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Breakthrough!® Everything You Need to Start A Solution Revolution®
ISBN: 0965767795
$ 30.00
by Debbe Kennedy
Interactive Problem Solving
A Review by Stephen S. McIntosh
I admit it. I' m a gadget junkie. I grab a cart when I visit hardware stores. I love the bells and whistles on my car. I savor the Brookstone catalog. So when Breakthrough! arrived as a package, I got pretty excited---book, CD-ROM, set of cards, video and web site. How good can life get?
Debbe Kennedy, author and creator of the array of resources, comes with solid business credentials and an impressive set of endorsements from the likes of futurist Joel Barker and The Drucker Foundation's Frances Hesselbein. Kennedy worked at IBM for more than 20 years before founding Leadership Solutions Companies, a Montara, California based firm that creates customized organizational communications solutions and products such as Breakthrough!
Kennedy's basic proposition is that, because most problems are similar and are the result of universal core issues, we don't need to spend so much time on the problem-solving process. I consider that a risky assumption, and one with a potential to limit creative thinking and restrict the personal engagement of participants in the process.
However, if you can accept the proposition on faith (Kennedy shows no data to support her conclusion), then the approach offers several advantages. aside from speed, the book provides an inventory of possible root causes for problems in organizations. The card deck contains more than 50 common roadblocks to work group effectiveness. Participants in problem-solving sessions are instructed to sort through the cards, identify the most likely problem areas and pull those cards out for discussion. After a re-sort and cull down to the key issues, the members turn to each issue's corresponding chapter in the book for a comprehensive listing of generic solutions.
There are typically eight to 10 carefully described alternatives for each problem. This is the heart of Breakthrough!: well conceived, clearly written and often insightful. The easy-to-follow format allows even the uninitiated to run a problem-solving session with reasonable assurance of having a successful outcome. It's a particularly nice tool for line managers who want to practice team-building skills but who don't have available HR resources. The package is somewhat pricey, but if you consider that a facilitator or subject-matter expert won't be needed, the costs fall into line quickly. I actually tried Breakthrough! with a group, and in addition to finding a solution to their problem, they thought the process was fun.
As a word of warning, there's no guarantee that the card deck contains all or even the most critical issues confronting a team. And since the author doesn't outline the model or framework she used foe selecting the core issues, the user must take her word that the essential areas are included. And maybe it's just me, but I had a hard time finding the relevance of the famous quotes associated with the specific issues being explored.
As for the remaining gadgets, while I expected the video to show the problem-solving process in action, it is little more than an advertisement. Moreover, I had difficulty making the CD-ROM work. It uses a language [Adobe® Acrobat Reader] I didn't have on my computer, the normal "run" command wouldn't open the file, and the prompts did not come up as I thought they would. However, I went to the website and got helpful response the next day. The website is nicely laid out, and even though it has more endorses than insights, it can provide a real-time update for the book and makes the author readily available to the reader.
Despite its noted drawbacks, Breakthrough! is a clever idea with a potential audience. The package can be considered a next step in the evolution of educational tools, and if properly positioned, Breakthrough! can be an alternative delivery vehicle for the evolution of team-building responsibility to line managers. If only it told the outside temperature.