Your Summer Reading List

As we wind our way through summer and you’ve hit the beach or the links got in a little R & R and you may start thinking about the Fall and the start of planning season for next year. Here are a handful of books that may come in handy as you work on your leadership skills and planning needs.

One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life – Mitch Horowitz (Crown Books)

The power of positive thought may seem as old as time itself, but that’s not the goal of author/speaker Mitch Horowitz’s new book, One Simple Idea; rather than re-hashing or re-packaging the principles, this weaves together a cogent history of positive thought.

Horowitz doesn’t just espouse the thought process, but creates a historical biography of the those who contributed to the positive thinking movement and avoids that hokey sentimentality of the “you can be anything you want to be” types. I have said for years that there is a reason way bookstores have entire sections on motivation; because no one needs a guide on negative thinking because it’s so easy. This would make for an interesting starting place if you’re looking for and attitude shift.

When Buyers Say No – Tom Hopkins and Ben Katt (Business Plus)  

ABC – always be closing. The sale starts when the customer says no. I could go on and on with a laundry list of sales clichés; like my all time favorite from Glengarry Glenn Ross, “coffee is for closers.” Over the course of time there have been shelves of books written on the art of selling chock full of ideas about overcoming objections and closing the deal.

With When Buyers Say No, veteran sales trainers Tom Hopkins and Ben Katt, aren’t necessarily breaking new ground, offering up techniques for making the sales they do offer some insight into the process of uncovering and responding to unstated objections or unasked questions or concerns that buyers may have. There is a great deal of psychology at play when it comes to buying and selling and Hopkins and Katt offer some useful strategies to keep the sales process moving forward.

The Opening Playbook: A Professional’s Guide to Building Relationships That Grow Revenue – Andrew Dietz (McGraw Hill Publishing)

With NFL training camps in full bloom, rookies and veterans alike are not only breaking a sweat during two a day practice sessions, but are spending plenty of time with their nose stuck firmly in their playbooks and study film to get a handle on their coaches approach to playing the game. Anyone who is paying attention knows that the business world is rife with sports analogies, so why not a business strategy book that literally borrows from the sports playbook?

That’s exactly what Andrew Dietz, president of the Creative Growth Group serves up with his new book, The Opening Playbook: A Professional’s Guide to Building Relationships That Grow Revenue. Dietz articulates a series of foundational principles and then illustrates clearly how to execute a more effective approach to relationship building that realizes the goal of growing your business. This one is useful across a broad spectrum of businesses, but if you are in the professional services end of things, this book is essential reading for your continued growth and success.

Step Up – Lead in Six Moments That Matter – Henry Evans and Colm Foster (Josey Bass Publishing)

Leaders…true leaders are those folks that answer the call when the situation demands. So much of what separates a great leader from the run of the mill is those moments or situations that when you as a leader are hit with the choice of stepping up and taking charge or sitting back and letting someone else deal with it. Call it grace under fire or doing the right thing, it really boils down to those leadership moments.

That is the focus of Henry Evans and Colm Foster’s new book, Step Up – Lead in Six Moments That Matter. Rather than trying to define the traits of great leadership, Evans and Foster detail broad situations that we all face on a daily basis and how leadership respond to those challenges and offer actionable strategies to be a more effective leader. Step Up is chock full of QR codes that lead to a plethora of additional insights and techniques and even offers an online assessment tools to gauge your leadership skillset.

Do You Have What It Takes to Take It To The Next Level?

Executive Presence – The Missing Link Between Merit and Success – Sylvia Ann Hewlett (Harper Business)

The old boys club. It is a comment that is old as the hills when it comes to business. The thought process for too long has been that the only reason why some people, notably women, don’t seem to climb the ladder of success to the highest levels is that they are held back by the unseen hand of the old boys club.

Turns out, it may be an unseen hand, but based on a collection of hard data, and the conclusions drawn from a number of nationally conducted surveys, there actually is something holding people back from taking that next step. That is the hypothesis proffered by author and president of the Center for Talent Innovation, Sylvia Ann Hewlett in her new book, Executive Presence – The Missing Link Between Merit and Success.

Hewlett drills down into the data and lays out the core pieces that make up Executive Presence and how perceptions of it can vary based on gender. Things like communication skills, and executive gravitas seem like pretty basic starting points for gauging executive presence, but appearance does matter; but physical attractiveness doesn’t carry the same weight as many might think scoring just 16% for the ladies and 14% for the men based on the research.

Hewlett goes on to offer up advice on how to improve one’s executive presence. While her focus tends to lean towards the ladies, certainly much of what she suggests throughout the book can be adapted for use by men. Things like grace under fire, confidence, taking decisive action, emotional intelligence and great speaking skills can cut across both genders and impact executive presence.