We Are Alpha Dogs: How Seven Dogs Become Business Legends (A Business Fable About How High-Performing Teams Work Together To Achieve The Impossible)
Adams Parker
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While this may, on the surface, look like a tale about seven lovable dogs, the principles of how communication styles and personality types affect teams at work just might open your eyes to a whole new understanding of yourself and the people around you.
Seven Dogs find themselves profoundly disappointed by their human family, when they discover they’ve been un-invited to the family vacation. This is a very big red flag. After being left at home, they fear that next, they’ll all be left out in the cold.
The Dogs have to decide what to do next. Do they run off and find a new home, or wait for the family to return only to do just what they are told to do? Or do they decide to write their own story?
There’s one mission, if they choose to pursue it, that just might change the way the family sees them forever. There’s ONE thing that the family has always wanted and never been able to achieve. And the Dogs just might be able to pull it off.
The mission? Bringing the ducks back to the farm’s pond. If they can get the ducks back to the pond, the children will be happy, the visitors will come back to the farm, and the parents will have another source of income.
But what seems like a simple mission, turns into a complex chain of events that’s going to require all seven of the Dogs to work together and understand each other, at a whole new level.
When Big Dog calls the Dogs to a meeting at the Oval Table, he reminds them that, in order to succeed, they all need:
- Scotty’s intuition for avoiding risky situations,
- Ranger’s optimism for what the future could look like,
- Tracy’s uncanny sensitivity to what others are thinking and feeling,
- Buster’s ability to build trust with people almost instantly,
- Jack’s focus on getting the right things done and in the best order,
- Stan’s understanding of how all pieces are moving at the same time.
Can they learn to appreciate each other’s talents and tendencies, work together, and earn their place among the Legendary?
Or will the family give up on all of them and leave the Dogs behind for good?
This light-hearted business parable is filled with insights about why some people work together well, some struggle, and only the legendary find the way to bring everyone to the table to accomplish incredible missions together.
If you like "Who Moved My Cheese?," "The Richest Man In Babylon," "E-Myth Revisited," "The Go-Giver" or any of Patrick Lencioni's business fables, you'll love "We Are Alpha Dogs."
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Simple but Powerful management lessons disguised as a farm story with dogs. Like an Aesop Fable, We Are All Alpha Dogs provides a powerful lesson under the disguise of a simple farm story involving dogs acting intelligently. Doug Bowers uses his decades of experience advising organizations on changes needed for business success to model the division of labor that takes advantage of our individual skill sets for organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Each dog on their own would not lead to mission success. Even some of the dogs working together would only be partially effective. It is only the full team respecting and accepting the individual talents that can truly lead the team to their intended goal. In my 45+ years in leadership/management, I have seen and participated in various iterations of this team concept. When an organization is truly using the individual talents of its members and dismissing no one’s contributions, it is a thing of beauty. This is a short but practical lesson that reading it by a team will only enhance their business productivity and cohesion. Assess yourself and assess your team, and then apply the lessons from the story. You will love the results!Dr. James J. Hearn, EdDRetired Senior Executive Service MemberU.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Alpha Dogs presents MUCh needed wisdom in a MOST creative, clever, and engaging way. Alpha Dogs presents relational principles that will help any business or organization excel through a creative and clever story of farm dogs that set out to do something “legendary” at their farm. The story is full of humor and wisdom. A masterful presentation and a MUST read! You can also take a simple test to determine your own “dog-type.” This engaging book offers opportunity for learning and self reflection in a way that can actually influence a better outcome for businesses and organizations where the skills and talents of each individual on the team are used and valued. I plan to recommend this book to everyone I know. We all need to catch the vision of “Alpha Dogs”!
A profound lesson wrapped in a fully enjoyable and rapid read. This was first and foremost a really fun book to read. It was peppy and short and the story kept moving right along. But underneath that happy and entertaining read something really amazing was happening. Companies are only as good as the talent they attract and keep. Yet so many companies are cavalier about protecting and optimizing the talent they already have. This book helps not only companies and managers, but also any group of people working together to understand that each dog type (personality) has something special and unique to bring to the table. And that it is so very easy to let ego, judgement and discomfort allow us to focus only on those personalities closest to our own rather than allowing those personalities different from ours to bring the necessary tools to fill the gaps in our own thinking. Sure we’ve all read so many management books that tell us how to do this right. But this book, with it’s deep wisdom and excellent storytelling reaches deep inside somehow and drives the message home in a way that sticks with you. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Stop reading this review and just go buy it already.
‘No one likes to not be rewarded for the hard work they put in’- Business parallels. Author Douglas Bowers, a CPA and MBA, is an expert in advising businesses about growth. In this clever and unique book, Douglas relates a parable or apologue of his creation, instilling canines in the realm of business to make his advice and instructions about management and negotiations and other trade ideas both entertaining and very instructive.Douglas establishes his aim in relating this story – ‘Changing the way business organizations function is never easy, Changing how people think within those organizations is harder still. The best thing a revolutionary leader can do is set forth a new vision of how people can work together to improve their individual and collective positions in life.’The story is set up like an ordinary ‘business day’ in parable fashion – the business being the Farm, the Dogs knowing their tasks and functions and benefits – until a ‘crisis’ aka change occurs: the Family leaves on vacation without the Dogs, and adjustments must be made. And therein lies the parable. The Dogs take the situation into their own hands and restructure and organize and problem solve and in doing so, create accomplishments they had not thought possible!Yes, it sounds like a cute story (and it is!), but the subtle and not so subtle parallels to how businesses function and grow to improve are very strong leadership and people communication and management skills, making the short but solid story meaningful and useful. This story once again proves that parables remain in popular use for a reason: they drive home ideals unforgettably! Grady Harp, May 21
Unfortunately the book has a disconnect as the characters (the dogs) in working out how to solve the problem of how the farm was managed had all swallowed a preachy management speak text book of success philosophy.It is necessary to swallow this clumsily narrated story to get the lessons. The lessons are probably to demonstrate the weakness in top down authoritarian management and how it feels to those who follow. I highlighted a few bits of wisdom but it didn’t wag my tail.