Review of If Your Water Cooler Could Talk

[Deborah Dodd]

[Following is a volunteer review of "If Your Water Cooler Could Talk" by Dr. Jim Bohn.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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What do great industries, non-profit, educational institutes, and small businesses all have in common? They are organizations that need to be able to succeed to survive. Dr. Jim Bohn, author of the book, If Your Water Cooler Could Talk... Organizational Engagement: Getting Beyond Employee Engagement is a must-read for all organizations to get on the right track. This book is not a quick fix or a new fad; Dr. Bohn has spent most of his life researching and gaining the knowledge needed to help organizations improve. I only wish I had this book around when I was a teacher, as I had a poor superintendent that could have used this book.

I like how Dr. Bohn set out the book so that senior leadership could have a playbook to follow. His OE (Organizational Engagement), with its six elements, is a way to improve organization performance and make any institution become top of its game. Dr. Bohn's years of research have developed a thirty-item scale called, The Bohn Organizational Engagement Scale (BOES). Instead of looking at Employee Engagement with the (me) concept, he has developed a way for organizations to look at the (we) concept. The scale helps senior leadership to refocus their efforts on motivating employees to look at their organization's ability to achieve outcomes.

I was impressed with Dr. Bohn's layouts, graphs, and charts. Visual effects will always help a reader. I only wish that he would not have spent so much of the book on Employee Engagement (EE) surveys and their outcomes as he did good coverage of the topic in his first few chapters. He demonstrated pretty accurately how after two decades, the EE surveys were not accomplishing what the organization needed to improve.

I give this book a 4 out of 4 stars as I only found two minor errors, and Dr. Bohn is a great writer and has a diligent editor. He made sure he had all the research materials in the book for the reader to refer to as needed.

I recommend this book for all CEOs, presidents, HR departments, and managerial roles to read. Dr. Bohn stated, "...the six elements of OE are not soft skills but behaviors requiring hard work, focus, and effort...", which is why I suggest that the reader take the book to heart and make it their role model to get their organization back on track and even to see it improve.

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If Your Water Cooler Could Talk
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[Kira Bonita Reece]

When I first saw the title of this book, I thought it was a humorous fictional story. But it turned out to be be a self-help book for employers and employees. Thanks for the review

[Deborah Dodd]

To Shakier Reece, your welcome, and thank you for reading the review. If you work for an organization, it would be a perfect secret Santa present.