Get Weird!: 101 Innovative Ways to Make Your Company a Great Place to Work

by John Putzier

Book Overview

"How can companies recruit, retain, train, motivate, and reward great employees--especially in a tight labor market? How can they win new customers and boost sales? The secret is to lighten up and get a little weird Creativity and productivity can go hand in hand, as this chock-full-of-ideas book amply shows. Like a Christmas stocking crammed with treasures, Get Weird overflows with irresistible techniques for innovating and problem-solving. It...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814471145
• ISBN13: 9780814471142
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Amacom
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 17 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Applying trust, compassion and fun to management really works!

This is one of the best books on management I have read in a long time! The ideas inside Get Weird by John Putzier are highly adaptable to my own business, Flying Pen Press, a book publishing company. While Putzier directs his narrative at large corporations, the book rings true for the small business owner, as well as within our publisher-author relationships. Putzier postulates the rather obvious ideas that people are more likely to join and stay with a company where they are respected, trusted and most of all, where they enjoy themselves. These ideas are obvious, yet so few companies have failed to see this. With this in mind, Putzier offers 100 different methods of turning these ideas into reality. Each method is easy to implement, inexpensive for the company, and will actually increase productivity and employee retention. Most of them can be implemented by middle managers without need of a superior's authorization, other methods are best implemented companywide by the top executives. After a full chapter that broadly discusses the basics of creative thinking in the business place, Putzier applies his own creativity to the following topics: Employee Recruitment, Employee Retention, Company Culture, Recognition & Incentives, Training & Employee Development, and a miscellaneous chapter that includes ideas for sales, service, public relations, and personal satisfaction. Here are just a few of the ideas that I will be implementing at Flying Pen Press: To recruit employees: #11, Birds of a Feather. We will be assigning a current emlployee to act as host to prospective recruits. To retain employees: #22 Mind Your Own Business! We will open up the books to everyone so that each staff member can see how their actions, decisions and expenditures affect the company's bottom line. To improve company culture: #60, You can Call Me Ray! Let each staff member rename his or her own job title in a serendipitous vein. To give employees recognition and incentive: #72, Cooperation Compensation. Department heads will meet one-on-one with each other and agree in writing on list of what they need from each other. Then at the end of the month, Each department rates the other departments on how they did, and bonuses will be based on that department's average rating. To train and develop the staff: #83, Road Trip. We will take staff members to visit our suppliers, vendors, and retailers to give them a better idea of how it all fits together. To recruit authors: #2, All the Wrong Places. We will start recruiting science fiction authors at sci-fi movie premieres and sci-fi conventions. To retain authors: #24, Come On Down! We will open all of our meetings to authors, so they can see what goes on at their publisher's offices. To add value to the publisher-author relationship: #51: Camp MED. We will turn one of our offices into a quiet writer's library, with classic books, writing guides and top-notch computer with fast internet. To recognize our authors

An enjoyable book.

This was my 2nd business type book I've purchased.This book is all about how to being a good boss and looking after your staff and making your business a great place to work.Definitely a 101 type book.Plenty of advice here to help all business improve and keep good staff from leaving. An ideal book that all business owners should have.

The Real Deal

As an insatiable consumer of business books, I can confidently say that "Get Weird!" is the most engaging, entertaining, yet useful business book I've ever read. It's chock full of great ideas guaranteed to make your workplace the one people on the outside want to get into. Putzier's humorous writing style and knack for knowing a great idea when he sees one make this one of the most enjoyable and beneficial business books you'll ever buy. I've recommended it to hundreds of people and will continue to for the rest of my career.

Good conversational thought-provoker

When John Putzier was a child, his mother told him he was weird. For most kids, being told they were weird might be traumatizing. Not John. He prided himself on being weird-different. Over the years of his career in human resource consulting, professional speaking, and college teaching, he has prided himself on being weird-just a little bit different, off-beat. The power of being off-beat is encapsulated in a quotation I learned in my growing-up years, "It's the usual thing, done in the unusual way, that captures the attention of the world."John certainly has captured the attention of the world with his work. And how he shows us how to make this happen in our lives as executives, managers, and human resource professionals. Weirdness is doing things differently. The results can be very positive, both in your confidence and in the results you can achieve. Putzier spends the first part of the book explaining this and setting up the reader to receive and consider 100 thought-provoking ideas. This section is titled Tapping Your Natural Weirdness, aka [also known as] Creative Thinking and Problem-Solving. The double title theme continues through the other parts of the book, enabling the reader to comfortably transition between Putzier's weird titles and terminology that will be more familiar.One hundred ideas are presented in the balance of the book, categorized in seven sections. Titles of those sections are Weird Ideas to Win Today's Talent, aka Recruitment; Weird Ideas for the Care and Feeding of Today's Talent, aka Retention; Weird Ideas for Changing Your Company, aka Fun & Games with a Purpose and a Profit; Weird Ideas for Perks, Pay, and Pats on the Back, aka Recognition and Incentives; Weird Ideas for Educating Today's Talent, aka Training and Development; and Weird Ideas for Enhancing Your Company Image, aka Sales, Service, Public Relations & Personal Satisfaction. Idea 101 is in Part 8, where the author suggests that you have other ideas in your head that you can add to his list. Remember, Putzier is endeavoring to stimulate your thinking, not just give you pat answers or magic pills.There are several additional features that add value to this book. The Table of content includes a phrase under each idea listing to quickly explain what the idea entails. An alphabetical list of ideas appears at the end of the book as an unusual, but helpful, index.The book is easy to read and serves as a fine read-through in addition to a good reference book for follow-up.

Great insights--full of meat and fun to read

You will very quickly realize that this person is a veteran who is not talking theory. There is very serious substance and great ideas that can make a difference in the workplace.I must add that it was delightful to read in terms of being a fun book I did not want to put down.Worthwhile investment of time!