Book Review: TIGERS among us
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Dianne Crampton has been using some form of her TIGERS system for understanding team cultures for over twenty years. She's developed several tools (some are free), including a game, diagnostic instruments, a newsletter, and more to help people use the system.
She also wrote TIGERS among us: winning business team cultures and how they thrive. If you want to learn more about her systems and products, I suggest you avoid the book and head for her web sites instead.
There are three reasons to skip the book. The book offers no demonstrated proof that the system works There are no examples of her system in action. The writing is not very good.
Despite the fact that the system has been around for a while, the book offers no proof that it works. Validation studies are mentioned. But they are neither described nor helpfully referenced. Here's an example from page 7 in chapter 1, "Finding Tigers."
"Subsequently, Gonzaga University and the Washington Education Association independently evaluated the data from two validation studies."
At that point I stopped and looked for a mention of the two validation studies that were being evaluated. I couldn't find a reference.
The book is not footnoted, but there are "Notes and Resource References" for each chapter. There is nothing about the studies in the section for chapter 1.
That leaves a reader knowing nothing about what was studied, who did the study, how it was conducted, and what the actual findings were. We don't know the title either, which dooms a search of the academic literature.
There are also no examples of situations and companies where the system has worked. Some, like Costco and Grumman, are mentioned, but there are no details about what was done, when it was done, or what changed as a result.
To make things worse, the writing is not very good. Some of that is structural.
For example, on page 84 we're told that a "one franchisee found a way around the computer installed on each refueling truck." The employee used fake paper records to bill for fuel that wasn't delivered.
But two paragraphs later, we're told that the computer records caught the thief. If the thief had found a way around the computer, I would have assumed that meant he beat the system, not that he was dumb enough to use paper transactions to steal from a system with computerized records.
Simple wording changes could have made the situation and the lesson clearer. For example a change to "one franchisee thought he had found" would have done the trick.
Some of the bad writing is muddled phrasing. Example: "Trust can be defined as how a person is wired to do the right thing or fudge for personal gain." Really? That's not what trust means to me. And it's not what it means to the author.
There's also advice to "Develop your core values," as if the project should be done before you go home. And there are sentences such as "They like to problem-solve."
This is not awful. But it's not helpful either.
I did find one reason you might want to buy the book despite what I've just written. Four chapters are devoted to companies that the author believes have done a good job with teams and a team culture. There's a brief description of each one and analysis of how what they did conforms to the TIGERS model.
The four companies are Zappos, Dos Gringos, 4Refuel, and Tribe. Zappos is being covered by everyone these days, but the other companies might be new to you as they were to me. If so, reading about them might give you some good ideas.
Boss's Bottom Line
This book is poorly done and it does a poor job of representing the author's system. For more on that visit the following sites.
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
As a business owner who believes in the team approach I have sometimes struggled over the years to put it all together. It's one thing to say let's be a "team" and another thing to actually implement the concept effectively. Dianne Crampton's book was enormously useful to me in getting me thinking about how to make some changes in my approach so that my operation is an authentic, value-based team culture. She does an excellent job showing the value of the 'true' team approach over more traditional business structures. And I found her own original research on what values are necessary to build an authentic team quite interesting and revealing. Best yet, rather than simply theorize, which way too many business books do, this author actually went into the field, found businesses utilizing a successful team approach, and in an easy-to-read format gives us an inside look into what the team concept really is -- on the ground and in action. Any business owner or manager committed to a workplace with "real teams" not just groups of people called "teams" will find this book useful and interesting.
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Dear Anonymous,
Thanks for coming by and sharing your views. I don't disagree with you about whether the ideas that Dianne Crampton has used as the basis for her programs are good or helpful. Where we differ is on whether the book describes them well or is useful and well-done.
Since you have used the book to guide your actions in a business, I'd appreciate it if you would give us some more details. What problem did you face? How did you use the book? What results did you get?
It would be helpful is you would tell us what a "real team" is and how it differs from "groups of people called teams."
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Wow. Somewhat meanspirited review. And I completely disagree with Bock. I found the book extremely helpful in thinking about how best to implement a team culture. This is not an academic book but a very useful look at what a team culture really looks like in real businesses. Maybe such practicality doesn't matter to Bock which is fine. But the book is an easy read, full of good ideas and interesting examples of successful team cultures in the workplace. Those managers and business owners who really do want a "team" in their shop, rather than just platitudes about teams, should check out this book. I won't be surprised if this post is not published but I suppose there are other places to discuss the unfairness of this review.
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Since it wasn't my intent to be either mean spirited or unfair, I wish you has shared your reasons for characterizing the review as you did.
You say that "I found the book extremely helpful in thinking about how best to implement a team culture." My question to you is: Did you implement a team culture? What was the situation and how did the book help you?
As far as your comment that "I won't be surprised if this post is not published but I suppose there are other places to discuss the unfairness of this review." You should know that I approve all comments except the profane and blatantly self-serving. That includes your comment, which arrived with no identification beyond a first name and an invalid email address.
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I agree with your post that Bock is off target. His focus on writing style with misspellings in this rebuttal is amusing. Obviously anybody can say anything for any reason in quick little blog posts rather than thoughtful reviews. Bottom line, I like the book's writing style, but more important the content. It's accessible, along the lines of books such as Zap! and Who Moved My Cheese, two other books that don't brag about clients but are on target with interesting ideas that are not footnoted academic theory.
TIGERS Among Us was referred to me by a colleague. I bought one copy and now have 11 - one for each employee. They get this book and they like it. Because they like the book, it is used for discussing how to use the TIGERS principles in "our" company. They are telling me how "we" can apply these great concepts with "our" customers. "They" want to use these concepts, which makes it great for me because I don't have to push and drag them onto the bus to head toward our goals. We use the discussion guides that come with this book for our Monday team huddles and I got a great idea to use from the chapter about Dos Gringos and what they do in their meetings. I am more productive as a result. Jason Levin of Dos Gringos is a leader who thinks like I do. I want team people in my companty and this book spells out clearly what to look for and what to avoid. The examples the author uses makes sense on Main Street.
Look, I have a small web design and marketing business and I read leadership blogs all the time for ideas. And, I have stacks, of unread academic business books and accounts of how big businesses like Caterpillar turned around. So what? I want books that appeal to me as a small business owner and that my employees like because of the concepts we like to use. We use these.
I do agree with Bock, though, that Crampton's other resources are good, too.
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Thanks for taking the time to comment, James. Next time I hope you'll see your way clear to include a valid email address.
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I respect your opinion, especially if your priority in writing the review was to be helpful to employees or business owners who are trying to look for ways to change the culture or relationships in the workplace to one that is more productive and better for people’s well-being.
I have seen other reviews that focused on the author’s writing style or choice of words. But somehow this approach has made you miss important points that can help business leaders and employees work interdependently to create successful organizations.
From my past experience as an employee, there were many points in the book I could have been better off knowing right after college and which would have made me a better team member when I did worked in my initial jobs. I have experiences with team leaders, managers, and even owners, who were clueless about motivating their employees and did not take responsibility for creating systems in the workplace that would help develop positive work cultures.
Many people do feel powerless and de-humanized in the workplace. Being happy in life usually meant you have to be an entrepreneur or start your own business and do things your way—freedom from any sort of tyranny in the workplace whether emotional, psychological from colleagues or bosses. But not all people are cut out to be entrepreneurs or have their own money to start their business. Hence, we want better workplaces. We also want higher pay and for the business to thrive to keep our jobs.
Dianne proposes that one way to accomplish this is to have the values of trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success integrated in the co.’s culture and systems. To show how to do this, she gave examples of workplace behaviors that promote and damages these values. To get a clearer picture and prove that values-based work cultures are productive in ‘real life’, she presented how Zappos, Tribe, Inc., 4Refuel, and Dos Gringos have each uniquely integrated these values in their cultures. The business leaders in the book also affirmed that motivating their employees and making their customers happy was largely in part because of their commitment to their core values and culture.
As for the harsh criticism on the writing style, the book was written in a form that is ‘easy-to-read’ for employees of all levels of education and for business owners. It was intended as a workbook and not intended to be a journal article to be read and cited by HR & consultants in the academic world.
Regarding, the 4Refuel cheating incident, the perspective you saw was that the franchisee was stupid enough to cheat an automated system. But there was another point being the CEO of 4Refuel, Jack Lee made the correct decision to disclose the fraud to the unsuspecting client and even risk losing the account in the process. (You need to consider the culture of the oil industry as described in this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-cavnar/my-industry-should-be-ash_b_601065.html).
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This comment continues in a new comment. My response to both halves is appended to the second.
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Continuation of the comment:
For Wally’s readers who are still open enough to consider the book offers valuable insights in developing team culture and highly-effective business organizations by helping us understand (and believe) and see (from her examples: Zappos, Dos Gringos, 4Refuel, Tribe Inc.) that PEOPLE when placed in a ‘system’ or ‘work culture’ where trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, respect & success are present and actively promoted in the company’s business relationships (employee, bosses, clients), deliver quality service and business results that are not found in work places where the CEO’s and management team’s energy is focused only on the bottomline, and not much value is placed in building company cultures where people of all levels can thrive (not just the executives or hand-picked individuals but the entire organization).
Is it not worthwhile to motivate people (business owners, bosses and employees) to bring values back in the workplace, when in most cases, values are disregarded or sacrificed for the sake of ‘keeping our jobs’ or ‘increasing profits’? And ironically in the long-run, ignoring these values eventually results in employees quitting and companies losing revenues and customers.
Wally I like your blog, but I think you missed some helpful points for your readers. However, I respect our differences in opinion and perspective.
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Re: Validation Study Questions
1. Crampton, D. (1987). Masters Dissertation in Organizational Leadership. Spokane. WA: Gonzaga University.
* Wayne Powell was the professor in the Psychology Department who did the independent evaluations of submitted data and who wrote the article for peer review.
* Hence anybody can contact the university to get a copy of this dissertation to know the methodology used and other more academic details.
2. Dater L. (1988). Unpublished study. Spokane. WA: Washington State Education Association (WEA).
* Leona Dater was the Union official with WEA who commented on the last study. Leona was the Inland Empire - Eastern Washington Union Official. Leona was in her late 50's in 1993. I would think she is retired by now.
These citations are also included in the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Annual, edited by Elaine Biech and published by John Wiley.
3. Disclosure: I am a paid freelancer by Ms. Crampton. But as a freelancer I choose my own projects and I made a decision to bring more attention to the book only because I believed and have experienced for myself the benefits of applying the TIGER values.
And as an adult who even wants more peace and happiness in her relationships at home, being mindful of TIGER values helps a lot too.
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Thanks for coming by, Cecelia and for your thoughtful comments. I'm responding here to both of them.
You've explained your view of the value of Dianne Crampton's system and the lessons you learned from it. That's not what I reviewed. I reviewed a particular book about that system.
If I were writing about her system, I would not have suggested that potential readers, "avoid the book and head for her web sites instead." I included links to her two web sites to make that possible.
I think that a book that describes a system like this needs to stand on its own. It needs to include examples of the organizations using the system and it needs a clear description of how the system works. This book does neither.
There is not a single example of the TIGERS system in action. That means that, from this book, we can't tell how it works or how well.
You evaluate the style of the book as "written in a form that is ‘easy-to-read’ for employees of all levels of education and for business owners." I disagree.
I don't think the writing is either clear or easy to read. What I normally do in that situation is suggest that readers look inside the book on Amazon. That wasn't possible because the publisher has not made that information available.
Thank you for responding on the issue of validation studies. Any of the information you shared could have been included in the book. From my perspective, it's still not clear what was "validated" in the validation studies. I'm also unable to find a peer-reviewed article by Wayne Powell on this, so if you have a specific reference that would be helpful.
Thanks for taking the time to respond in such detail. It gives readers something they can evaluate to help make their decision to buy the book or not.
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