Army of Entrepreneurs: Create an Engaged and Empowered Workforce for Exceptional Business Growth

by Jennifer Prosek, Darrren Hardy (Foreword)

Imagine the benefits to be gained from a pool of employees who act as though they own the greater motivation, increased productivity, and a supercharged desire to succeed. As a young entrepreneur who turned a small PR business into a highly successful, international communications firm, Jennifer Prosek has experienced firsthand the power of instilling an 'owner's mind-set' in every employee. In "Army of Entrepreneurs", Prosek presents an easy-to-follow action plan any company large or small can use to build a workforce dedicated to generating new business, creating new products and services, and sustaining growth. Filled with inspiring examples, the book shows readers how motivate, train, and reward their employees; provide everyone from interns to executives with the skills and support they need; and refresh and evaluate the program over time for continuous results. Great businesses aren't built by a single leader or rainmaker. This book shows how to transform any workfo

Genres: Business

207 pages, Hardcover

First published February 2, 2011

Reviews

[Ambition · Rating 4 out of 5]

TL;DR:An insightful read about the workings of a financial sector firm and some good practical training tips for implementing the "army of entrepreneurs" idea. It's presented well and offers some decent anecdotes however it's not very directly applicable to firms or fields in tech despite there being mentions of tech companies that employed decentralized decision making tactics like IBM in the 90s.
Some greater detail into practical examples outside of her field of expertise would've probably rendered a better book but i can't fault the author for writing about what she knows. Not much to fault aside from the book feeling rushed , really could've used a better editor to parse out some of the repetitive statements/paragraphs and typos.

Here are my formal thoughts
In Army of Entrepreneurs, author Jennifer Prosek (CEO of Prosek Partners); gives an overview of her personal struggle from starting at the local firm as a young entrepreneur to becoming the CEO of a leading international PR and finance consultancy with offices around the globe. She uses her personal experience as a hard worker dedicated to the firm’s success and with its help details how the idea of having an organization of empowered employees was the key to its growth.

The book presents a pivotal moment where the author feels like she’s hit a blockade in the growth of the business and is beginning to lose motivation for her work due to the heavy work load she personally undertakes to keep the company successful, it was at this point she gave the issue thought and wondered why her coworkers didn’t seem to “get” the business. She asks the following questions

“Why didn’t he see that opportunity to expand the account?’’ or ‘‘Her dad is best friends with the CEO of Xerox. Why didn’t she suggest a meeting?’’

This is the crux of an issue which plagues upper management and CEOs ,who often subscribe to a hierarchical work place culture and centralized decision making practices. The author goes on to explain that the solution to this problem is a work culture that empowers employees by training them to understand the business holistically from costs and finances to clients and projects; by assuring them that creativity and an eye for opportunity is encouraged from a top down stand point and creative ideas will receive due consideration and support. In short her “Army of Entrepreneurs” is a simple term to represent a work force that is empowered and feels a vested interest in the business and represents a decentralized decision making process.
The author after laying this premise for the first half of the book goes in depth on how she personally implemented this solution ranging from training of upper management to the employee recruitment and “On-boarding” process. This section also includes well thought out work shop ideas and an example format to help employees acclimate to this new point of view. She includes other details such as recognizing the properties of desirable employees and explaining to each new recruit that these are the things that will help them excel in this company. After this thorough guide she also offers responses to common critiques this open ended business approach often receives and throughout the book gives examples that existing business can adapt to this process and in fact should adapt to this process if they want to survive the ever changing economic climate.

The book’s major short coming is that despite offering examples of large firms outside of a creative sphere (such as of IBM in the 90s) that implement this thought process, there is not much detail provided and as such it may be more difficult for people of an Engineering background to directly implement this into their work place. Providing greater context and background to the examples of entrepreneurial companies of various fields would’ve made for a more fleshed out and thorough book, however I find it difficult to fault the author for writing the book centric to her first-hand experience.

In conclusion aside from the aforementioned issue and minor gripes such as typos and some repetitive portions of the book (could’ve used more time on the editor’s desk) it is a thorough and captivating view into the inner workings of a firm and how it’s work culture is something more businesses need to implement to keep up with the hyper competitive modern market place

[Dmitry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great and pretty short read on fostering entrepreneurial culture in your company. Main ideas evolve around incentivizing, training, and delegating decision-making authority. It is a very hands-on book with good ideas that can be easily and quickly implemented.

[Kathleen Rainwater · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learn how to inspire your employees to have an “owner’s mindset” Your people have never been more important – this book will show you how to motivate, train and reward your employees; provide everyone with the support they need to become a dynamic effective team. Using case studies from such companies as Edward Jones and Harley Davidson/Buell, the author maintains that in both large and small businesses, employees can be empowered to become an "army of entrepreneurs.