cover image Revved!: An Incredible Way to Rev Up Your Workplace and Achieve Amazing Results

Revved!: An Incredible Way to Rev Up Your Workplace and Achieve Amazing Results

Ross Reck, Harry Paul. McGraw-Hill Companies, $19.95 (115pp) ISBN 978-0-07-146500-7

Veteran authors Paul (FISH! Tales and FISH! Sticks) and Reck (The X-Factor) offer a guide to the business of caring and how to maximize its effect on the workplace environment. Their advice is packaged as a story about Katie Adams, a working mother of two whose husband suddenly leaves her. Her career suffers when she brings her sour mood to work, until she sees Dr. Allen, host of a self-improvement radio show and inventor of a three-step program for business success: ""Winning Them Over,"" ""Blowing Them Away,"" and ""Keeping Them Revved."" Paul and Reck's parable serves as a vehicle for their advice on improving interpersonal skills, but it doesn't make their book any more accessible. As can probably be guessed, Katie follows Dr. Allen's advice to make allies at work, show appreciation for those that go the extra mile and be consistent in business relationships, becoming ""director of human potential"" and turning her company into a sought-after workplace. This is a simple read with a useful idea-caring for workers motivates them to care for their work-told, ironically (perhaps purposely), through a character that readers will find hard to care about.