I have compiled a list of some of my favorite reading materials that have assisted me along my journey as a business coach.
START WITH WHY shows that the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way -- and it's the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras took 18 truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied each in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day - as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: "What makes the truly exceptional companies different from the comparison companies, and what were the common practices these enduringly great companies followed throughout their history?"
Good to Great - Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't - Jim Collins
Over five years, Jim Collins and his research team have analyzed the histories of 28 companies, discovering why some companies make the leap and others don't. The findings include:
● Level 5 Leadership: A surprising style, required for greatness
● The Hedgehog Concept: Finding your three circles, to transcend the curse of competence ● A Culture of Discipline: The alchemy of great results
● Technology Accelerators: How good-to-great companies think differently about technology ● The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Why those whom do frequent restructuring fail to make the leap
Blue Ocean Strategy - How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant- W. Chin Kim and Renee Mauborgne
W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne assert that tomorrow's leading companies will succeed, not by battling their rivals for market share in the bloody "red ocean" of a shrinking profit pool, but by creating "blue oceans" of untapped new market spaces ripe for growth.
Lencioni offers explicit instructions for overcoming the human behavioral tendencies that he says corrupt teams (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results). Succinct yet sympathetic, this guide will be a boon for those struggling with the inherent difficulties of leading a group.
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
Twelve Things This Book Will Do For You
1. Get you out of a mental rut, give you new thoughts, new visions, new ambitions.
2. Enable you to make friends quickly and easily.
3. Increase your popularity.
4. Help you to win people to your way of thinking.
5. Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done.
6. Enable you to win new clients, new customers.
7. Increase your earning power.
8. Make you a better salesman, a better executive.
9. Help you to handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant.
10. Make you a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist. 11. Make the principles of psychology easy for you to apply in your daily contacts.
12. Help you to arouse enthusiasm among your associates.
Traction - Gino Wickman
In Traction, you’ll learn the secrets of strengthening the six key components of your business. You’ll discover simple yet powerful ways to run your company that will give you and your leadership team more focus, more growth, and more enjoyment. Successful companies are applying Traction every day to run profitable, frustration-free businesses - and you can too.
Compiled more than 2,000 years ago by a mysterious warrior-philosopher, The Art of War is still perhaps the most prestigious and influential book of strategy in the world. As a study of the anatomy of organizations in conflict, The Art of War applies to competition and conflict in general, on every level from the interpersonal to the international. Its aim is invincibility, victory without battle, and unassailable strength through understanding the physics, politics, and psychology of conflict.
The 7 Habits have become famous and are integrated into everyday thinking by millions and millions of people. Why? Because they work! With Sean Covey’s added takeaways on how the habits can be used in our modern age, the wisdom of the 7 Habits will be refreshed for a new generation of leaders.
They include:
Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox describes a process by which an unprofitable manufacturing operation can be made profitable. It conveys proven factory turnaround principles through a fictional story...
In Search Of Excellence - Lessons from American’s Best-Run Companies - Tom Peters and Robert Waterman Jr.
This book is an attempt to generalize about what the excellent companies seem to be doing that the rest are not, and to buttress our observations on the excellent companies with sound social and economic theory.
Dave Roby - We Focus On The People, The Rest Will Take Care Of Itself.
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