A Slice Of The Pie by Nick Sarillo - Book review

A Slice of the Pie

How to Build a Big Little Business

By: Nick Sarillo

Published: September 13, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 272 pages
ISBN-10: 1591844584
ISBN-13: 978-1591844587
Publisher: Portfolio/Penguin













"Our secret sauce (pardon the pun) can be summed up in one word: culture", writes founder, CEO, and "Primary Keeper of Purpose and Operational Values" of Nick's Pizza and Pub, Nick Sarillo, in his engaging and purpose driven book A Slice of the Pie: How to Build a Big Little Business. The author describes the value of establishing a purpose based culture in a business of any size, and shares his proven concepts for building and maintaining a vibrant and values based organization.

Nick Sarillo understands completely the critical importance of building a company culture of purpose, transparency, and empowered employees. In an industry, known for its high employee turnover rates, the author demonstrates how to not only keep employees, but also how to develop them as empowered leaders who bring the best of being themselves to the workplace. Through what Nick Sarillo calls single minded working toward the company purpose, the successful culture of the organization is born and made into a reality. The author shares the pillars of of the purpose driven company, and shows other small business leaders that the power of a purpose based business resides in its overall culture.

Nick Sarillo (photo left) recognizes the that the outdated command and control management model is, at best, limited in its ability to achieve positive results. Instead of success, that depends almost entirely on the skills of the manager and predetermined benchmarks, the command and control style all too often results in weak metrics, high staff turnover rates, and marginal financial outcomes. The author demonstrates clearly the benefits of replacing this failed concept with a purpose driven culture.

Nick Sariillo replaces the outmoded management techniques with a fundamentally different approach to management. The components of the culture based business, as practiced in the author's restaurants are as follows:

* Trust-and-Track: Freeing and empowering employees
* Purposeful architecture: The physical space must reflect the purpose
* Feedback loop: Two way management and employee conversation
* Issue-Purpose and Values- Solution: Empower employees to solve problems

For me, the power of the book is how Nick Sarillo combines a strong philosophical foundation for operating a successful business, with the practical strategies for transforming that vision into a reality. The author presents his premise of the crucial importance of establishing a purposeful culture well, and supports his thesis with the basic principles that lead to a strong and empowering culture. The book is a fantastic handbook, as well as an impressive case study, for the overall importance of company culture in a business of any size.

Nick Sarillo goes far beyond the established literature on company culture, which tends to emphasize the experiences of much larger companies. The author fills a void by presenting the benefits of company culture to small business, and even to industries where staff turnover is high, and culture thought to be only an impossible dream. The author created a vision of a culture driven business, and proved that it works better than the outmoded command and control model where building an effective culture is downplayed or nonexistent.

I highly recommend the insightful and empowering book A Slice of the Pie: How to Build a Big Little Business by Nick Sarillo, to any business leaders in any size of companies, manager, executives, and entrepreneurs seeking a fresh and practical approach to establishing and maintaining a purpose driven company culture. This book will transform the way you think about management and culture in a s small company; or a even a very large one for that matter.