Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership)

I was lucky enough to meet Chip a couple of weeks ago and he was nothing like I expected. Chip has a clear, simple vision for running his business that can be easily applied to yours. From marketing to employee relations, this is a fantastic approach.

Plus, Chip is one of the most genuine people I've ever met. As a guy that reads almost everything on business, I strongly recommend this read. You wont be disappointed.

I saw Chip Conley speak at an arts engagement lecture. I was so interested in his pyramid approach as well as his commitment to psychographic (as opposed to demographic) profiling that I immediately ordered and feverishly consumed PEAK.

I read this book from the perspective of a brand manager (one of my many hats), but I found the theories useful for all the items in my nonprofit portfolio: communications, member engagement, even grassroots activism.

Chip identifies 3 critical stakeholder groups that are the key players in any company or organization: employees, customers (aka constituents, clients, or patrons for nonprofits), and investors (aka donors or granters). Chip argues that what all these stakeholders are looking for--after we meet their base and social needs--is identity refreshment. They want the experience of your company, organization, product, service, event, etc., to reflect who they are at their best, what they believe. They want you to help them "be all they can be."

This theory struck me, as a nonprofit professional, as so profoundly true that it's given me a whole framework for thinking about our organization and its identity, voice, and brand.

Chip's section on employee relations and helping employees reach their peaks is full of sound, creative, and useful ideas. Even though I don't manage any staff, I now have a different approach to how I interact with and recognize my colleagues. I would love for all managers to read this book :-)

Finally, I enjoyed Chip's style, making the book not only useful to read, but fun too--which cannot always be said of business books. Chip writes well, draws on personal experience (in sharing successes and failures), and uses examples of other peak companies.

Overall, I encourage all nonprofit professionals--but especially those involved in communications, member engagement, development, or management--to read this great book. Especially in tough times, we must differentiate ourselves and find innovative ways to reach our highest potential.

A business book that focuses on meeting the higher-level goals of employees, clients and investors. Well-written and interesting, with lots of suggestions for additional reading if you're interested in reading more about the Maslow-centric ideas outlined.

Conley has an engaging writing style, and includes lots of examples from his own business to illustrate his ideas. Nothing ground-breaking here, but it's an inspirational read for those managing a business during challenging times (like, right now) and he does a great job of providing bottom-line backup for ideas that at first might feel a little "touchy-feely" to some.

I'm lucky to work for a company that already espouses most of what Conley preaches, so for me it mostly validated what we're already doing. But, he also provides solid thinking for those that are looking to implement these ideas inside companies that aren't yet operating on the higher levels of the Maslow pyramid.

This isn't a horrible book. I just wish I hadn't spent money on it.

The idea behind the book is great. The book itself is just light. It reads like a book report about other people's books and ideas instead of a description of personal experience as a someone building a business. I expected much more in-the-trenches talk.

Chip writes well, I only wish he brought a more concrete philosophy to the book and backed it up with more personal anecdotes or more anecdotes from other people/companies gathered first hand. Everything is told kind of at a distance and in broad strokes. I got the feeling that Chip has read a lot of the same business books that I have over the past few years, so there didn't seem to be a lot of new ideas. The Maslow angle is what I came for but got very little of it.

Especially poignant in a time that feels equally as bad as the dot com bust, Chip offers inspiring hope that doing good for people is doing good for business. Best of all, "good" can be better defined though Maslow's principles as interpreted for business (an investigation researched by Maslow himself and probably unknown to the greater majority of literate Americans) Chip brings his own understanding of how these principles apply to hospitality. Perhaps most hopefully the book assures and demonstrates how business itself may be the most impressive instrument of social change and justice.