by Steven S. Little
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Product Description
Growth is the central focus of every business, yet many businesses continually find ways to shoot themselves in the foot. In Milkshake Moment, Steven Little shows you how to identify and overcome the stifling behaviors built into your organization and get you back on track to substantive change and real growth. Read Milkshake Moment and find out how to ditch the pointless policies and stupid rules so you can give your customers what they really want; they'll reward you for it.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Entitlement on display, 2008-10-17
I can't tell you if Mr. Little has the answers to growth or not. After three chapters I just didn't want to spend any more time with him. His premise is that by ordering this item when it is not on the menu, he exposes a flaw in the operational process of the hotel. They have the ingredients to cater to his whim, but not the desire or ability. He breaks this down into a question of intelligence - is it the server who is stupid or the process? He knows a milkshake can be made, because the hotel has a bar. Is the bar owned by the hotel or contracted? What is the distance between the kitchen and the bar? How would sending the server to the bar disrupt the flow of orders for both sections of the hotel? We don't know, because underlying Mr. Little's 'gotcha' (I mean, a-ha!) moment is the assumption that these 200 hotels providing him with an off menu item is in the best business interest of the hotel. He claims he would pay (or bill travel?) $25 for that milkshake. Does that offset the line disruption?
After three chapters I was unable to put aside the "I want this, therefore I should have it." aspect of the message to evaluate what else Mr. Little might be trying to say. Empowering capable employees is important. Allowing working and profitable systems to be derailed is chaos. While Mr. Little may well be advocating the former, there was too much self satisfaction in the latter to keep me reading.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Good stories, but the book never came together, 2008-08-11
This is a short book about a hugely important subject: how company policies, procedures and cultures render frontline workers incapable of doing the right thing.
Strengths:
The book is short and well written so you get the message quickly. I read it on a flight from Charlotte to Dallas. There are twenty-nine chapters and they run an average of less than four pages each.
There are many good stories in here that you haven't heard before. The chapters built around these stories are usually excellent.
Warnings:
Even though this is a short book, it sometimes seems padded. For example chapter 6 is one of the longest chapters in the book. It covers the already-well-covered research of Philip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram but that research doesn't seem to make a point that moves the book forward.
Mr. Little offers cultural references and puns without explanation. He has a breezy style that can make it seem like he's not taking things as seriously as he wants you to.
The chapters that are not built around stories from Little's personal experience tend to be glib, but not necessarily accurate or complete. Mr. Little often seems willing to sacrifice content on the altar of "cute."
Mr. Little is an exponent of "leadership good, management bad." Actions that he thinks are good, he labels "leadership." Those he doesn't think are good are labeled "management."
There is a promise that what you learn from this book will help your organization grow. There is no discussion of whether this is a good idea or if other goals might be better for you. Little's comment is that "Most are trying to grow something at some level." Perhaps, but addressing how that relates to "Put purpose before profit" would have been helpful.
There is virtually no practical, "I'll-try-that-tomorrow," advice in this book. Most change in organizations requires attention to recruiting/training, processes, reward systems, and supervision. Not one of those is addressed with simple, actionable suggestions.
Bottom Line:
This book never came together for me. The good parts, building on Little's experience were usually excellently written and chosen. Much of the rest seems thrown together to make the word count and re-purposed from other uses.
The short stories and examples could give you value for the cover price. To see if it will, either page through the book in the store or use the "Search Inside the Book" feature on Amazon.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Good book to open your eyes on Processes...and how they can hurt, 2008-07-06
This is an interesting, well-written book worth picking up. It's easy to read with short chapters and contains some interesting, and at times funny, insights into the world of processes...especially bad processes (those that bind the hands of employees/organizations).
The book's entire premise is that while processes are necessary and provide value to an organization, you should make sure they allow `wiggle' room for individuals who use those processes. This wiggle room is necessary to allow people to be creative and innovative in how they solve problems. Most organization's don't stress that employees be creative and use processes at the same time...they'd prefer that an employee 'stick to the process'.
For example, the book uses the author's attempt at ordering a milkshake from room service at a fancy hotel. The hotel didn't have milkshakes on their menu and the room service personnel didn't quite know how to handle the request. The author asked if the hotel had milk, ice cream, a bowl and a spoon...the answer was yes. The author ordered these items and made his own milkshake.
The author uses this simple example to point out that the room service personnel were stuck in a process and just because they didn't sell milkshakes, they couldn't provide one and didn't have a `process' in place to get one to the author.
The book provides a good overview of what it means to be process bound, but also steps into the role of trying to teach the reader how to take simple actions to change these processes to follow a more common sense approach.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Great Follow Up, 2008-06-19
Just got done reading Mr. Little's second book and what a great read for any business leader. No doubt the title Milkshake Moment catches your attention and that is not where it stops.
I am an owner of a small business and after reading Steven Little's first book I could not wait for the second. Steve gets to the points quickly and confirms it with real life stories and not theories.
The book makes you re-think all of your process and how you approach problems and business issues. Without question this book keeps your mind thinking so that when that moment comes our organization is prepared. One of the stories that just jumps off the pages and really makes you realize that it can happen in any industry has to be the one on Pomegranates. This alone make the book worth reading.
I will be making this a must read for all EMPLOYEES (to often leaders stress Managers) but this is 1 book every employee should read and can truly help the organization.
If you are working in any size organization I would highly suggest you read and pass onto the next person.
William Binder
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Left underwhelmed, 2008-06-13
A professional eNewsletter I am subscribed to featured this book earlier this spring. It was a quick blurb, and the book sounded fantastic! My company's library added it to their collection at my request and let me borrow it first... having read the entire book, I must now profess disappointment. I was left underwhelmed. Sure I like the cultural references, and Steve is not without his humor. But on the whole, I felt this was a jumble, Steve gets on certain soap boxes (jailer study results; WW II Nazi rant) that to me didn't add to his presentation, just distracted from it, and left me scratching my head about his core points. In another section about an automaker, he comes off pissy about how he was not hired to consult for them. His concept via title sounds great, his execution was lacking. Sorry Steven, you left me with a glass and some whole milk when I wanted a skim milk full milkshake!
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