Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization on the Growth Track - and Keeping It There

Lots of comparisons to what I’m seeing in our organization. But not all of his applications apply to our context.

I had the luck of attending one of Les’s seminars where he explained the phases of the companies and I got totally hooked with his ideas. This book allowed me to delve more into each of the phases and understand how it is possible to remain in Predictable Success, with specific actions and a very good framework.As I listened to Les, and now as I was reading I was nodding to myself identifying clearly different phases in which I lived across diverse companies. It is quiet exciting to have now tools and techniques that I can chat about with my current colleagues to help all together maintain our company in predictable success.Fantastic read, and his seminars are highly recommendable as well!!!! Good amount of knowledge with more that one laugh ensured.

I wish I would have read this book much much sooner in my entrepreneurial journey. This book has so many "aha moments" from which readers can immediately take action. I now keep this book near my desk for quick reference.

I run my own business with occasional outside help -- could I learn from this book? Absolutely, especially as I'm shifting my focus from one sector of my industry to another, and wanting to get things "more right" in this next phase. In order to learn to do better, I first had to conceive of my business as an organization -- it is one, after all, a very small one. Then, I had to think hard of all the things I needed to say "No" to, when it's more the solopreneur reflex to say "Yes" to much too much. Next, I had to anatomize past mistakes in light of all I was learning as I read _Predictable Success_. What can I say? I won't be repeating those good things I let slip away or those dead ends that were the object of over-focus. Finally, I had to take a coherent approach to what everything would look like if I were very successful -- this is different than just planning to avoid tanking!I've had this book for only two days, and I'm smarter and more battle-ready than I was last week. It's easy to read, but it's very deep and shrewd. And, even if you are the sole proprietor of a home-based business, it IS a book for you. Perhaps THE book.

I am a strategy management consultant and researcher. I have more than 400 management books in my collection and Predictable Success was the first one I have read cover to cover. It is written in simple terminology and is an easy read - IT IS A MUST READ for any person who holds a leadership position in a business or consults to leaders in a business.There is no great secret to running a successful business - one needs to ensure that you have the perfect integration and optimisation of your people, processes and structure. Les details how you can achieve this and maintain it - he terms it PREDICTABLE SUCCESS. Whilst it is implied, I am of the respectful opinion that the further integration of technology with people, process and structure should have been included in the model. Technology is an enabler but it is also a significant part of business today.I congratulate Les on a job well done and I am determined to study more of his techniques and methods. Thank you for a great learning experience Les.

In this easy-to-read book McKeown shares a 7-phase business life-cycle model that I could quickly match to the companies within my SMB (small-to-midsize business) client base. I have already begun to recommend it to clients for its accuracy and easy-to-understand and identify concepts. He's spot on. I predict clients will be nodding their heads and rolling their eyes, identifying their own situations within the phases, challenges and dysfunctions he describes as they read through it. It is a great look in the mirror.Another offering in a very similar vein, and also of great advisory value is "Corporate Life Cycles", by Isaac Adizes. Adizes is brilliant, though his explanations, while more thorough and also accurate, appear more academic. Corporate Life Cycles, unfortunately, is not available on Kindle and a bit pricey at $99 - but it's a very worthwhile addition to your library.Together these books are "must-reads" for the professional business advisor.

McKeown lays out an interesting theory of the lifecycle of an organization through seven potential stages; Early Struggle, Fun. White Water, Predictable Success, Treadmill, The Big Rut, and The Death Rattle.The challenge for every organization is to progress through the first three stages (Early Struggle, Fun and White Water), enter into Predictable Success and stay there. Many organizations fall backwards or progress too far in the model and end up failing.My takeaway from this book is that I need to be very aware of these business stages for each organization I am associated with. I need to challenge myself and other business leaders to make it to Predictable Success and then remain diligent to stay there and not slide backwards or forwards.

Whether your business is experiencing the "death rattle" or the "early struggle", or any of the 7 Stages of Growth and Decline explained in the first few chapters, Les McKeown will help you understand what may be happening, why it's happening, and how to improve and sustain your situation. Predictable Success is there to guide you wherever your professional journey takes you. Use it as a road map, manual, and motivational guide. With helpful summaries following each chapter, for the many who crave bullet-points, and diagrams, for visual learners, the book sheds light on the numerous complex phenomena found along the corporate journey. Predictable Success is one of my favorite books to give as a client gift! A must have for any bookshelf.

Good book with solid fundamentals about the life cycle of organizations. Les provides a good overview and some good thoughts on what to do to move from one life cycle to the next or backwards to the preffered life cycle of Predictable Success. Of note though is that the links in the back of the book seem to have been eliminated on their website. Especially the quiz tool that allowed organizations to assess where they might be in their own life cycle. Access to that tool may have been helpful.

Les provides clarity out of the fog how to operate any organization! This is one of the very best books I’ve read how to manage key principles of operating any organization from its infancy! You will not be disappointed!

This book was recommended by the Motley Fool and well work the read. It is well written and a novel take at the various stages any business may encounter. The next steps are implementable and explained well.

Les McKeown is Irish and he has clearly kissed the Blarney Stone before writing this book as it is full of entertaining little anecdotes and chatty commentary. It's readable and quite entertaining - the trouble is it seems to be light on anything concrete that you can actually work with. Two-thirds of the 180 page book is a description of the seven stages that the author believes a business can move through. This is interesting and there are some nuggets here - but there is quite a bit of padding too. Mr McKeown's thoughts are similar (though much lighter in tone) than other business books and studies I have read, but you could easily cover the key points in a 20 page summary.Finally, in the last fifty pages, we get to the "meat" of the book - what it is meant to be all about - how to keep a business in the "Predictable Success" stage. Here Mr McKeown provides an 11 point structure for successful businesses. This is not exactly rocket-science - anyone who has read a lot of business books, from "In Search of Excellence" onwards, will have come across all of the elements in this structure (perhaps with different labels) - but it is interesting and readable, in Mr McKeown's chatty style. His descriptions of these elements of success are pretty broad-brush, and the book does not provide the "precise road map" it claims to, but I don't really think that is the purpose of the book. The book is devised as an easily readable introduction to issues that executives need to factor in to build an effective business. They can then find the detail elsewhere. As a light introduction to these topics the book does its job well.Personally, I would have liked more detail on the elements of success and less of the nebulous description of the business life-cycle, but that might just be me. The book is an easy read for the train or plane, but for solid content on factors important to business success, I'd recommend "The Toyota Way Fieldbook" and the other books in that series, or "Lean Transformation". They are far and away superior.

It was such an insightful & educational book that really gave me a better understanding of the structure of business as they grow!