Individuals as well as organizations make efforts of varying degrees to be successful in realizing their goals. A large number of them don't succeed, not due to lack of competence but because they don't know how to unlock their potential fully or how to adopt correct recipes for mixing the fundamental principles of attaining success. Often, we are not fully aware of our strengths and weaknesses. Many a time, we are not able to make an action plan to overcome our weaknesses and translate our strengths into concrete guidelines for attaining our goals. Principles of successful behavior are not always universal but they often change in specific cultural contexts; but as apples fall on the ground everywhere, humanity has evolved codes of basic ethics which contain acceptable human behavior all over. By and large, humans have accepted certain fundamental notions of rights and wrongs. The Bible, the Gita, the Quran, Shrutis, Srnritis, Upanishads, Dharamshastras and other religious scriptures do enlighten us on virtues of humane behavior. But a lay person finds them too complex, complicated, rich and detailed to be effectively adopted. Common people always look forward to ideas and literature that reflect simple truths about good behavior.

With a strong introduction stating that Winners don't do different things. They do things differently the author instantaneously puts the reader at the beginning of the road to success. Like most other books this book doesn't preach it talks to you like a dedicated and loyal comrade. A SWOT analysis is included which gives you a complete insight to yourself. It teaches you to accentuate your strengths so that you can move forward holding your head high. It talks about your weaknesses, the reasons for your failures and gives the necessary solutions. It unfolds the various opportunities that are waiting or ignored and threats you need to overcome. Now you are running but with a stronger grip on the road.

The book tells that your attitude only makes you a winner in your life. During a study at Harvard University, it has been found that 85% of the people get promotion due to their attitude. Only 15% of the people get promotions due to their knowledge and intelligence.

The book by Khera, a management consultant of Indian origin based in the U.S., is an important attempt which seeks to provide comprehensively a simple how-to Code of universal principles applicable in any situation, organization, or country, but it basically targets common people. Lay persons always seek to know variegated human virtues, all put in simplest possible language, without use of jargon, presented in the form of prescriptions which they can imbibe in their behavior.

Running into eight chapters, the book covers topics such as attitude, motivation, self-esteem, interpersonal skills, values and so on. It goes to the credit of Khera that he has effectively translated complex realities related to human life into extremely simple prescriptions. He has used stories, anecdotes and examples to support his formulations. But not all these are Interesting enough. For example, the balloon anecdote with which he starts chapter one may not excite even the lay reader.

Most sermons that Khera preaches or formulations that he makes are every day daadi-maan (grandmotherly) prescriptions. This helps the readers a great deal in identifying themselves with the observations made or issues raised. Some of the interesting observations made in various chapters are as follows:
Foolish people have a strange kind of confidence which comes along with ignorance ; A fool speaks without thinking; a wise man thinks before speaking ; Whenever people succeed in life, petty people will take cracks at them and try to pull them down ... in order to fight petty people you have to come to their level ; winners use hard arguments but soft words ; Successful people compete against themselves. They better their own records and keep improving constantly; success is not an accident. It is result of our attitude; there is no magic wand for success ... [It] comes to doers, not observers; Most people love success but hate successful people ... critics ... are achievers who shout at doers, telling them how to do it right; most [organizational] members are inactive. They want and get the full benefit of the effort of the active ones ; the problem with lying is that one has to remember one's lies ; laughing at yourself gives you the energy to bounce back ; and just because more people agree on something doesn't make it right .

The book further takes your positivity to the peak and unmasks you to present to you the real you. No pretense, a clean and candid you all zooming ahead to procure your goal. The book serves you enough energy boosters in your run by providing action plans after every chapter that assesses you completely. You don't get dehydrated and are always perked up by the writer's style, which makes even hackneyed topics interesting. The author mentions a point, gives a logical explanation and then makes it convincing by narrating stories, jokes, quotations, and giving testimonials for the same. They are something you can relate to and are out of sheer experience. It does not enervate you as it evaluates if the reader is going through life out of inspiration (playing to win) or desperation (playing not to lose).

The book has numerous quotes, examples and short stories which keeps one's spirits up throughout. One of the things I like the most about the book is that the author never falls short of providing ways or methods to apply his theory. After explaining every step, he supplies us with practical solutions. From time to time, the book forces the reader to think, introspect and build his/her own Action plans. And following these plans religiously can work wonders. The book is a complete package for those seeking know-how about inspiration, attitude, motivation, leadership and self-esteem. Reading this book, brings clarity to one's goal, right attitude towards failure and success, knowledge about one's strengths and weaknesses and much more. The book is written in a simple, lucid and conversational manner. No specific reading time is suggested but will help the most when few bits are read daily on continual basis as it will give daily doses of motivation and inspiration and better absorption.

The central message of the book is that feelings, attitudes and relationships are extremely important for individuals as well as organizations. It portrays that knowledge is not enough for winning; winners have to learn to behave differently. This is also in consonance with the findings of research by Stanford Research Institute which concluded that only 12 percent of effective management strategy is knowledge and 88 percent is dealing appropriately with people. It suggests how they could be developed so as to be conducive to achieving success. All prescriptions are based on positive rather than negative attitude manifestations
Interestingly, Khera does not use or quote any literature on organizational behavior or psychology to buttress his formulations. But his almost entire set of exhortations is in consonance with behavioral and business sciences, including some of the latest theoretical developments in these areas. For example, as is envisaged by the evolutionary approach to business strategy, Khera argues that he [winner]must have been at the right place at the right time. Likewise. one is reminded of incremental business strategy when one comes across his suggestion: Successful people don't do great things, they only do small things in a great way.
Contemporary scholarship on concepts such as management of change, team management and Japanization emphasize individual as well as organizational learning, which are viewed as keys to success. Khera is aware of these developments when he suggests that: a person who thinks that he knows everything has the most to learn ... only preparation will give you the competitive edge ... success gravitates to those who are prepared ... wise people learn from other people's mistakes.

The best part of Khera's unilateral behavioral rationality can be found in the chapters on attitudes, motivation, success. and inter-personal skills. The other positive points about the book are: lucidity of style, flawless editing, good illustration of prescriptions and excellent production. The book's important asset is also its encouraging tone and guiding optimism. His jaunty style helps the lay reader identify himself with the issues discussed. Undoubtedly, the lay reader finds the book quite readable and helpful.

Since Khera is a management trainer, managers would be justified in expecting the book to serve their needs as well. On this count, however, his preaching remains quite superficial. The strongest limitation from this point of view is its insistence on a pedantic, unilateral perspective which does not encourage alternative formulations; there is little room for generating fresh thinking. His admittedly Universal truth does not fit well in view of the changed concept of diversity management as developed within the human resource management discourse. His sweeping generalizations presuppose human beings as a homogeneous mass.
Also, leadership, empowerment, trust-building and team-working find only cursory treatment. Despite the book's encouraging tone and guiding optimism, the reader may find the title of the book misleading when benchmarking has almost not been discussed. After all, 3 does not the sub-theme--winners don't do different things; they do things differently--promise substantial discussion on benchmarking and Kaizen in a separate chapter. That is also the topic of learning should have been handled. The reader finds only fleeting discussion on these terms.

Surely, the book would have been of greater interest to the manager if the exhortations had been somewhat diluted to be substituted by actual analyses of human behavior as practiced in various organizations that would show that his ideas are not mere rhetoric.

In the major part of the book, Khera projects himself as if he is a religious guru and delivers sermons to the saintly disciple in that role. Suddenly, however, his ideal reader becomes worldly when he is exhorted cashing in on an opponent's mistake to win the war.

Also, the book is replete with repetitions. The absence of an index at the end appears irritating and a major handicap. To the extent Khera's audience is only the lay person, he is immensely successful in creating an impression on him which also explains why the book has seen a third reprint in less than two months of its existence. It is very good for a train journey or as a bed-time reading.

Success is a hard commodity to obtain. However, like everything in our lives, it only needs careful planning, and deliberation. All success is deliberate, there is nothing magical about winning. Using common sense and varying lessons taken from ancient wisdom to modern philosophy, he shows how we can deal with issues of our daily lives, and how we can turn otherwise bad situations into good ones. He helps readers take charge of their lives, and decide for themselves how they wish to go forwards in situations they once thought were terrible. Transforming negative thoughts into positive ones is the key, he reveals, and this book follows his motto of translating thoughts into winning actions. The attitude, motivation, interpersonal skills, self-esteem and the subconscious mind are all that matter, and it is this that the book tries to teach readers. After all, he tells us, winners don`t do different things. They just do ordinary things differently.

This book will help generations. It is a well written book on Personality Development. Simplicity and relevance are the two main factors that make this book to stand out among other Personality Development books. The author had uncanny talent to mix the content with lot of stories and quotes so that the message does not go over the head. More and more traits were explained in simple terms with relevant and important anecdotes that make you imbibe the message with ease on an otherwise dry subject. For sure this book builds confidence on those who reads it.