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If you want to know how to get a millennial to clean a toilet, try reading Kristen Hadeed’s Permission To Screw Up.

Have some laughs and learn how she succeeded, regardless of the mistakes she made along the way.

Goodreads  /  Amazon

MY REVIEW

First off, I want to say I enjoyed Permission To Screw Up by Kristen Hadeed and had my share of laughs and chuckles while reading it and shaking my head. BUT, I would not classify this as a guide to success.  It reads more like a biography than a How To Succeed story. I feel Kristen Hadeed had a great idea and stumbled her way into success, but many others would fail if they followed her path.

It all started with a pair of $100 jeans, that her parents wouldn’t buy for her, and an ad on Craig’s list to clean houses. Just goes to show, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

I tossed most of the notes I took as I sat here trying to write this review. Like any nonfiction book, you take the information that works for you and you leave the stuff that doesn’t.

Millennials – 1982 to 2004. I like that Kristen was upfront about her mistakes and her feelings about millennials. It’s just like any generalization, it doesn’t apply to everyone.

When she blew off checking into her trademark before using it, I thought that about summed up my opinion of some of the pitfalls of millennials. They can be lazy. They are handicapped, only have one hand available, because they have their phone in the other one. They think Google has all the answers and their parents will take care of everything for them. But, again, this is only a generalization and doesn’t apply to all millennials.

I like that she wasn’t too proud to ask for help, and find the place to get the answers she needed, though it’s not like she didn’t try to have someone do it for her…at times.

I like that she talks about the Participation Generation, where you get rewards just for showing up. Helicopter parents – parents who hover, overprotective, over involved, and over indulging their children.  How can a person like that accept criticism. Kristen learned that there is “a time for pep talks and a time for reality checks.”

I like that at the end of each chapter is a quick summary that hits the highlights.

I do look at this as her story, not so much a business book. She does share some helpful hints and reminds us that even the most experienced leader can learn something new and improve their leadership style. She does share her thoughts about the value of employees being happy, even while mopping floors or cleaning toilets.

Would I recommend Permission To Screw Up? Yes, especially for the younger generation and the beginning entrepreneur, to show that mistakes are not failures, just learning experiences. Also, for anyone who likes to read biographies, Kristen Hadeed does have a fun and interesting story to tell.

I borrowed a copy of Permission To Screw Up by Kristen Hadeed from a friend.

3 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

The inspiring, unlikely, laugh-out-loud story of how one woman learned to lead–and how she ultimately succeeded, not despite her many mistakes, but because of them.

This is the story of how Kristen Hadeed built Student Maid, a cleaning company where people are happy, loyal, productive, and empowered, even while they’re mopping floors and scrubbing toilets. It’s the story of how she went from being an almost comically inept leader to a sought-after CEO who teaches others how to lead.
 
Hadeed unintentionally launched Student Maid while attending college ten years ago. Since then, Student Maid has employed hundreds of students and is widely recognized for its industry-leading retention rate and its culture of trust and accountability. But Kristen and her company were no overnight sensa­tion. In fact, they were almost nothing at all.

Along the way, Kristen got it wrong almost as often as she got it right. Giving out hugs instead of feed­back, fixing errors instead of enforcing accountability, and hosting parties instead of cultivating meaning­ful relationships were just a few of her many mistakes. But Kristen’s willingness to admit and learn from those mistakes helped her give her people the chance to learn from their own screwups too.

Permission to Screw Up dismisses the idea that leaders and orga­nizations should try to be perfect. It encourages people of all ages to go for it and learn to lead by acting, rather than waiting or thinking. Through a brutally honest and often hilarious account of her own strug­gles, Kristen encourages us to embrace our failures and proves that we’ll be better leaders when we do.

ABOUT KRISTEN HADEED

Kristen Hadeed is the founder and CEO of Student Maid, a cleaning company that hires students. She spends much of her time helping organizations across the country improve their own workplace cultures.

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