The Leap: How 3 Simple Changes Can Propel Your Career from Good to Great.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Brief article - Book review

The Leap: How 3 Simple Changes Can Propel Your Career from Good to Great. By Rick Smith. Portfolio, 209 pages. $24.95.

From the title, you might imagine that "the leap" requires a launch into the void, perhaps with little or no safety net. Actually, author Smith's advice is far more cautious: He argues that big career gains can come from mitigating and not accelerating risk.

In this anecdote-driven book, entrepreneur and author Smith writes about ordinary people who transformed themselves from obscurity to acclaim in their fields by following a few transformational steps. While the book explains them in detail, the three "simple changes" can be reduced to: You don't need to change who you are; you don't need to go it alone; and you don't need to take dramatic risks.

In researching hundreds of people in fields including retailing, community service and health care, Smith found...