In The Encore Effect (BUY ON AMAZON), Mark Sanborn challenges readers to look at themselves as if they were actors or musicians on a stage as they performed their job. He explains why audiences go wild, forcing the talented actors or musicians to come back out onto the stage for a warm welcome. Most people aren’t going to find the content Earth-shattering but Sanborn does give readers a kick in the pants and the path to being the person others at work look for when something important has to be done.
This book may have related to me a little more than others since the work I do is in front of people and requires me to engage a wide variety of folks. I particularly enjoyed a quote he included from Olympic gold medal sprinter Michael Johnson where Johnson questions the thought that life is like a marathon. Instead, Johnson says he believes it’s more like a sprint because you work really hard for a long time for an opportunity to really shine in specific moments.
Sanborn has a love affair with words that start with the letter “P” and I can appreciate that. On the home page of my sports broadcasting website, I identify professionalism, preparation, passion, and personality has four of the factors that separate me from other broadcasters. In his inverted Pyramid of Possibility, he identifies six qualities that will make a person great: personalization, persistence, principles, passion, purpose, and potential. These qualities make up a “performance person.” So, you can see how I can appreciate what Sanborn is saying here.
The guiding equation for Sanborn is that great performance comes from a combination of passion, discipline, and action. Without the elements of passion, discipline, and action, Sanborn says a person can’t find the encore effect.
Would I give The Encore Effect an encore and read it again? Probably not but at 130 pages, the book is a quick read and you’ll take something away from it depending on what you’re looking for right now in your life.
-Don Wadewitz