BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
Drive - The surprising truth about what motivates us: Daniel Pink
Brief Description: An intriguing look at how we are motivated and wired. He discussed how intrinsic motivation is far more effective than external motivators or rewards, which is how most companies operate. He looks at 4 decades of research to show us that there might be a better way. He examines the three elements of true motivation – autonomy, mastery and purpose and looks at fast and effective ways to put these into practice.
Accelerate: Suzanne Mayo Frindt and Dwight Frindt
Brief Description: Suzanne and Dwight, both award winning Vistage Chairs have examined who leaders are “being” versus what they are “doing” to run better organizations that get better results. Their book is a combination common sense and unique insight into how great leaders achieve alignment throughout their organizations to achieve results for everyone. Time and energy can be saved simply by “being” different. An excellent must read for anyone who leads or manages anyone, including themselves.
Getting Naked: Patrick Lencioni
Brief Description: As with most Lencioni books, this one is a fable about a merger of two organizations whose wildly different cultures make "being real" difficult. It’s really a terrific primer about building relationships that work for business and for life that work and last. It's a great, easy read.
Achieving Strategic Alignment: Barry MacKechnie
Brief Description: Very easy, one plane ride read step by step outline for going through strategic planning for any organization. Not only can you read and understand the steps quickly, it works. Barry shows you how aligning teams, goals and plans, anything is possible in a very quick and sustainable way. By following the process, teams can stay on the right path towards success.
Enchantment: Guy Kawasaki
Brief Description: Enchantment is about transforming situations and relationships. He talks about converting hostility into civility and civility into affinity. He argues that in any relationship or transaction your goal is not merely to get what you want, but to delight and enchant the other participant and bring about enduring change. The principles he talks about are real, easy to understand and something we could all use to make a difference every day.
Leadership and Self Deception Getting Out of the Box:
The Arbinger Institute
Brief Description: Book uses a story/parable format to take a psychological
approach to leadership. Topics include: learning how the process of self
awareness works, personal transformation, how a lack of self awareness limits
one’s abilities as a leader.
Reviews: inspiring read, flows nicely.
Good to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap
and Others Don’t:
Jim Collins
Brief Description: Book attempts to answer the question – Can a good company
become a great company and if so, how? Book looks at 11 great companies and suggests
the heart of great companies is their corporate culture.
Reviews: well-reasoned road map to excellence – lots of stories.
Play to Win: Larry and Hersch Wilson
Brief Description: I recommended this book as it covers many similar personal
development models to those covered at our training: There is an accountability model,
a growth curve model and many other useful individual and organizational change models.
Check out the Four Fatal Fears – a very revealing personal development tool. It is a
fast read, lots of pictures, graphics and inspiring quotations. Much of the work my
husband and I do in our business is based on the work of these two authors
The Fifth Discipline: Peter Senge
Brief Description: This book is a great introduction to the concept of the “learning
organization” that uses “systems thinking” as the primary tenet of a revolutionary management
philosophy. It discusses, in depth, an integrated corporate model comprised of personal
mastery, mental maps, shared vision and team learning. (These are all defined in great detail.)
Orbiting the Giant Hairball – a Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace: David Rouse (1998)
Brief Description: The book examines how to slip out of the bonds of “corporate
normalcy” and rise to a mode of dreaming, daring and doing above and beyond.
Reviews: A business cult classic, a personally empowering and entertaining look at
the intersection between human creativity and the bottom line.
The Wisdom of Teams – Creating the High Performance Organization: Katzenburg and Smith (1994)
Brief Description:The book offers valuable advice in the fine art of building teams
for high performance results – real and disguised examples along with specific recommendations
for balancing work responsibilities, executive egos, communications and skills.
Corporate Mystic: A Guidebook for Visionaries with Their Feet on the Ground: Gay Hendricks
and Kate Ludeman (1998)
Brief Description: Qualities inherent in top leaders and corporate visionaries are outlined in
this guide. The book provides stories and examples of what sets top executives apart from others:
grounded in vision, integrity and intuition – they know how to nurture these qualities in others.
The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability: Craig Hickman, Roger Conners and Tom Smith
Brief Description: The books follows through the basic themes of the classic Wizard of Oz: the
trip to see the wizard is a journey of self-awareness and discovery, wherein the characters learn that
only they have the power to fully realize change in their lives. The book describes ways in which people
can move beyond victimization to achieve objectives, accept responsibility and rise to new heights of achievement.
Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable:
Patrick Lencioni (1998)
Brief Description: Using an intriguing fable, the book explains the common
traps that can unwittingly ensnare any hard-driven executives: to jealously guard career
status, to consistently remain popular with subordinates, to unfailingly make correct
decisions, to constantly strive for an atmosphere of total harmony and to always appear
invulnerable.
Reviews: An easy reading and thought provoking kind of self-help book.
Friedman’s Fables: Edwin H. Friedman
Brief Description:Funny stories that are profound, provocative, even shocking
as they present crucial truths of systemic thinking and the vital lessons of family therapy
and family life.
Reviews: Great for anyone who expects to deal with people, lessons about
human relationships, human suffering and human integrity.
Code of the Executive: Forty Seven Ancient Samurai Principles Essential
for 21st Century Leadership Success: Don Schmincke
Brief Description:Brief Description: Leaders can thrive in the third millennium
by utilizing principles developed during the first. They originate in a moral code known
as Bushias that was followed by Samurai warriors in 19th century Japan. Categories include:
Personal Principles, Roles and Responsibilities, Education and Development and Respecting Personnel.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Difference: Malcom Gladwell (2000)
Brief Description:Galdwell discusses concepts such as the “stickiness” of an idea or the
effect of population size on information dispersal. He also suggests that a “Connector” is the key
to galvanizing forces in any pursuit.
Blink: Malcom Gladwell
Execution: Bossidy and Charan
First Break all the Rules: Marcus Buckingham
NOW, Discover Your Strengths: Marcus Buckingham
Leadership from the Inside Out: Cashman
Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life:
Gregg Levoy
Man’s Search For Meaning: Victor Frankel
What Happy People Know: Dan Baker
Death by Meeting: Patrick Lencioni
Five Dysfunctions of a Team: Patrick Lencioni
The Four Obsessions of the Extraordinary Executive:
Patrick Lencioni
The Oz Principle: Roger Connors, Tom Smith and Craig Hickman
Inspirational Leadership: Richard Olivier
Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing: Lee Thayer
The Present: Spencer Johnson
Selling to VITO: Anthony Paranello
The World is Flat: Thomas Freidman
Blue Ocean Strategy: W. Kim Chan & Renee Mauborgne
Freakanomics: Steven Levitt
Selling to Big Companies: Jill Konrath
The Number: Lee Eisenberg
The Art of the Start: Guy Kawasaki
Give your Elevator Speech a Lift!: Lorraine Howell
