In our building experience, since the book has been released to the masses, my wife and I have found the book to be the major filter in extracting students for the sake of building up a leadership community. In talking to people about a book, that's been so successfully promoted by the TEAM leaders by all standards, that's been so well written and researched by the authors, and that we've personally had such great results with in our own lives; we can usually not only find out if someone's interested in learning more pretty quick, but we also know that in reading the book, that it will more than likely lead us to other students very quickly. We seem to have tapped into an industry where there is a lot of hunger for an organized approach for self development for self and others. What a lever. Rusty

A very good friend of mine, Mark Ludwig gave me a copy of LLR, I was so impressed with this book, I bought a copy and gave it to a good friend of mine John. He was so impressed with this book, he bought several copies, and gave it to several of his close friends. This book should be in everyone's library.

I have used the book by launching Leadership classes at work on a volunteer basis during workers lunchtime. I hand out fliers anouncing the classes and I have an orientation class that presents a little of the Woodward & Brady video and distribute the book. I challenge everyone to 'influence' their co-workers to attend the 6 lunchtime classes. 35 Leadership Students attended the 1st set of classes. Those 6 classes are presented via PowerPoint charts from the outline of major topics in the book. We use the lunchtime classes to discuss the ideas presented. By the end of the 6 classes, I had several attend the local Leadership Seminar and register for the Leadership Direct Fulfillment and everyone received a certificate for attending. The management of the company heard about the classes and wants me to conduct more classes in January. "Each One Reach One" works for reading the books, attending seminars, listening to audios/videos, and let's all start changing the world one person at a time.

A friend after reading 'LLR 'was so impressed. has given the book to his general manager and another member of his management team who has become a leadership customer! Each week he seems to give the book to someone else--- while returning from Men's Leadership and seminar in Michigan,the man I was sitting next to on the plane works for a large defense contractor in Connecticut.Our discussion centered around leadership(hmmm).I recommended the 'Launching the Leadership Revolution" to him and we are getting togehter either this week or next. People are searching for leadrship development to better themselves and influence others in a positive manner. Each one reach one is right on for this time and place.Blessed to be associated with truly great leaders--be free Coach

For the past few months several leaders from my area have been meeting three nights a week to grow in our leadership ability. I've found that for me and many others one of the hardest things to do is to develop a habit of reading. Especially if you haven't read since school. On Sunday and Thursday nights we meet to discuss a leadership book. I was great to get the perspectives of so many people while going through LLR. We even filled out our own Tri-lateral Leadership Ledgers and shared them with everyone. Since then we've also gone through almost all of the top five books. We've got one more to go. After we discuss the reading for about an hour or so we then watch a DVD or listen to an audio. We've watched several DVD's of TEAM speakers, a few John C. Maxwell leadership lessons, a couple Bruce Wilkenson DVD's, a Leadership Summit from Willow Creek Church, and this week in honor of the Christmas season we will be starting a three part audio series from John C. Maxwell entitled "Jesus and the 21 Irrefutible Laws of Leadership."

Aside from Sunday's and Thursday's, we also have "Movies That Matter" on Tuesday nights. Here we watch inspirational films such as "Amazing Grace", "Rudy", "Cinderella Man", etc. Not everyone can make it to every meeting so, in order to keep everyone up to date, I send out e-mails to everyone after each meeting. I hope this can help some others in their leadership growth. I know that for my wife and I it has really kickstarted our growth. I think the most powerful aspect of it is that it holds everyone accountable to each other.

So far, I've personally given away 15 copies of LLR. Not one of the people had ever personally been to a Team Seminar or personally met you or Chris. And yet every single person I've given one to has been so impressed with the strategic approach of laying a foundation of the 3 H's and the progression through the 5 levels of leadership. I believe every single one of them will be coming to the next Team Leadership Development Seminar in St. Louis in Jan.
I also gave one to my pastor who is the pastor of a fairly large Baptist church in the St. Louis area (attendance of over 3,000 people on Sundays). He just called me yesterday to say that after reading hundreds of books on leadership he is extremely impressed with this one and plans on sharing the concepts with the leaders of his church.

These are excellent examples of utilizing the book for an introduction to leadership. I love using the tools as a pre-screen to find the hungry students. Without hunger, there is no leadership. A book can do that much more effectively and efficiently time wise than I can. I know when I sit down to discuss helping them develop into a leader, that they are looking if they enjoyed the book, DVD's or CD. Keep your stories coming! thanks, Orrin

I 1st read the book in a tree deer hunting a little over a year ago. It was given to me by my youngest brother and Kirk Birtles. At that point in my life had left the same major auto OEM that you and Chris once worked for. After having reached the lower executive levels there, I wasn't happy with what the next 20+ years of my life looked like and was jumping around the E Quadrant looking for greener grass. I had read many books on leadership, relationships, and of course the manufacturing specific "how to" magic pill stuff. Anyway, when I did read the book, I personally found it great - it helped my enthusiasm that I bagged a great buck that walked right under me because I was so quite and intent on the book. But of course, not only didn't know what I didn't know, I hadn't even grown enough at that time to realize that I didn't know what I didn't know.
Since that time, with the help of mentorship like Kirk and others, I've grown allot. In the last few months, I've given over 50 copies of the book to my staff, other suborninates, peers, and superiors. Some still haven't cracked the binding, but those that have actually read it love it and quite often spur conversations with me about it.
Last Friday evening, one of the Engineers that works for me and I were having a conversation about the great things he had accomplished this year. Ultimately, he opened himself up to and voiced his concern with his struggles in taking it to the next level and getting others around him to follow his lead relative to problem solving and dealing with customers. Coincidentally, I had a copy of LLR on my desk. I had given him a copy of it months earlier. I asked him if he had read it. He admitted that he had not, but he had finished reading Personality Plus and was working on the Magic of Thinking Big. He was suddenly excited though and we talked about those two books for quite some time. After a while, I opened the book to the table of contents and refered to chapters 6 and 7. I made it a point to edify how much he had done as a learner and a performer. Then I was able to talk to him about progressing to the next level. He immediately took the book and started reading the beginnings of chapter 8. He was excited and now it was long after the time both our wives were expecting us home. He closed the book and handed it back to me. I asked him to keep that copy and give the other one to whomever he wanted that he felt could use it. Turns out his wife is now reading the other copy.
The weekend went and Monday morning came. I couldn't even get to my office without him cutting me off and expressing his excitment about what he had learned over the weekend. He had read the whole book and had a plan on how to use the priciples to grow in the level 3 area. Then, as a few more of his peers gathered around my office he started talking about the trilateral leadership ledger. It was amazing. It was one of the 1st times I was able to shut up and sit back and let it all happen. Before I knew it, there were 6 people sitting around my conference table thuming through the book as Bob told them about it.
So as they talked, I went and got a coffee, checked on a few production lines with the biggest grin on my face. People on the floor must have thought I was nuts just by the look on my face. Then I went to my car and got your DVD that came out last month. I noticed at lunch today that 3 of them were watching it in one of the conference rooms. Needless to say, I'm still smiling - that's not easy for a died in the wool chloric.

Craig Pinkelman

PS - had to order 6 more copies this morning.

Orrin,
I know this is a little late, but I had to share this story about the LLR book.
A group of us started doing a weekly book study with LLR at a Border's book store. Each week we discuss one chapter in the book and have a great time.
Last week one of the people from the group, Barry, was in the business/finance section of the store before our meeting and started a conversation with a man who was looking a book on finances that Barry had just read. He invited him to our meeting and the man consented.
During the course of the evening the man began asking questions about the Team and what we do and was so impressed with the mission of affecting culture in a positive direction. He said he always wanted to do something like that but felt so insignificant. "What can on person do?" He was so glad that he had found a national group of people who felt like he did and wants to continue getting information from Team and helping with the cause.

It was a wake-up call to me that people are looking for what we have access to.

Thanks Orrin and Merry Christmas,
Anthony

Orrin, I felt I had to share this article with you. If you believe it might be helpful for the team, please feel free to post it on the blog. My father has been a leader in the Jewish education field for many years and occasionally writes articles for a Jewish national weekly publication. His latest article specifically focuses on teaching leadership to our kids! (The parentheses are mine, just to make some of the references more universally understandable).
Thanks for all you do!
All the best,
Yitz Weiss
*******************
How Do We Teach Our Children About Our Leaders?
By Rabbi Mordechai Weiss

The Talmud in Tractate Taanit narrates a story of the great Rabbi Eliezer who, after completing his studies one day and feeling very proud, once met an exceedingly ugly person. He remarked, “What an ugly person you are! Are all your townspeople as ugly as you?” The man was shocked and insulted but responded “I don’t know, but go seek out my Master who created me!”

Rabbi Eliezer, realizing the great wrong that he had committed, attempted to beg for forgiveness for his disparaging remark, only to be rebuffed by this person who was deeply hurt. When they finally reached a town, the townspeople gathered around the great Rabbi Eliezer to greet him. When the man asked, who is this man? He was told that he is the great Rabbi Eliezer, to which he blurted, “There should be no more like him in this world!” The townspeople implored him to forgive Rabbi Eliezer for after all, he was still recognized as a great leader.Finally, after much coaxing the man agreed and absolved Rabbi Eliezer for the terrible remarks that he had uttered.

This section of the Talmud was cited to me by a young man as we sat in a “Beit Hamedrash”, a study hall, as he pondered how such an eminent Rabbi as Rabbi Eliezer could commit such a callous and insensitive act. “If Rabbi Eliezer was such a great man he couldn’t have made such a remark! Our “Chachamim”, scholars, could not make such an error!”

Looking at me for some direction he asked; “Can you explain this section of the Talmud to me?

“What is so difficult to understand? I responded. “Rabbi Eliezer just made a mistake! People make misjudgments and even a great Rabbi could also inadvertently, without thinking, make a mistake! Is this so difficult for you to accept?” The discussion ensued with me citing proof after proof of errors in judgment by our leaders, yet he refused to acknowledge that this was possible.

“What about Moshe (Moses) hitting the rock? Or Yiftach (Jephthah) offering his daughter as a sacrifice? Or Eli the priest mistaking Channah (Hannah) for a drunkard? Or King David’s relationship with Bat Sheva? Or Acher becoming an apostate? And the list went on and on...

“You don’t understand,” he continued. “These people were “Malachim”, angels. There must be a hidden message in their actions. They could not commit such blatant acts of cruelty and misjudgment!

The greater question however is, how do we teach our children about the greatness of our leaders? Do we paint a picture of people who were godly and never did anything even questionably wrong in their lives? Or do we tell it like it is, that our holy leaders were human beings like everyone else, and sometimes even they made blunders in their lives?

I believe that people who attain great heights in leadership or scholarship often have children who do not assume any leadership roles and rebel against that which their parents believed in and fought so hard for. If we place our leaders on the highest pedestal, often we are discouraged to try to emulate them. To do so seems impossible and it becomes easier to withdraw and give up rather than try.

If we say that our leaders are infallible then we paint an impossible challenge for our youth to aspire to their greatness and when they sense that they too make mistakes they become “turned off” to Judaism and reject our heritage as folly.

When I study the Torah and learn about our great heroes, I find it refreshing that they could make mistakes! It tells me that sometimes I can also err but I can continue to strive on to become a better person.

Years ago there was a book published entitled “The making of a Gadol” (great Jewish leaders are referred to as a "Gadol," or "Gedolim" in plural) in which one of the Rabbis were depicted in his youth in an unfavorable way. After great pressure, the book had to be withdrawn and corrected or face serious sanctions, because a Gadol can never be depicted in a less than perfect way.

Why? Isn’t it better to tell the truth and impart the message to our youth that in spite of a person’s faults, one can reach levels of greatness?

This is what we should be teaching our youth! To do otherwise would be placing impossible and unrealistic goals on them and setting them up for imminent failure.

Rabbi Mordechai Weiss is the Principal of the Bess and Paul Sigel Hebrew Academy of Greater Hartford. Any comments can be e-mailed to him at Ravmordechai@aol.com

Yesterday, my daughter Carolyn and I were discussing her sunday school class and what they were talking about. We found out that her teacher had been discussing the topic of decisions and how important it is to look at the decisions we make today in light of how they will affect us tomorrow. At bedtime she was reading her copy of LLR and said, "Mom, do you know how old I'll be in 20 years?" (She'll be 31.) As she pondered this she read me a quote from the first page of the book by Mark Twain:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
I encouraged her to take the book with her to church and share what she had read with her teacher, which she did and then he shared it with the class. After class her teacher asked if he could borrow her book because he wanted to read it!!! Incidently, he is also an elder in our church and now the second one to possess the book. One of our other elders has read LLR and ordered copies for others. Kevin and I have been praying for and trying to figure out how to help our church in some certain areas for a long time. We can now see the tide is turning- the hearts of the leadership are open to learning and applying leadership principles in a big way. They are expanding their vision in ways only God could have orchestrated, and are truly seeking how to build strong communities within our church.
I believe this book was born for such a time as this. Thank you so much. Sheila

This is such an excellent book. I hope that it goes to CD so that i can listen to it many times over. the written word is very important but if you can not read or do not understand the written-English, reading is difficult to do so many times it is not done at all. This is a crime unto itself. Please consider putting it out on CD. Also, if there was a way to get many, if not all the books you[TEAM] offer on CD. A leader said that he use to drive from lower Michigan to the U.P. (11 hours) and listen to many tapes, think of the info you coul dget into peoples hands [and minds] if they while driving or working or simply learning by listen and growing. Many of our [TEAM] current members and many more future members do not speak English well or do not understand the written-English enough to read & understand most books. Please consider helping this issue.