Business/leadership books seem to fall in three main categories. First, you have the public speakers who need a book to sell after their talks and thus try to spin a good magazine article into a book (with short chapters and large font). The result is 20 good pages with another 100 pages repeating the same thinking (see The Fred Factor and QBQ). Second, you have speakers who know how to write, but tend to build their book by stringing together one story after another after another after another. Learning the importance of a thesis would benefit everyone greatly. Finally, you have leaders who know reflect on what they know and share those lessons in a humble, yet insightful, manner (see Max DePree's leadership books or Malcolm Gladwell's "thinking" books).
Kimberly Douglas' work falls squarely in the second category. An experienced team building consultant, Douglas decided to turn her experiences into a book we can all take home. She has some good ideas and event though her firefly analogy is stretched at times, the unique characteristics of these insects do provide us with a different way to look at the ordinary. While Douglas may get good results with her customers, this book tends to lose focus and requires to many "buy ins" along the way.
Douglas appears to be familiar with every training exercise and copyrighted team building activity ever created. The one she hangs her hat on is the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI), which she says is similar (but better) than the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), another well known assessment tool. With the HBDI you end up in one of four quadrants, labeled "Blue," "Yellow," "Green," and "Red." Since Douglas uses this in her consulting she refers to it often in the book. But if you are not familiar with the tool, or are familiar and do not find it effective, many of her examples will not work.
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