S.O.A.P. for Success
A Simple Method to Manage Your Business and Revitalize Your Mission
About the intertwined components of organizational repair, the leadership guide S.O.A.P. for Success draws on personal experience to edifying effect.
Stephanie F. West’s leadership guide S.O.A.P. for Success works to apply personal veterinary management experience, and a problem-solving tool developed because of that experience, to similar issues afflicting small and large businesses.
Addressed to fellow professionals, this book extrapolates from doctor-patient models to deliver recommendations to ailing businesses. These are framed to consider the subjective, objective, assessment, and planning components of organizational repair. The book’s supporting framework is sometimes strained by its reliance on personal reference points, though. Indeed, some of its medical-field elements, such as the illness framework and approach, are limiting. Still, some insights are produced from these particular reference points, including those related to nonprofits, matching leadership to a company’s culture, and revitalizing a business’s missions.
Even as the consistent references to, and discussions of, the S.O.A.P. model build familiarity with its components, the book’s use of repetition is less persuasive than the abundant anecdotes it uses to demonstrate the effectiveness of its central tool. Its examples include the use of a candy bar to spark staff motivation and “undercover” work to reveal a director’s embezzlement scheme. Indeed, West asserts that S.O.A.P. has been used to turn around struggling clinics and hospitals. Further, the takeaways at the end of each chapter reinforce their most salient points well.
To address the challenges facing business owners, the book includes a range of problem-solving suggestions, such as to use spreadsheets to list and group problems; to conduct “stay” interviews with employees; and to encourage honest feedback from stakeholders and workers. There are also tips for handling stacked-up problems and for pushing through stress and fatigue. Sympathy is expressed for those who feel overwhelmed by their daily operational tasks, supported by notes on the importance of backup teams and of recognizing the universal need for appreciation.
The prose is clear, and injections of word play and lightheartedness leaven the book’s intense focus on recurring business problems, as with a reference to spreadsheets as one’s “friends” and with a winking encouragement to “vet” one’s own business. However, the book’s graphic elements are of varying quality and support. Two tables showing the results of prioritizing and reordering issues numerically are more effective than the single oversized image of literal soap, for example.
With a special focus on veterinary clinics, the leadership guide S.O.A.P. for Success is about reviewing, analyzing, and improving enterprises of all types and sizes.
Reviewed by
Andrea Hammer
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
