Stretch

Missio Nexus’ leadership thoughtfully summarize books, giving you the Leader’s Edge to help inform, stimulate and provoke profitable discussion.

Leader’s Edge (Leadership)

Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less — and Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined

Scott Sonenshein. Publisher: HarperBusiness, 2017,.

304 pages
ISBN: 978-0062457226
ASIN: B01FQQ6EMU

Summary

In this book the author contrasts two ways that people tend to see life and operate both personally and in their professional life. The first perspective he labels chasers and it describes people who are on a seemingly endless quest for resources. Typified by thinking, “If we only had ____, we could do ____” he suggests there is a better way, Stretchers take the resources available to them and see their limits and capabilities as empowering. Sonenshein takes this contrast and uses it to provide the reader with strategies and ways of doing more with less. It is not a book on austerity or simple lifestyles but rather encourages the reader to see the world in a different way. The book is very readable with many sociological and behavioral studies to back up his contentions. Some of these contentions are counter-intuitive (for example, his suggesting that planning is more often a problem than a solution) and others are common sense. However, when paired with research and anecdotes, even the common sense ideas take on a new application.