From Booklist
Annunzio is chair and CEO of the Hudson Highland Center for High Performance, and the extensive, worldwide research she and her group completed, into how to define and secure "high performance environments that deliver exceptional results," stands behind this energizing guide to sustaining and duplicating such environments. "Success is contagious" is the stated premise of the book; upon concluding, from the research, that only a small percentage of workers are high performers, Annunzio not only explains the traits of a high performer but also recommends that managers "spread the secrets" of these workers so "you can improve the overall performance of your company." The secrets center on high performers' particular styles, techniques, and energy and how they can easily be adapted for lower-performing workers. Managers are the target audience of this book, but the information gathered and the concepts promoted here will have relevance and interest for anyone who finds business philosophy engaging. Brad Hooper
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Book Description
The Hudson Highland Center for High Performance recently completed the largest and most in-depth global study ever done of the factors that accelerate or stifle high performance. The alarming conclusion: only 10 percent of knowledge workers are part of a high-performing workgroup, one that makes money for the company and is creating a new product or service. Contagious Success reveals Susan Lucia Annunzio’s proven strategies for identifying, nurturing, and replicating business units that are already high performing. These workgroups tend to be ignored while senior management focuses on fixing its lowest performing units. But Annunzio argues for the opposite strategy: Focus on the groups that are doing the best work in the organization, learn their secrets, and help spread their expertise to the average groups. Annunzio focuses on groups, not individuals, because even a great individual can’t succeed in a weak environment. By using the high-performing groups to improve just the top 20 percent of the average performers—what Annunzio calls "moving the middle"—a company can achieve dramatic, sustainable growth in revenue and profits. This is a book for leaders who want to unleash the hidden potential in their organizations.

About the Author
Susan Lucia Annunzio is chairman and CEO of the Hudson Highland Center for High Performance, a subsidiary of Hudson Highland Group, Inc. The author of Evolutionary Leadership and coauthor of Communicoding, she advises senior executives around the world and is an adjunct professor of management at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Your company has already right-sized, cut costs, improved efficiency, and flattened the org chart. Yet profitable and sustainable growth remains elusive. Fortunately, according to Susan Lucia Annunzio, you don't have to look far for the solution. Somewhere in your organization, right now, are high-performing workgroups that are generating profitable new ideas. These workgroups might consist of a few people or a few hundred; they might be fixed departments or ad hoc teams working on specific problems. Whatever their size, they are the best answer you have to the creative and competitive demands of today's marketplace.

Annunzio and her team at the Hudson Highland Center for High Performance undertook a worldwide study of more than three thousand knowledge workers, seeking the factors that accelerate or inhibit high performance in their workgroups. The shocking news is that only 10 percent of all workgroups in the study qualify as high performing. Annunzio's big insight-supported by the groundbreaking research-is that the characteristics that drive high performance in these groups are the same around the world.