The premise of this book is great–there are valuable leadership and administrative lessons and strategies to be gleaned from Dwight Eisenhower’s D-Day operations.
However, the book lacks practical application of these lessons. Throughout the historical narrative of Eisenhower’s operations are text boxes with administrative nuggets. But that’s where it ends. There is no how-to or strategy on implementing these ideas in today’s business setting. An example–On page 78 the lesson gleaned is ” Knock ’em out. If your mission is to put your competition out of business, you can’t afford to do it in a leisurely fashion. When opportunity knocks, go after it fast.” Besides the fact that it is ludicrous to imply that anyone’s “mission” would be reduced to merely putting someone else out of business, the author fails to tell you how to get this done.
The book also assumes the reader has a good grasp of history and Eisenhower. For example, chapter two jumps right into lessons to be learned from Operation Torch without any background or clue about Torch. The only introduction to it is the last paragraph of chapter one that connects Torch to North Africa.
The book is really more about how Ike led than how to lead like Ike. And that’s the content; the language and intermittent use of colloquialism is another issue.
The book did not “knock me out.”
(Note: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255)
Says Fyl 