What We Are Reading Articles

What We Are Reading

Author: admin, Date: 5/19/2016

Mastering Leadership: An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results
Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams
Viking Adult, 2013

Is your leadership a competitive advantage, or is it costing you? How do you know? Are you developing your leadership effectiveness at the pace of change?

For most leaders, complexity is outpacing their personal development and today’s escalating global complexity puts it at a premium. /Mastering Leadership/ involves developing the effectiveness of leaders – individually and collectively – and turning that leadership into a competitive advantage.

This timeless text provides a systematic approach to developing your senior leaders and the leadership system of your organization – not with quick fixes, but with real development that requires a strategic, long-term, and integrated approach. /Mastering Leadership/ offers a pathway to bring forth the best use of yourself, your life, and your leadership.

 

An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization
Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey
Harvard Business Review Press (2016)

A Radical New Model for Unleashing Your Company’s Potential

In most organizations nearly everyone is doing a second job no one is paying them for—namely, covering their weaknesses, trying to look their best, and managing other people’s impressions of them. There may be no greater waste of a company’s resources. The ultimate cost: neither the organization nor its people are able to realize their full potential.

What if a company did everything in its power to create a culture in which everyone—not just select “high potentials”—could overcome their own internal barriers to change and use errors and  vulnerabilities as prime opportunities for personal and company growth?

This book demonstrates a whole new way of being at work. It suggests that the culture you create is your strategy—and that the key to success is developing everyone.

 

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What We Are Reading

Author: admin, Date: 10/4/2013

Business Books

Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success
Adam Grant
Viking Adult, 2013

From the Book: For generations, we have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work, talent, and luck. But today, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. It turns out that at work, most people operate as either takers, matchers, or givers. Whereas takers strive to get as much as possible from others and matchers aim to trade evenly, givers are the rare breed of people who contribute to others without expecting anything in return.

The Four-Hour Workweek
Timothy Ferris
Harmony, 2009

From the Book: Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.

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What We Are Reading

Author: admin, Date: 8/1/2013

Business Books

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
Seth Godin
Portfolio Hardcover 2007

From the Book: The old saying is wrong—winners do quit, and quitters do win.Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point—really hard, and not much fun at all. And then you find yourself asking if the goal is even worth the hassle. Maybe you’re in a Dip—a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try. According to bestselling author Seth Godin, what really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly, while staying focused and motivated when it really counts.

To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
Daniel Pink
Riverhead Hardcover, 2012

From the Book: Yes, one in nine Americans works in sales. But so do the other eight. Whether we’re employees pitching colleagues on a new idea, entrepreneurs enticing funders to invest, or parents and teachers cajoling children to study, we spend our days trying to move others. Like it or not, we’re all in sales now. To Sell Is Human offers a fresh look at the art and science of selling. As he did in Drive and A Whole New Mind, Daniel H. Pink draws on a rich trove of social science for his counterintuitive insights. He reveals the new ABCs of moving others (it’s no longer “Always Be Closing”), explains why extraverts don’t make the best salespeople, and shows how giving people an “off-ramp” for their actions can matter more than actually changing their minds.

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What We Are Reading

Author: admin, Date: 6/19/2013

Business Books

Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work
David Rock
HarperBusiness 2007

From the Book: Improving the performance of your employees involves one of the hardest challenges in the known universe: changing the way they think. The author states that the secret to leading people (and living and working with them) is found in the space between their ears. “If people are being paid to think,” he writes, “isn’t it time the business world found out what the thing doing the work, the brain, is all about?” Supported by the latest groundbreaking research, Quiet Leadership provides a brain-based approach that will help busy leaders, executives, and managers improve their own and their colleagues’ performance. Rock offers a practical, six-step guide to making permanent workplace performance change by unleashing higher productivity, new levels of morale, and greater job satisfaction.

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Sheryl Sandberg
Knopf, 2013

From the Book: Thirty years after women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in government and industry. This means that women’s voices are still not heard equally in the decisions that most affect our lives. In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg examines why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes, and offers compelling, commonsense solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential.

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What We Are Reading

Author: admin, Date: 4/24/2013

Business Books

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don’t
Nate Silver
Penguin Press HC, 2012

From the Book: The author examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the “prediction paradox”: The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future.

Power Listening: Mastering the Most Critical Business Skill of All
Bernard Ferrari
Portfolio Hardcover, 2012

From the Book: Nothing causes bad decisions in organizations as often as poor listening. But Bernard Ferrari, adviser to some of the nation’s most influential executives, believes that such missteps can be avoided and that the skills and habits of good listening can be developed and mastered. He offers a step-by-step process that will help readers become active listeners, able to shape and focus any conversation.

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What We Are Reading

Author: admin, Date: 2/28/2013

Business Books

Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone
Mark Goulston
AMACOM, 2009

From the Book: The first make-or-break step in persuading anyone to do any thing is getting them to hear you out. Whether the person is a harried colleague, a stressed-out client, or an insecure spouse, things will go from bad to worse if you can’t break through emotional barricades. Drawing on his experience as a psychiatrist, business consultant, and coach, and backed by the latest scientific research, author Mark Goulston shares simple but power ful techniques readers can use to really get through to people–whether they’re coworkers, friends, strangers, or enemies. Getting through is a fine art but a critical one. With the help of this groundbreaking book readers will be able to turn the “impossible” and “unreachable” people in their lives into allies, devoted customers, loyal colleagues, and lifetime friends.

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Simon Sinek
Portfolio Trade, 2011

From the Book: Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty? In studying the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way-and it’s the complete opposite of what everyone else does. People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with why. Drawing on a wide range of real-life stories, Sinek weaves together a clear vision of what it truly takes to lead and inspire.

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What We Are Reading

Author: admin, Date: 1/31/2013

Business Books

The Silent Language of Leaders
Carol Kinsey Goman
Jossey-Bass, 2011

From the Book: Aspiring and seasoned leaders have been trained to excel at communicating verbally. And yet, all their efforts to communicate effectively can be derailed by even the smallest nonverbal gestures, such as the way they sit in a business meeting, or stand at the podium at a speaking engagement, or the amount of eye contact they give in a one-on-one meeting. In The Silent Language of Leaders, leadership and communications expert Carol Kinsey Goman explains that in today’s fast-paced business environment, where global interactions are increasing, mastering the art of body language is more important than ever.

Elements of Influence: The Art of Getting Others to Follow Your Lead
Terry Bacon
AMACOM, 2011

From the Book: We succeed in business and in life when we influence how others think, feel, and act: getting them to accept our point of view, follow our lead, join our cause, feel our excitement, or buy our products and services. The act of influencing is such a part of our daily lives that we often don’t even realize when we (or others) are doing it. But to succeed, we need to know how influence works…and how to use it.

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What We Are Reading

Author: admin, Date: 11/20/2012

Business Books


What Matter Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation
Gary Hamel
Jossey-Bass, 2012

From the Book: This is not a book about one thing. It’s not a 250-page dissertation on leadership, teams or motivation. Instead, it’s an agenda for building organizations that can flourish in a world of diminished hopes, relentless change and ferocious competition. This is not a book about doing better. It’s not a manual for people who want to tinker at the margins. Instead, it’s an impassioned plea to reinvent management as we know it—to rethink the fundamental assumptions we have about capitalism, organizational life, and the meaning of work.

 

True North
Bill George
Jossey-Bass, 2008

From the Book: True North shows how anyone who follows their internal compass can become an authentic leader. This leadership tour de force is based on research and first-person interviews with 125 of today’s top leaders—with some surprising results. In this important book, acclaimed former Medtronic CEO Bill George and coauthor Peter Sims share the wisdom of these outstanding leaders and describe how you can develop as an authentic leader. True North presents a concrete and comprehensive program for leadership success and shows how to create your own Personal Leadership Development Plan.

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What We Are Reading

Author: btj-admin, Date: 10/2/2012

Business Books

Leading So People Will Follow

Leading So People Will Follow

Leading So People Will Follow
Erika Andersen
Jossey-Bass, 2012

From the Book: In this much-anticipated book, respected leadership coach and popular Forbes blogger Erika Andersen explores the six leadership characteristics that inspire followers to fully support their leaders. Using Andersen’s proven approach, new leaders and veterans alike have increased their capacity for leading in a way that creates loyalty, commitment, and results. Step-by-step, Andersen lays out six key attributes (farsightedness, passion, courage, wisdom, generosity, and trustworthiness) that offer people, at all levels within an organization, the tools to think and behave as fully accepted leaders.

The One Thing

The One Thing

The One Thing You Need to Know: … About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success
Marcus Buckingham
Free Press, 2005

From the Book: Great managing, leading, and career success — Buckingham draws on a wealth of applicable examples to reveal that a controlling insight lies at the heart of the three. Lose sight of this “one thing” and even the best efforts will be diminished or compromised.

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What We Are Reading

Author: btj-admin, Date: 8/21/2012

Business Books

Resilience

Resilience

Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back
Andrew Zolli
Free Press, 2012

From the Book: In this time of turbulence, scientists, economists, social innovators, corporate and civic leaders, and citizens alike are asking the same basic questions: What causes one system to break down and another to rebound? Are we merely subject to the whim of forces beyond our control? The answers to these vital questions are shaping a new field of inquiry, and a new agenda, focused on resilience: the ability of people, communities, and systems to maintain their core purpose and integrity amid unforeseen shocks and surprises. By encouraging adaptation, agility, and cooperation, this new approach can not only help us weather disruptions, but also bring us to a different way of being in and engaging with the world.

The Honest Truth About Dishonesty

The Honest Truth About Dishonesty

The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves
Dan Ariely
Harper, 2012

From the Book: The New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality returns with thought-provoking work to challenge our preconceptions about dishonesty and urge us to take an honest look at ourselves. Does the chance of getting caught affect how likely we are to cheat? How do companies pave the way for dishonesty? Does collaboration make us more honest or less so? Generally, we assume that cheating, like most other decisions, is based on a rational cost-benefit analysis. But Ariely argues, and then demonstrates, that it’s actually the irrational forces that we don’t take into account that often determine whether we behave ethically or not.

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