Lunch with Lucy details the story of Sherry's career path and her experience in getting to know her employees to make her business better. I loved reading Sherry's story and struggles and how she finally came across success. As someone who has always been interested in starting a business, Sherry's story was inspiring and a very interesting read.

I'm on a culture kick right now, devouring books on organizational culture, so getting the opportunity to review "Lunch With Lucy," by Sherry Deutschmann, was a real treat. Sherry's entire book is written in the tone of a friendly mentor sharing her trade secrets with her reader. Not surprisingly, Sherry's recipe for success can be distilled down into five words: take care of your people. The surprising part for me is just how much opposition she's faced in trying to implement this principle throughout her career.

Sherry gives some background for the moment she decided "enough is enough" and struck out on her own as an entrepreneur: dissatisfaction with lack of response from leadership at her previous employer, an urgent need to provide for her daughter as a single mom, and the perennial challenge of being a woman in a man's work world. She started her own company, LetterLogic, on a shoestring budget, then sold the company for 7x it's EBIDTA in 2016.

The title comes from her practice of empathetic listening. The CEO alter-ego she adopted, "Lucy", took her employees to lunch every week, sometimes in groups, sometimes one-on-one, and get to know them personally. Some of it was mentorship, some of it was friendship, but all of it was investing in her people and making them feel heard. There are many other elements of the culture she built at LetterLogic - like 10% profit sharing with employees - that contributed to the company's success - but at the heart of it all is Sherry's heart and passion for people.

If you're drowning in a toxic culture or are building a business and want to see what success truly looks like, check out Lunch With Lucy!

This book was a interesting read even for someone who is not a business owner or entrepreneur. The book is structured like a three course menu with dessert at the finish. At the beginning of each chapter you have a list of ingredients or talking points or actions and at the end of the chapter with words of wisdom in takeout boxes.

This follows the authors struggles to find sufficient jobs to take care of herself and her daughter she is raising as a single parent. Most of her jobs revolve around sales which leader to sales for a printing services which eventually leads to her developing a vary successful medical billing facility. The business is based on the actions that as a worker bee most everyone would wish for in their work environment. The author can relate as she faced many of the same struggles. She accomplishes the success in her company by having meals with her people getting to know them and developing a culture that is practices through out the company. I received an ARC from NetGalley for a fair and honest review

In my opinion this is one of the better self-help business books out there. Invest a couple of hours and get some great return on your time investment it will be well worth it

If you are starting an entrepreneurship journey or looking to be a better leader in your company, Lunch with Lucy is a phenomenal place to start.

Lunch with Lucy is about the kind of leaders employees crave and how to become one. It is written in accessible, non CEO language. It is about more than leadership. There are basic human people skills built in that many people need to work on. There are business building blocks in there too.

I love this book. I cannot say enough good things about this book. It's easy to read, engaging, and lays the groundwork for leaders to choose their employees first.

In this charming narrative about her experiences building her own successful printing company, Sherry supports her argument that putting employees first will result in higher profits. She created a unique culture that included an egalitarian profit-sharing plan, generous benefits, and a new way to calculate a living wage, and even an unconventional organizational chart. The takeaways from this book are surprisingly specific and profound.

The description for this book was interesting and I wanted to learn more about the employee first culture that the author describes. The premise of the book is pretty simple and the author illustrates her points using the experiences she had running her company LetterLogic. The anecdotes are engaging and the author makes the point that these are universally applicable in principle if not exactly as policies. The author is clearly connected to her team and her care shows, though it would have also been useful to get more context around the business arc of the company itself and changes that happened over time chronologically to see what policies emerged over time and what impact they had on the organization as a whole.

The description pulled me in but Sherry’s story telling is what got me hooked on this book. The simple steps she has taken to run her business as a CEO can easily translate to any individual working in any business. Loved the book and will be referencing it for many years to come.