Build an A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve


Whitney Johnson - 2018
    In over twenty years of coaching, investing, and consulting, Johnson has seen that employees need continuous learning and fresh challenges to stay motivated.The best bosses know this, and they know how to make it happen by thoughtfully designing people’s jobs around the skills they have today as well as the skills they'll need to be even more valuable tomorrow. That's how entire organizations stay competitive in an unpredictable, rapidly changing business environment.In this book, Johnson explains how to become one of those bosses and how to build your A-team by:Identifying what your employees already know and what they need to learnDesigning their jobs to maximize engagement and learningApplying a seven-step process for leading each person up their learning curveWe all want opportunities to learn, experiment, and grow in our jobs. When our bosses work with us to help us leap to new challenges, the result is a team that knows how to thrive, no matter what the future holds.

On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy


Carl R. Rogers - 1961
    A new introduction by Peter Kramer sheds light on the significance of Dr. Rogers's work today. New discoveries in the field of psychopharmacology, especially that of the antidepressant Prozac, have spawned a quick-fix drug revolution that has obscured the psychotherapeutic relationship. As the pendulum slowly swings back toward an appreciation of the therapeutic encounter, Dr. Rogers's "client-centered therapy" becomes particularly timely and important.

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance


Angela Duckworth - 2016
    Rather, other factors can be even more crucial such as identifying our passions and following through on our commitments.Drawing on her own powerful story as the daughter of a scientist who frequently bemoaned her lack of smarts, Duckworth describes her winding path through teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience, which led to the hypothesis that what really drives success is not genius, but a special blend of passion and long-term perseverance. As a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Duckworth created her own character lab and set out to test her theory.Here, she takes readers into the field to visit teachers working in some of the toughest schools, cadets struggling through their first days at West Point, and young finalists in the National Spelling Bee. She also mines fascinating insights from history and shows what can be gleaned from modern experiments in peak performance. Finally, she shares what she's learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers; from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to the cartoon editor of The New Yorker to Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll.Winningly personal, insightful, and even life-changing, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that not talent or luck makes all the difference.

The Last Word on Power


Tracy Goss - 1995
    The last word on power is the key method in reinventing executives so they can take on "a mission impossible" based on a course designed and run exclusively for the past fifteen years by Tracy Goss. Do you want to do work that is worthy of your time and talent? Do you want to make your mark on your company, industry, community? Are you dissatisfied with the fact that reengineering, quality improvements, and other changes never make a lasting impact? Then you need to go beyond the techniques of improvement and learn the skills of being extraordinary. The power to be extraordinary is not one we are born with. It's not the power to fix what's wrong or improve what's right. It is a power one learns in a course that for the past fifteen years has been designed and run exclusively for top executives by consultant Tracy Goss. For the first time, Goss makes her coursework available to the general reader in The Last Word On Power. Goss's unique methodology shows how "you can put at risk the success you have achieved for the 'possibility' you can be." She positions executives to take on the future they dream about. She teaches how to behave differently so you can be free of constraints from the past. She shows how you can be at home in an environment in which you are constantly surrounded by threats, and how to transcend the ordinary so that you can make the impossible happen. Her work has resulted in important life changes and organizational reinventions throughout the world.

Daily Affirmations For Forgiving & Moving On


Tian Dayton - 1992
    Forgiving and Moving On assists the emerging self, offering hope, strength and inspiration along the wayTian Dayton, M.A. is a therapist/psychodramatist in private practice and director of Inner look, Inc. consulting and training in New York City. She is the author of Daily Affirmations For Parents and Drama Games: Techniques for Self-Development.

What You Really Need to Lead


Robert Steven Kaplan - 2015
    Perhaps you think that you need to hold an important job to be a leader--that you need permission to lead. Leadership is one of the most important aspects of our society. Yet there is enormous disagreement and confusion about what leadership means and whether it can really be learned. As Harvard Business School professor Robert Steven Kaplan explains in this powerful new book, leadership qualities are not something you either have or you don't. Leadership is not a destination or a state of being. Leadership is about what you do, rather than who you are, and it starts with an ownership mind-set. For Kaplan, learning to lead involves three key elements: * Thinking like an owner * A willingness to act on your beliefs * A relentless focus on adding value to others Kaplan compellingly argues that great organizations are built around a nucleus of people who think and act with an ownership mind-set. He believes that leadership is not a role reserved only for those blessed with the right attributes or situated in the right positions of power. Leadership is accessible to each of us--today. It requires a process of hard work, willingness to ask questions, and openness to learning. This book aims to demystify leadership and outlines a specific regimen that will empower you to build your leadership skills. Kaplan tells real-life stories from his own experience of working with various types of leaders seeking to improve their effectiveness and make their organizations more successful. He asks probing questions, provides exercises, and suggests concrete follow-up steps that will help you develop your skills, create new habits, and move you toward reaching your unique leadership potential. What You Really Need to Lead will help you develop your capacity to lead by unlocking your power to think and act like an owner.

Dare to Lead


Brené Brown - 2018
    Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead. Leadership is not about titles, status and power over people. Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognising the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential. This is a book for everyone who is ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference and lead.When we dare to lead, we don't pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don't see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it and work to align authority and accountability. We don't avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into the vulnerability that’s necessary to do good work.But daring leadership in a culture that's defined by scarcity, fear and uncertainty requires building courage skills, which are uniquely human. The irony is that we're choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the same time we're scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines can't do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection and courage to start.Brené Brown spent the past two decades researching the emotions that give meaning to our lives. Over the past seven years, she found that leaders in organisations ranging from small entrepreneurial start-ups and family-owned businesses to non-profits, civic organisations and Fortune 50 companies, are asking the same questions:How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders? And, how do you embed the value of courage in your culture?Dare to Lead answers these questions and gives us actionable strategies and real examples from her new research-based, courage-building programme.Brené writes, ‘One of the most important findings of my career is that courage can be taught, developed and measured. Courage is a collection of four skill sets supported by twenty-eight behaviours. All it requires is a commitment to doing bold work, having tough conversations and showing up with our whole hearts. Easy? No. Choosing courage over comfort is not easy. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and work. It's why we're here.’

Power and Influence


John P. Kotter - 1985
    This often leaves us in a power gap because we must depend on people over whom we have little or no explicit control.This is a book about how to bridge that gap: how to exercise the power and influence you need to get things done through others when your responsibilities exceed your formal authority.Full of original ideas and expert insights about how organizations--and the people in them--function, Power and Influence goes further, demonstrating that lower-level personnel also need strong leadership skills and interpersonal know-how to perform well.Kotter shows how you can develop sufficient resources of unofficial power and influence to achieve goals, steer clear of conflicts, foster creative team behavior, and gain the cooperation and support you need from subordinates, coworkers, superiors--even people outside your department or organization.He also shows how you can avoid the twin traps of naivete and cynicism when dealing with power relationships, and how to use your power without abusing it.Power and Influence is essential for top managers who need to overcome the infighting, foot-dragging, and politicking that can destroy both morale and profits; for middle managers who don't want their careers sidetracked by unproductive power struggles; for professionals hindered by bureaucratic obstacles and deadline delays; and for staff workers who have to manage theboss.This is not a book for those who want to grab power for their own ends. But if you'd like to create smooth, responsive working relationships and increase your personal effectiveness on the job, Kotter can show you how--and make the dynamics of power work for you instead of against you.

Weight Loss for the Mind


Stuart Wilde - 1994
    Wilde teaches readers how to deal with opinions, feelings, contradiction, expectancy, and finally how to elevate their spirits to feel freer and lighter.

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants


Malcolm Gladwell - 2013
    Now he looks at the complex and surprising ways the weak can defeat the strong, the small can match up against the giant, and how our goals (often culturally determined) can make a huge difference in our ultimate sense of success. Drawing upon examples from the world of business, sports, culture, cutting-edge psychology, and an array of unforgettable characters around the world, David and Goliath is in many ways the most practical and provocative book Malcolm Gladwell has ever written.

Dancing with Einstein


Kate Wenner - 2004
    She is Marea Hoffman, who, after wandering the world for seven years, has returned to New York at age thirty with the intention of starting her real life.But Marea approaches everything in her own idiosyncratic style, and she is soon seeing four different therapists simultaneously and telling her story to each in a different way. The story she reveals is about her childhood in 1950s Princeton during the age of “duck and cover” drills and McCarthyism, when fear of communism obsessed America. Marea’s father, a Holocaust survivor, worked on the Manhattan Project and later on the development of the hydrogen bomb; her mother was a confirmed pacifist.Frightened by her early exposure to the threat of nuclear annihilation, young Marea finds comfort in the company of her father’s colleague and friend, the grandfatherly Albert Einstein. Einstein charms Marea even as he provokes the wrenching moral debate that will drive her parents apart. When Einstein disappears from Marea’s life as suddenly as he entered it and her father is killed in a mysterious car accident, she is left alone with a mother she no longer trusts and with questions that won’t go away.Nearly two decades later, during the August hiatus from her four therapists, Marea takes a reluctant trip home to Princeton. There her eyes are newly opened to the past when she uncovers her father’s secret Cold War diary.Weaving back and forth between 1970s New York and 1950s Princeton, Wenner’s exploration of the impact that history can have on a young life is powerful and moving—a deeply intelligent look at the challenge of finding hope in the modern age.

Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business


Charles Duhigg - 2016
    A new book that explores the science of productivity, and why, in today’s world, managing how you think—rather than what you think—can transform your life.

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions


Gary Klein - 1998
    How do these individuals make the split-second decisions that save lives? Most studies of decision making, based on artificial tasks assigned in laboratory settings, view people as biased and unskilled. Gary Klein is one of the developers of the naturalistic decision making approach, which views people as inherently skilled and experienced. It documents human strengths and capabilities that so far have been downplayed or ignored.Since 1985, Klein has conducted fieldwork to find out how people tackle challenges in difficult, nonroutine situations. Sources of Power is based on observations of humans acting under such real-life constraints as time pressure, high stakes, personal responsibility, and shifting conditions. The professionals studied include firefighters, critical care nurses, pilots, nuclear power plant operators, battle planners, and chess masters. Each chapter builds on key incidents and examples to make the description of the methodology and phenomena more vivid. In addition to providing information that can be used by professionals in management, psychology, engineering, and other fields, the book presents an overview of the research approach of naturalistic decision making and expands our knowledge of the strengths people bring to difficult tasks.

Freud for Beginners


Richard Osborne - 1993
    His influence on 20th-century thinking and issues is arguably unparalleled, affecting attitudes on sex, religion, art, culture, and more. Written for the layperson, Freud for Beginners explains the doctor's dogma with wit and clarity, all in a contemporary context.

Listful Thinking: Using Lists to Be More Productive, Successful and Less Stressed


Paula Rizzo - 2015
    These successful people, along with CEOs and successful entrepreneurs, all use lists to keep track of their ideas, thoughts, and tasks. Finding enough hours in the day to get everything accomplished and allow for some downtime can be a struggle. It's no wonder so many of us are stressed, overextended, and exhausted. More than half of all American employees feel overwhelmed, according to a study by the nonprofit Family and Work Institute. For the 54 percent of us who feel like we're chasing our own tails, Listful Thinking is here to prove that it doesn't have to be that way. You can still find time to relax, read a good book, and do the things you love. Listful Thinking is the book that will give readers their lives back with indispensible tips on saving time, getting organized, improving productivity, saving money, and reducing stress.