visits the circus. He meets a ringmaster who helps him understand a new way of prioritizing and organizing his life as well as his work.
This new mentor, using the metaphor of the three-ring circus, shows Mark how to live a more ideal, less stressful life by balancing what is most important. Mark's career, relationships (particularly with his family) and his personal development have become out-of-control elephants. He learns how to be the ringmaster of his own circus.
This is a book with likeable characters to which most business people would have little difficulty relating. There are moments when the circus metaphor may become overly simplistic or the dialogue a bit stilted for some readers. Still, the book is successful in the way that parables have been since Aesop's fables; it presents insight and wisdom in ways that are effective, eternal and universal.
The authors use a story within the story in a way that adds depth and creates another layer of insight. In the opening, Mark's daughter, Jackie, now a young woman, visits her successful father to share her struggles balancing her own emerging career and new family. Mark shares his own life and career challenges, telling the story of how attending the circus with his daughter many years before had taught him to juggle the elephants of the workplace.
The book then tells the heartwarming story of Mark and his young daughter at the circus and how she helped lead him to discover new insights about his work and personal life. Mark shares the valuable and practical principles from the circus to help his now grown-up daughter.
Like its predecessors, Juggling Elephants succeeds as a business book due to its quickly apparent application to the workplace. If you haven't at some point thought of your workplace as a three-ringed circus, you're probably not paying attention.
The authors give us some genuine insight as well as practical solutions on how to run this circus more effectively. Performance excellence, team management, focus and mission are among the issues that are given proactive approaches for success. Personal issues, including health and family, are given equal importance in the performance ring.
Small wonder that Blanchard and Johnson have endorsed this book. Juggling Elephants is the perfect addition to the parable business book line-up. Read it and better understand ó and manage ó your own personal and professional circus.