Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games

The short version of this review is that Turnaround is a management book. Though many people will be picking this title up for it's potential insights into Romney as a politician, those insights are very thin and buried between the lines.

After a brief prologue full of patriotic and athletic platitudes, it continues on into a highly detailed account of the details involved in saving the 2002 Winter Games after being embroiled in scandal. While there were interesting moments in this process, I think for the casual reader, or the reader looking for political insights it was just too much minutiae. Cutting the book in half would have made it a much more enjoyable read.

For those readers however that are looking for new business and show more leadership inspirations in the vein of Who Moved My Cheese or Fish and other such, this might be a more enthralling narrative experience. As the the deals are brokered and the budgets are analyzed and the team is brought in line with the single vision the management types are sure to have an aha moment here and a chuckle there. For anyone else, it might be better to move on to other literary pastures. show less