Is Thank God It's Monday! Worth The Read?

Having spent several hours reading Roxanne Emmerich's best seller, Thank God It's Monday! How to Create a Workplace You and Your Customers Love , I am left with one burning question. How did this book become a bestseller?

As a rule I am not a fan of the book genre of  motivational - here's the solution to fix your business culture. To me they follow a disturbing formula:

• Offer a concept that promises to have a positive impact on the bottom line and corporate culture.
• Promise that any business can implement the concept-it's that easy
• Share some inspirational anecdotes of companies that have seen dramatic turnarounds in their culture and bottom line  by implementing the concept
• Keep it so generic that anyone reading the book has to hire the consultant/author in order to really figure out how to implement the program.

This approach is rampant in the genre of inspirational business books. It's as if an editor is saying, " Don't really tell them how to create this fabulous culture otherwise they won't have any reason to hire you." Well to me it feels like bait and switch. I bought a book that was supposed to tell me How to create a Workplace You and Your Customers Love.The book fails miserably.

Instead of telling me how to do it, the book  just tells me how fabulous it will be  when you achieve it.It's like getting a cookbook with lots of pretty pictures of fabulous meals that includes a couple of ingredients  but not all,and definitely without any measurements or preparation instructions.

In one section of the book Emmerich gives advice on creating a vision statement which she says,

...use language to provide a compelling picture of future success. They must reach out beyond the walls of the organization to your customers and anyone with whom your company interacts. They ask that your people commit to something bigger than themselves- this is a trait of all enduringly successful people and organizations. [...] You want your vision to project the kind of interactions that will excite your customers to bring their friends around.

Ms. Emmerich then gives some examples of vision statements - all that seem eerily similar to Zappos mission to do whatever is smart and fair to make customers happy.

• Every customer comes back and brings a friend
• Every client is a client for life and brings along their family
• Every customer calls back asking for a customer service rep by name
• Every customer is treated like they are the only customer every time

Nice sentiment. So how is a company supposed to do that? You won't find the answer reading Thank God It's Monday! You'll read that you need to treat people with dignity and respect. You'll read that you need to be inclusive and create a working environment where people are engaged.

What you won't read is a practical ,step- by- step approach to turning your culture around so every customer does come back with lots of friends.

For more on what I really don't like about this book, check out my complete review and rant on BlogHer.