Cambridge Business Association
The Orange Revolution
Book

The Orange Revolution

How One Great Team Can Transform an Entire Organization

Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton
Free Press, 2010
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Consultants Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton feature illuminating, instructive cases and anecdotes on nearly every page. Yet their book is far more than just a collection of captivating tales from the business world. It also contains invaluable information, all solidly research-based, on how to construct highly effective teams. These best practices form the bedrock of the authors’ “Orange Revolution.”

Summary

Stone Age Teamwork

Anthropologists used to believe that during the Stone Age, only the luckiest cave dwellers were able to hunt and kill huge, dangerous beasts to feed themselves and their families. Today, scientists contend that prehistoric cavemen adroitly worked together in teams to hunt prey they could not possibly kill alone.

How did ancient cavemen accomplish the difficult task of slaying such enormous animals as woolly mammoths? Each tribal hunting team leveraged the personal strengths of its individual members: The best trackers would locate the prey, leaders would direct where the individual cavemen should position themselves for the kill, and the most expert spear throwers would wound the mammoth. The hunting party would run the animal down, even if their deadly endurance race took days before the mammoth finally collapsed. The triumphant cavemen would then gather around the fallen beast and slay it for food.

Indeed, since the origins of mankind, human beings have been disposed to join groups and make use of teamwork. Such teams can do both, they leverage personal strengths and they compensate for personal deficiencies. Therefore, the team provides ...

About the Authors

Adrian Gostick is the author of several books on corporate culture, including the bestseller The Carrot Principle, which he co-wrote with Chester Elton, a motivation and recognition expert.

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    G. B. 1 decade ago
    Get Abstract is getting too loose on it's ratings, or has inexperienced reviewers. I haven't read the book, but the review of it provided absolutely nothing new about teams - like everything here is 20-30 years old. How this book got an 8 for innovation and a nine overall is beyond me.
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      1 decade ago
      Wow Gervase, I thought it was a very good book, and I read about 100 business books year and have every year since 1989. If you did not get what you were looking for as far as information for teambuilding and high-performance teams, the best book I have read on that topic so far is: “Teambuilding – proven strategies for improving team performance" by Dyer, Dyer and Dyer (I guess the whole family got into the team thing). If you are looking for a book on how to build great culture – which I think the Orange Revolution does a good job of – I might also recommend anything by Joseph Michelli – “The New Gold Standard” or “The Starbucks Experience,” are both good books. I also thought the book: "Firms of Endearment," had some excellent things to say about building high-performance cultures that create highly loyal and engaged customers. And of course if you were just looking for a solid book on high-performance teams, "the discipline of teams," by Katzenbach and Smith is pretty much considered the best book on that topic.

      I hope you found this feedback helpful. Have a great day – John Spence
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    J. S. 1 decade ago
    An absolutely outstanding book on employee engagement.
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    D. F. getAbstract 1 decade ago
    The Orange Revolution goes much further than managers motivating with carrots instead of sticks, it really implements the idea that employees are motivated by their own carrots which is driven by groups or the culture of the company…it will click when you read this summary. The other books by these authors are really good too!