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ENLARGE
VAIL, Colorado — Forget herding cats. Vail Valley author Erik Peterson thinks running an organization is much tougher.
Peterson, of Edwards, has taken the lessons he's learned in 25 years in business, as well as what he sees as the best thoughts of the best management writers of our time — Peter Drucker, Harvey Mackay and others — and created “Taming the Squid,” a to-the-point read about “organizational sustainability” in our times.
Peterson, who started his professional life as a high school physics teacher, has worked for big companies including Ernst & Young, and currently has a pair of his own businesses, LesKar, LLC and OAC Management, a construction management company.
With the local construction business in the doldrums, Peterson — who's always been the assigned writer on corporate projects — started work on “Taming the Squid.”
Speaking of cetaceans, what's the deal with that title?
As Peterson explains in the book:
“In each organization it always seemed as if we were attempting to tame, and ride, a 40-ton squid. Not only could we not find the right kind of saddle, every time we were able to get one foot in the stirrup, one of the many tentacles always seemed to break loose and have one of my other business associates around the neck... His terrible cry to the rest of the team would cause us to turn loose of the dangling arm we were assigned to... In the end, it not only seemed we had failed to tame the organizational squid, but now he was in control of the organizational compass.”
In Peterson's mind, getting a handle on any organization's multi-tentacled beast requires a disciplined approach to people, processes and products.
To help people maintain that discipline, Peterson's book provides a “dashboard” to track progress toward the goal of organizational sustainability. But instead of reading this book and putting it on the shelf, Peterson has put the dashboard on line, so people using “Taming the Squid” as a guide can continue to track their progress.
Peterson's book shares shelf space with some of the giants of the genre at The Bookworm in Edwards, so he knows he's trying to jump into a crowded pool. So Peterson found Chambers College Press, a small publishing house in Greeley, to publish the book.
He's promoting the book himself, but don't expect to see him on “Oprah” or even PBS, any time soon.
“It's not easy,” he said during an interview in The Bookworm's coffee shop. “My goal is to get a few interviews... It's really a grassroots thing, and I'm fine with that.”
While selling books is great, Peterson believes the important thing is to help people and their organizations get through a rocky time.
“You had better be looking at organizational models these days,” Peterson said. “My goal is to inspire people to do that.”
Business Editor Scott N. Miller can be reached at 970-748-2930 or smiller@vaildaily.com.
Peterson, of Edwards, has taken the lessons he's learned in 25 years in business, as well as what he sees as the best thoughts of the best management writers of our time — Peter Drucker, Harvey Mackay and others — and created “Taming the Squid,” a to-the-point read about “organizational sustainability” in our times.
Peterson, who started his professional life as a high school physics teacher, has worked for big companies including Ernst & Young, and currently has a pair of his own businesses, LesKar, LLC and OAC Management, a construction management company.
With the local construction business in the doldrums, Peterson — who's always been the assigned writer on corporate projects — started work on “Taming the Squid.”
Speaking of cetaceans, what's the deal with that title?
As Peterson explains in the book:
“In each organization it always seemed as if we were attempting to tame, and ride, a 40-ton squid. Not only could we not find the right kind of saddle, every time we were able to get one foot in the stirrup, one of the many tentacles always seemed to break loose and have one of my other business associates around the neck... His terrible cry to the rest of the team would cause us to turn loose of the dangling arm we were assigned to... In the end, it not only seemed we had failed to tame the organizational squid, but now he was in control of the organizational compass.”
In Peterson's mind, getting a handle on any organization's multi-tentacled beast requires a disciplined approach to people, processes and products.
To help people maintain that discipline, Peterson's book provides a “dashboard” to track progress toward the goal of organizational sustainability. But instead of reading this book and putting it on the shelf, Peterson has put the dashboard on line, so people using “Taming the Squid” as a guide can continue to track their progress.
Peterson's book shares shelf space with some of the giants of the genre at The Bookworm in Edwards, so he knows he's trying to jump into a crowded pool. So Peterson found Chambers College Press, a small publishing house in Greeley, to publish the book.
He's promoting the book himself, but don't expect to see him on “Oprah” or even PBS, any time soon.
“It's not easy,” he said during an interview in The Bookworm's coffee shop. “My goal is to get a few interviews... It's really a grassroots thing, and I'm fine with that.”
While selling books is great, Peterson believes the important thing is to help people and their organizations get through a rocky time.
“You had better be looking at organizational models these days,” Peterson said. “My goal is to inspire people to do that.”
Business Editor Scott N. Miller can be reached at 970-748-2930 or smiller@vaildaily.com.
