A Nice Addition to the Go To Library

If Not You, Who? –Cracking the Code of Employee Disengagement – Jill Christensen (Knightsbridge Press)

I have taken on the habit of keeping a strip of Post-It flags while I am reading new business books. Maybe it’s a case of OCD, but I have never really felt that highlighting was a very useful why of truly marking things that I wanted to remember and use in my business. These handy little flags are easy to place the exact line on a specific page that I want to circle back to.

As I review books, I can get a pretty good sense of how good a book is based on the number of flags that dot the outside edge of the book. While I have utilized many of the tactics that Jill Christensen, an employee engagement expert outlines in her new book, If Not You, Who, this concise collection is a great reminder and a useful tool to have within reach on the go to books shelf. One look at the pile of red flags will easily illustrate why what this book teaches, makes so much sense.

If you are struggling with keeping your staff engaged, recruitment and retention of good employees and rewarding and recognizing those folks who make your shop hum, then this book demands your attention. Christensen lays out the statistics, but the fact of the matter is it, is common sense that an engaged workforce can make a huge difference to your bottom line.

Like I said, I have used a lot of this stuff before; while it’s not necessarily groundbreaking, what Christensen succeeds at doing is synthesizing the engagement process under the cover of one easy to read, easy to implement cover. She even spells out action steps at the end of each chapter that boils this stuff down to an easy 1, 2, 3. I found myself implementing the stuff I could do myself right away and then put the team stuff on the agenda to roll out to the larger group.

While Christensen will tell you how to take this on in bit size chunks, she also explain that there is some heavy lifting involved and while the process works, it does take some time. What better reason to get started today do you need?

Revelation: Men and Women Are Different!

Own It: The Power of Women at Work – Sallie Krawcheck (Crown Business)

Sallie Krawcheck, the current co-founder and CEO of Ellevest, a self-described “innovative digital investment platform” to help women reach their financial goals, draws on her years of Wall Street experience in high level, high profile positions with the likes of Smith Barney, Merill Lynch Wealth Management and Citigroup to detail a career playbook that helps women to shift the paradigm and changes the rules for workplace success.

In, Own It: The Power of Women at Work, Krawcheck posits the stunning revelation…wait for it…wait for it…that men and women are different! Shocking right? Krawcheck delves a little deeper into this thought process when she gives women permission to be different. Now that may seem a bit silly, but think about it; more often than not for women to advance and move forward in the corporate world they get sold on the idea that in order to succeed women basically have to become men!

Krawcheck makes her case be clearly defining exactly how men and women are different and why that is definitely not a bad thing! She outlines the strengths that women bring to the workplace and how by playing on those strengths and not co-opting themselves, both women and the companies they work for will benefit and grow in the long run.

This might be viewed by some as radically different thinking, but it actually makes perfect sense. Have you ever been in a work environment where cookie cutter thinking is the order of the day? A place where they seem to punch folks out of the same mold, with the same skillsets and the same thinking process? Not much in the way of creativity and innovative thinking going on there.

While Own It is supposed to be directed at women, there are probably more than a handful of men who would benefit from this mold breaking thought process.

A Go To Guide To Life

Tools of Titans: the Tactics, Routines and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World Class Performers – Tim Ferriss (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

To put things in the proper perspective; while I am familiar with Tim Ferriss based on articles and reviews regarding his prior books and his podcast, I have not read his previous books and have never listened to the podcast. So you can say that I bring a different perspective to the table than the average raving fan or Ferriss-head when it comes to my thoughts on this book.

That being said and knowing I put a premium on usefulness when it comes to business and personal development books; I found Tools of Titans: the Tactics, Routines and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World Class Performers to be a highly engaging and useful toolbox of tactics and a collection of ideas that caused me to learn more about the people Ferriss interacts with on the podcast.

Folks familiar with Ferriss’ work may find this to be kind of like a greatest hits CD from a favorite band; familiar territory repackaged and re-released. I found it a great entry point for delving into his thoughts and it allowed me to wade into the podcast for areas that I was most interested in, rather than having to go at it in stops and starts, I could cut to the chase.

This is a true reference book; if you think by reading these brief segments that you will have all of the answers, or even some of the answers, you will be sadly disappointed. If you are looking for a starting point for a massive array of topics, this is a book for you; perfect to whet your appetite and build upon.

A great example is, I had read Jocko Willink’s book Extreme Ownership, and garnered some knowledge and insight into his approach, but with a brief piece from Ferriss, I became engaged enough to seek out not on his podcast with Willink, but moved over to Jocko podcast to delve even deeper. This is very useful stuff.

Topping out at over 700 pages, some may find this book a bit overwhelming and the fluid approach to organization may throw some off, but I liked the ability to bounce around and be selective in what interested me most and then move on from there. Ferriss also does an nice job of trying to draw together similarities and ties between the thought processes of many of the folks profiled in the book. This one is HIGHLY useful and certainly can find a place on your go to shelf.

Challenge...Accepted

Leading the Unleadable: How to Manage Mavericks, Cynics, Divas, and Other Difficult People – Alan Willet (AMACOM)

Show of hands, how many of you can relate to this, from the preface of Leading the Unleadable: “Too often leaders ignore their people problems for too long because they’re afraid of conflict or, if they do act, handle the situations poorly because of inexperience or not knowing what to do.” And “Not acting can damage everyone around the difficult people, leading others to leave before the difficult people themselves quit.”

Not only could I relate to those thoughts, I have lived them recently. Alan Willet, a leadership development and organizational cultural change guru has penned a terrific new leadership development book, Leading the Unleadable: How to Manage Mavericks, Cynics, Divas, and Other Difficult People, which deserves a place in leaders toolbox, no matter what your level of experience.

For those starting out it offers workable solutions for problems that I can almost say with a level of certainty that you will be confronted with as you move through your career. For those veterans of leadership, the book will serve as a healthy reminder of the options available to you when t comes to dealing with the difficult members of your team.

All too often organizations don’t do a great job of developing the next generations of great leaders; instead elevating those good or great worker bees to the next level and allowing them to sink or swim on their own, without providing the tools of leadership. Willet puts out the rallying cry that those moving into leadership need to accept the clarion call of being exceptional leaders.

The exceptional leader understand that like all walks of life you will at times be confronted by folks who are difficult to deal with and that the answer is not always to involve HR and move those folks to the exit. Often times it is the difficult people that challenge leaders to play at a higher level because they bring skillsets to the table that are necessary to the success of the business. Willet loads up your tool belt with tips and ideas on how to manage and maximize these folks and to minimize any negative impact they may cause.  

Leadership 101

Why Leaders Fail – and 7 Prescriptions for Success – Peter B. Stark, CSP, AS, and Mary C. Kelly, PhD, CSP, Commander, U.S. Navy (Ret) – (Bentley Press)

A quick visit to the business section of any well stocked bookstore and you will encounter countless books on leadership that will offer up a myriad of thoughts on how to be a successful leader. These books will detail the prerequisites needed to guide a wide variety of business sectors; some very narrow cast for specific business, others a more broad based, and general in their approach.

Very few, if any of these books will highlight what it is that leaders do wrong and what causes them to derail and fail. Why Leaders Fail – and 7 Prescriptions for Success by Peter B. Stark and Mary C. Kelly, by leadership experts, bestselling authors and leadership development trainers tackles leadership from that perspective. While they focus on the traits of failed leaders, they also back into the prescriptive to dos that can either help leaders avoid these issues or take the corrective action needed to be a successful leader.

Stark and Kelly take a very nuts and bolts approach and don’t get bogged down in a lot of leadership theory or fantastical programs that readers will need to follow. This isn’t brain surgery; it’s what should be a common sense way to approach being a successful leader and build a high quality organization and team. As I read worked my way through the book I noticed I was creating a list of my former leaders who could have benefited greatly from Stark and Kelly’s straight forward guidance. The question becomes do I want to deliver a few anonymous gifts to these folks?

Whether you are aspiring to leadership and looking for a road map to being successful in that endeavor or a veteran of the C-Suite, Why Leaders Fail, is one of those handy tools you can keep within reach as a reminder of not only the things to do, but the things to avoid. If you are one of those folks who set out with the best of intentions and buy books on leadership to improve or advance your skillsets, but then find your interest waning as you get bogged down in the minutiae, at just over 150 pages, Why Leaders Fail, cuts out the fluff and cuts to the chase. These are actionable steps you can implement today.  

Strategic Planning for Students

The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher’s Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve – Annie Brock and Heather Hundley (Ulysses Press)

Growing up, my Father regularly extolled the line “you get out what you put in,” stressing to me that hard work and effort paid off. While researching student perceptions and attitudes, Dr. Carol Dweck coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset. Students with fixed mindsets had a tendency to self-limit their ability to succeed while student with a growth mindset, seemed to understand that their potential was limitless. Hence good old Dad and the virtues of effort.

Now, teachers; Annie Brock and Heather Hundley have developed a series of tools to help teachers cultivate and coach students to have a growth mindset. In The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher’s Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve, Brock and Hundley have collected practical tips, classroom anecdotes, executable lesson plans and strategies to help teachers guide students through the process and become higher achievers.

The theory is great, but this is much more of a rubber meets the road, actionable guide that teacher and even parents can put into play quickly and easily. With so much chatter and focus on education and improving results and an outcry for a more business-like approach to the education process, this really strikes me as a strategic plan for student.

While theories can sound great they can easily slip off into the weeds never to return. That is not the case with The Growth Mindset Coach, which has a much more plug and play feel to it and has a real bias towards action.

Get Down to Business

Summer is winding to its inevitable Labor Day close and school is back in session, so it’s time to put away the books for the beach and turn our attention back to getting down to business.

Visibility Marketing – David Arvin (Career Press)

Marketing guru David Arvin is a popular business consultant/coach and keynote speaker who is widely recognized as the Visibility Coach. Arvin’s new book, Visibility Marketing, will be an eye opening for both marketers and business owners alike.

While so many marketing books espouse the latest trick, trend or gimmick to supposedly help your business standout from the pack, Arvin takes a dramatically different approach by helping businesses and marketers alike to do a better job of identify what competitive advantages they have that are the starting point to build upon.

From that cornerstone Arvin will guide you through the process of developing and honing effective messaging and the tactics to get those messages heard and seen. He illustrates both effective and failed approaches for a wide array of business categories which makes this book more relatable to a range of businesses.

I am always a fan of business and leadership books that give you useful tools that you can put to work today, and Arvin delivers with Visibility Marketing.

75 Ways for Managers to Hire, Develop and Keep Great Employees – Paul Falcone (AMACOM)

My day job is in the healthcare field and aside from the ever-changing regulatory challenges the number one issue facing hospitals, physician practices and healthcare delivery is STAFFING. The need for competent providers far exceeds the available talent pool so it is incumbent upon those managers in the field to develop and implement a strategic approach to finding and almost more importantly holding onto great employees.

For business owners if you don’t think that having and keeping great staff, and turnover comes with a great cost, don’t worry, you won’t be in business much longer to have the concern. If you, like many folks are looking for tools and resources to help you identify, hire, develop and hang onto great employees, then Paul Falcone’s new book, 75 Ways for Managers to Hire, Develop and Keep Great Employees, will go a long way towards giving you strategies that you can put to work today to help you over the HR hump.

Falcone hits it on the head when he talks about the hiring process being as much, if not more about you and your company’s brand as it is about salary and benefits when it comes to hiring. Things like measuring and improving employee engagement, effective communication and yes even accountability make a HUGE difference in the process.

Falcone makes a strong case that every manager, not just the HR manager play an important role in the hiring and onboarding process and even one glitch can impact the results of recruitment and retention of great staff. This is stuff that can have an impact on your bottom line and your ultimate success or failure.

Hiring & Firing (The Brian Tracy Success Library) – Brian Tracy (AMACOM)

I’ve got to say, I have loved the opportunity to read, review an utilize the books in the Brain Tracy Success Library series. Tracy, a nationally recognized business and leadership development professional has authored dozens of books on a wide array of business and leadership success topics and this series of handy guides have distilled the topics of leadership, management, creativity, marketing and more into useful editions that business leaders can reach for to get ideas, inspiration and useful guidance as the need arises.

The last installment in the series is Hiring & Firing, offers guidance into two of the most critical skills when it comes to the success of your business. They are two critical skills that many of us struggle with the most. As always, Tracy offers up nuts and bolts things like how to write accurate job descriptions (ENOUGH WITH THE OTHERS DUTIES AS ASSIGNED STUFF ALREADY!) how to develop a set of strong interview questions, how to dig deep into references an prior job experience and results and the negotiation process.

I look upon this series as a go to resource for tested and proven tools that I can use every day. Any business owner will be better with these books within reach.

The Effective Manager – Mark Horstman (Wiley)

Mark Horstman is a management consultant and the co-founder of Manager Tools, which produces one of the most often downloaded business/ management podcasts in the world, with over a staggering quarter of a billion downloads.

Horstman gathers the collective research from hands on business encounters and countless interactions during training sessions and seminars in, The Effective Manager, a book that is a solid read for those new to the realm of management or a well seasoned veteran. Horstman quite literally serves up tips and tricks based on the collected experience and offers downloadable forms to assist in the implementation of these tactics.

I read with great interest Horstman’s thoughts on what he dubs O3s, one on one meetings. He outlines what regularly scheduled sessions with your direct reports means and how to make this time more effective so it doesn’t become a dreaded part of both your and their week.

It is the added structure to the management process that will help newbies get started and increase the impact of veterans in being more effective.