Permission to Screw Up

August 21, 2017
In this frank and well-told business memoir, Hadeed tells the story of how her craving for “a nice pair of jeans” led her to found the cleaning service Student Maid in Gainesville, Fla., in 2007, when she was still a college student. At first, everything seemed to be going smoothly, until, suddenly, 45 out of the 60 Student Maid employees walked out in the middle of a cleaning session, dissatisfied with their working conditions. After winning them back with her honest and unassuming manner, Hadeed successfully fulfilled her first big contract. However, this initial test was just the first of many challenges Hadeed would face. For the past 10 years, she’s confronted as many difficulties as a business owner could imagine: being threatened with a lawsuit for infringing a similarly named company’s trademark, paying employees 100 times their salary due to an intern’s accounting error, confronting an employee who lied about her working hours, and having to accept the sudden resignation of a trusted and longtime employee. Although not well suited to businesspeople seeking step-by-step guidelines, the book’s emphasis on narrative will suit readers interested in learning by example. It urges young leaders to keep going and not be afraid of making mistakes, because “behind every leader is a perfectly imperfect story.”

November 1, 2017

Hadeed is the founder of the cleaning business Student Maid, and while readers may expect an overnight rags-to-riches success story, they instead learn of the mistakes the entrepreneur made (and still makes) while building and running her company. Explaining how she learned from those errors, Hadeed shares the larger lessons to be gleaned, including a willingness to be vulnerable (with her staff and the world). This work goes beyond the average leadership tome; her honesty and people-oriented values make this an inspirational piece. In particular, the author describes an exercise in which everyone from her leadership team shared a story from their childhood that shaped them as a person, allowing the group to gain a better understanding of one another. Suddenly, a coworker's quirks make sense and could be given context. Hadeed also provides insight into what millennial employees (and leaders) look for in the workplace. VERDICT Recommended for anyone interested in developing leadership skills, and for libraries with patrons who are building a business or improving their approach to management. Also good for those wanting a glimpse into managing and working with millennials.--Sonnet Ireland, St. Tammany Parish P.L., Mandeville, LA

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