How to Plan a Memoir That Readers Cannot Put Down
Many first-time memoirists believe that because the events are true, the structure will take care of itself. This is a fatal error. Life is chaotic; narrative is order.
Read the article →| Category: | Business and Investing |
|---|---|
| Author: | John Berra |
| Publisher: | Forbes Books |
| Publication Date: | March 5, 2024 |
| Number of Pages: | 160 |
| ISBN-13: | 979-8887502212 |
| ASIN: | B0CN2GFJMJ |
Automation industry veteran and former
president of Fisher-Rosemount Systems and executive vice president of Emerson, John
Berra, delivers a spirited manual for facing adversity in professional life. He
draws on his personal experience turning corporate obstacles into opportunities
and his four-decade ascent from Monsanto control engineer to the leader of a
$6.7 billion automation division to contend that the giants professionals face—self-doubt,
competition, innovation, corporate bureaucracy, skepticism, and success—are not
enemies to be slain but tensions to be leveraged and managed. Designed to be
read as both a playbook and a memoir, the chapters in Turning the Giant:
Disrupting Your Industry with Persistent Innovation trace a career spent
“ringing out the wires” in enduring the anguish of a denied promotion, stifling
engineering pools, and steering the Fisher-Rosemount merger toward a unified
automation powerhouse. “Properly channeled frustration can become a spark for
innovation,” Berra argues, leaving readers less inclined to flee from
discomfort and more prepared to convert setbacks into forward momentum.
Berra chronicles the experiences of salespeople,
engineers, and plant managers who faced hostile field environments, skeptical
management, and entrenched global competitors, illustrating how the disciplined
turn of each giant can build industry-shaping breakthroughs while demanding
ever-greater reserves of grit and integrity. At one point, Berra recounts his
decision to sequester fifty handpicked engineers in Austin’s “Hawk Site,”
isolating them from corporate interference to develop the DeltaV control
system. He describes the experiment as both essential and audacious. “Turning
giants is wonderful,” he concludes, urging readers to run toward their
obstacles rather than away from them, because the real deal is understanding
how to turn a strong “no” into a “yes.” There is an element of stoicism in this
book that makes it a required study for any leader who takes themselves
seriously. Candid and inspiring, this pragmatic guide deserves to be widely
read.
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