Monday Morning Mentoring: Ten Lessons to Guide You Up the Ladder


David Cottrell - 2006
    Cottrell introduces us to Jeff, a successful corporate manager who has hit a major wall. Jeff has been leading his team, quarter after quarter, to great sales and better profits for several years -- until now. The tricks that used to work wonders have lost their magic; Jeff is in a slump and is at a loss to find his way out of it.Overworked, stressed, and feeling that his personal and professional lives are at risk, Jeff reaches out to the father of a college buddy, a retired and tremendously accomplished former executive named Tony. Tony and Jeff agree to meet every Monday for ten weeks to work through Jeff's problems and get his career back on track.In the course of these intimate sessions, Jeff discovers the secrets of real leadership: "Until I accept total responsibility -- no matter what -- I will not be able to put plans in place to accomplish my goals." And, "My success is the result of making better choices and recovering quickly from poor choices."Tony leads Jeff through tough lessons in how to manage his people, how to manage his own time, how to manage his superiors, and how to escape from "management land." Most of all, Jeff learns that his success is intimately bound with the success of his people and that tolerating lackluster performance in himself and others on the team only leads to discontent from his most prized and productive employees.Through Jeff's mentoring sessions, the reader meets a character of integrity who dispenses homespun but effective wisdom. Spend time with Tony and Jeff at their Monday morning meetings, and you will find yourself on the road to becoming a better leader and being more successful at work.

Water The Bamboo: Unleashing the Potential of Teams and Individuals


Greg Bell - 2009
    When giant timber bamboo grows, it will rocket up an astonishing 90 feet in only 60 days, but not until at least three years of watering. In 21 steps, this timely book helps individuals and teams refocus on their core values and mission to achieve long-term success.

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done


Larry Bossidy - 2002
    This smart and pithy book focuses on a simple though vexing challenge: How can the leaders of an organization exhort their people to deliver on the most important goals?....It's rare to find a book like this that blends smart practice with intelligent articulation of how to get things done. Do yourself a favor. Buy it." --The Boston Globe"Making all of the moving parts of an organization function smoothly together is just plain hard work. By describing how he has done it, Mr. Bossidy has come up with a valuable and practical management guide that is must-reading for everyone who cares about business." --The New York Times"If you want to be a CEO--or if you are a CEO and want to keep your job--read Execution and put its principles to work." --Michael Dell, chairman and CEO, Dell Computer Corp."A how-to book for the can-do boss....If even half the corporations in America pondered their suggestions, the economy would be in much better shape. Moreover, Bossidy and Charan boast an impressive enough track record that anyone who wants to stay sharp at the helm will welcome their assistance." --BusinessWeek"Sound, practical advice on how to make things happen." --Ralph S. Larsen, chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson"Here's the real deal.... This is no-nonsense stuff.... The leaders who sweat the small stuff, hire the right people, make the tough decisions and stick around to see that they're carried out are the real winners.... Forget the swarmy memoirs, cheesy parables, advice for idiots, and leadership secrets of despots and barbarians. Getting it done is, according to Bossidy and Charan, the only way to grow." --The Miami Herald"Captures a lifetime of building winning formulas and puts them in a simple, practical context for executives at any level." --Ivan Seidenberg, president and CEO, Verizon

The Rules of Management: A Definitive Code for Managerial Success


Richard Templar - 2005
    This book will do for managerial success what the best selling Rules of Work has done for personal success.

The Thank You Economy


Gary Vaynerchuk - 2010
    In this groundbreaking follow-up to the bestselling Crush It!, Vaynerchuk—one of Bloomberg Businessweek’s “20 People Every Entrepreneur Should Follow”—looks beyond a numbers-based analysis to explore the value of social interactions in building our economy.

Shifting the Monkey: The Art of Protecting Good from Liars, Criers, and Other Slackers


Todd Whitaker - 2011
    Why? Because they complain the loudest, create the greatest disruptions, and rely on others to assume the responsibilities that they shirk. Learn how to focus on your good employees first, and help them shift these "monkeys" back to the underperformers. Through a simple but brilliant metaphor, Whitaker helps you reinvigorate your staff and transform your organization.

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures


Dan Roam - 2008
    Three dots to represent Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Three arrows to show direct flights. Problem solved, and the picture made it easy to sell Southwest Airlines to investors and customers. Used properly, a simple drawing on a humble napkin is more powerful than Excel or PowerPoint. It can help crystallize ideas, think outside the box, and communicate in a way that people simply “get”. In this book Dan Roam argues that everyone is born with a talent for visual thinking, even those who swear they can’t draw. Drawing on twenty years of visual problem solving combined with the recent discoveries of vision science, this book shows anyone how to clarify a problem or sell an idea by visually breaking it down using a simple set of visual thinking tools – tools that take advantage of everyone’s innate ability to look, see, imagine, and show. THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN proves that thinking with pictures can help anyone discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and dramatically improve their ability to share their insights. This book will help readers literally see the world in a new way.

Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United


Alex Ferguson - 2015
    From hiring practices to firing decisions, from dealing with transition to teamwork, from mastering the boardroom to responding to failure and adversity, Leading is as inspiring as it is practical, and a go-to reference for any leader in business, sports, and life.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity


David Allen - 2001
    In Getting Things Done, veteran coach and management consultant David Allen shares the breakthrough methods for stress-free performance that he has introduced to tens of thousands of people across the country. Allen's premise is simple: our productivity is directly proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effective productivity and unleash our creative potential. In Getting Things Done Allen shows how to:* Apply the "do it, delegate it, defer it, drop it" rule to get your in-box to empty* Reassess goals and stay focused in changing situations* Plan projects as well as get them unstuck* Overcome feelings of confusion, anxiety, and being overwhelmed* Feel fine about what you're not doingFrom core principles to proven tricks, Getting Things Done can transform the way you work, showing you how to pick up the pace without wearing yourself down.

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant


W. Chan Kim - 1994
    They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation. Yet, as this influential and immensely popular book shows, these hallmarks of competitive strategy are not the way to create profitable growth in the future.In the international bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne argue that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves (spanning more than 100 years across 30 industries), the authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors, but from creating "blue oceans"—untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. Such strategic moves, which the authors call “value innovation,” create powerful leaps in value that often render rivals obsolete for more than a decade.Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any company can use to create and capture their own blue oceans. A landmark work that upends traditional thinking about strategy, this bestselling business book charts a bold new path to winning the future.

Reach: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone, Rise to the Challenge and Build Confidence


Andy Molinsky - 2017
    What's more, we have the false notion that successful people like to do these things, when the truth is that successful people have simply found their own way to do them.According to Andy Molinsky, an expert on behavior in the business world, there are five key challenges underlying our avoidance tendencies: authenticity, competence, resentment, likability, and morality. Does the new behavior you're attempting feel authentic to you? Is it the right thing to do? Answering these questions will help identify the "gap" in our behavioral style that we can then bridge by using the three C's: Clarity, Conviction, and Customization. Perhaps most interesting, Molinsky has discovered that many people who confront what they were avoiding come to realize that they actually enjoy it, and can even be good at it.Short, prescriptive, and based not only on the author's groundbreaking research but on his own quest to get out of his comfort zone, Reach will help you take the thing you are most afraid of doing and make it a proud part of your personal repertoire.

Insight: Why We're Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life


Tasha Eurich - 2017
    Do you know who you really are? Do you ever wonder how other people really see you? Though we are usually confident that we do, we are wrong more often than we think. And if we could see ourselves through others eyes, we might be really surprised. Yet regardless of our line of work or stage of life, success depends on understanding who we are and how we come across. Research shows that self-awareness means better work performance, smarter life choices, deeper, more meaningful relationships, and a more fulfilling career. There s just one problem: people can be remarkably poor judges of their behavior, performance, and impact on others. And despite the lip service given today to feedback, in the business world and beyond, it s rare to get candid, objective data on what we re doing well, and where we could stand to improve. Of course, at work and in life, we ve all come across people with a stunning lack of self-awareness but how often do we consider whether we might have the same problem? And if we did, how would we even know it? Drawing on her three-year, first-of-its-kind study of people who have dramatically improved their self-awareness, organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich reveals why we don t know ourselves as well as we think and what to do about it. Alongside her research, she integrates hundreds of academic studies and her 15 years of work with Fortune 500 clients, challenging conventional wisdom to reveal many surprising truths like why introspection is the enemy of insight, how experience isn t a bullet train to self-knowledge, and just how far others will go to avoid telling us the truth about ourselves. Readers will learn battle-tested techniques and tools to improve self-awareness and thus their work performance, leadership skills, interpersonal relationships, and more. Insight is a guide surviving and thriving in an unaware world."

Coaching for Performance: GROWing Human Potential and Purpose - the Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership (People Skills for Professionals)


John Whitmore - 2002
    Coaching has matured into an invaluable profession fit for our times and this fourth edition of the most widely read coaching book takes it to the next frontier.Good coaching is a skill that requires a depth of understanding and plenty of practice if it is to deliver its astonishing potential. This extensively revised and expanded new audio edition of Coaching for Performance clearly explains the principles of coaching and illustrates them with examples of high performance from business and sport. It continues to follow the GROW sequence (Goals, Reality, Options, Will) and clarifies the process and practice of coaching by describing what coaching really is, what it can be used for, when and how much it can be used, and who can use it well.

TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking


Chris J. Anderson - 2016
      Since taking over TED in the early 2000s, Chris Anderson has shown how carefully crafted short talks can be the key to unlocking empathy, stirring excitement, spreading knowledge, and promoting a shared dream. Done right, a talk can electrify a room and transform an audience’s worldview. Done right, a talk is more powerful than anything in written form.         This book explains how the miracle of powerful public speaking is achieved, and equips you to give it your best shot. There is no set formula; no two talks should be the same. The goal is for you to give the talk that only you can give. But don’t be intimidated. You may find it more natural than you think.         Chris Anderson has worked behind the scenes with all the TED speakers who have inspired us the most, and here he shares insights from such favorites as Sir Ken Robinson, Amy Cuddy, Bill Gates, Elizabeth Gilbert, Salman Khan, Dan Gilbert, Mary Roach, Matt Ridley, and dozens more — everything from how to craft your talk’s content to how you can be most effective on stage. This is the 21st-century’s new manual for truly effective communication and it is a must-read for anyone who is ready to create impact with their ideas.

Women in Tech: Practical Advice and Inspiring Stories from Successful Women in Tech to Take Your Career to the Next Level


Tarah Wheeler - 2016
    Craig Pritchett leads you through an unforgettable learning experience that builds on the extraordinary life and games of the first World Chess Champion Wilhelm Steinitz.