Whale Done!
The Power of Positive Relationships
Kenneth H. Blanchard

11/30/2004

1) Experience in both business and writing is what motivated Blanchard to write this book. He realizes how important strong, positive relationships are in home and business environments. Having written other business oriented literature this book is just another to add to the multi-faceted business profession.

2) Anyone can read this book. It takes the entertainment of Sea World (which we all know) and relates it to family and business relationships (which we’ve all experienced). There are no technical terms or other prerequisites to this book. It is at about a middle school reading level.

3) The main point of the book is to build positive relationships by accentuating the positive. The main character, Wes, gets the chance to analyze how trainers work with Killer Whales at Sea World. They tell him the whales are most effective when being rewarded for doing something correctly. He takes this philosophy home and to the office and tries to recognize when his co-workers/subordinates and wife/children do something well.

4) Working in an organization with negative relationships and low morale can be troublesome for productivity. Also it can cause stress and depression, which can lead to poor behavior outside of work. It is essential to every work environment to be positive and work well with others, both for ones well being and the success of an organization.

5) The first thing I learned from this book was to be mindful when giving co-workers pointers. Catching someone doing something wrong and trying to correct it usually has a negative impact. Developing a positive relationship by rewarding someone in a positive manner is more helpful in the future when that same person needs to face negative consequences. The second thing I learned it that your attitude not only effects those you work and live with, but also effects how they produce for you. If you treat someone poorly they won’t just think less of you, they will also produce at a lower standard for you.

6)
“An important concept to remember is that the more attention you pay to a behavior, the more it will be repeated.” (11)
“A simple but very powerful rule to remember is, if you don’t want to encourage poor behavior, don’t spend a lot of time on it.” (14)
“It’s important to emphasize here not to wait for exactly right behavior before you respond positively. Otherwise you might wait forever.” (35)
“Praise progress. It’s a moving target.” (35)
“The one thing your competition can never steal from you is the relationship you have with your people, and the relationship you have with your customers.” (58)
“Never assume you know what motivates a person.” (61)

7) One pointer I would give to Blanchard would be not to elaborate so deeply. While meant to be a quick, easy read this book restates its main points too many times. Also I would create relationships in the book that don’t always follow suit with the books concepts, after all the business world is very dynamic.

8) I can’t say I completely disagree with any one concept from this book. However I do disagree with and am skeptical about how unrealistic the main character’s relationships are. He speaks to his co-workers and family members with such fragility and acceptance that it is distracting from the story itself. I know this is a book, but I thought it was business writing, not a fairy-tale. This may be the book’s only draw back.

9) The first thing I would mention to a fellow reader of this book would be how well the author analyzes and implements a whale trainer’s methods into the business world. He takes two completely unrelated topics and develops them into a simple, easy to understand method. After praising the author I would have to ask the reader what they didn’t like about the book. I would like to see if the story’s unrealistic relationships or redundancy distracted them as much as it did myself.

10) I would read more books by this author for two reasons. First, he has the ability to take a very broad, dynamic subject and make it very simple. Secondly, I found the information from this book to be useful and would anticipate the same from his other books.