{"product_id":"9781609943219","title":"The Blind Men and the Elephant: Mastering Project Work","description":"If you work, you probably manage projects every day-even if \"project manager\" isn't in your official title-and you know how frustrating the experience can be. Using the familiar story of six blind men failing to describe an elephant to each other as a metaphor, David Schmaltz brilliantly identifies the true root cause of the difficulties in project work: \"incoherence\" (the inability of a group of people to make common meaning from their common experience). Schmaltz exposes such oft-cited difficulties as poor planning, weak leadership, and fickle customers as poor excuses for project failure, providing a set of simple, project coherence-building techniques that anyone can use to achieve success. He explains how \"wickedness\" develops when a team over-relies on their leader for guidance rather than tapping their true source of power and authority-the individual. The Blind Men and the Elephant explores just how much influence is completely within each individual's control. Using real-world stories, Schmaltz undermines the excuses that may be keeping you trapped in meaningless work, offering practical guidance for overcoming the inevitable difficulties of project work.","brand":"Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47134249091312,"sku":"9781609943219","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781609943219_p0.jpg?v=1763837137","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781609943219","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}