Category: Leadership
Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by Kerry Patterson
Overview (from Harvard Business Review)
An influencer motivates others to change. An influencer replaces bad behaviors with powerful new skills. An influencer makes things happen.This is what it takes to be an influencer.
Whether you’re a CEO, a parent, or merely a person who wants to make a difference, you probably wish you had more influence with the people in your life. But most of us stop trying to make change happen because we believe it is too difficult, if not impossible. We develop complicated coping strategies when we should be learning the tools and techniques of the world’s most influential people.
But this is about to change. From the bestselling authors who taught the world how to have Crucial Conversations comes Influencer, a thought-provoking book that combines the remarkable insights of behavioral scientists and business leaders with the astonishing stories of high-powered influencers from all walks of life. You’ll be taught each and every step of the influence process-including robust strategies for making change inevitable in your personal life, your business, and your world. You’ll learn how to:
- Identify a handful of high-leverage behaviors that lead to rapid and profound change.
- Apply strategies for changing both thoughts and
Linchpin by Seth Godin
General Overview
“The only way to get what you’re worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about.” In bestsellers such as Purple Cowand Tribes, Seth Godin taught readers how to make remarkable products and spread powerful ideas. But this book is different. It’s about you – your choices, your future, and your potential to make a huge difference in whatever field you choose. There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor. Now there’s a third team, the linchpins. These people invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos. They figure out what to do when there’s no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art. Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. Like the small piece of hardware that keeps a wheel from falling off its axle, they may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom. … Read the rest of this entry »The Art of War by Sun Tzu
General Overview (from Amazon.com)
The Art of War is the Swiss army knife of military theory–pop out a different tool for any situation. Folded into this small package are compact views on resourcefulness, momentum, cunning, the profit motive, flexibility, integrity, secrecy, speed, positioning, surprise, deception, manipulation, responsibility, and practicality. Thomas Cleary’s translation keeps the package tight, with crisp language and short sections. Commentaries from the Chinese tradition trail Sun-tzu’s words, elaborating and picking up on puzzling lines. Take the solitary passage: “Do not eat food for their soldiers.” Elsewhere, Sun-tzu has told us to plunder the enemy’s stores, but now we’re not supposed to eat the food? The Tang dynasty commentator Du Mu solves the puzzle nicely, “If the enemy suddenly abandons their food supplies, they should be tested first before eating, lest they be poisoned.” Most passages, however, are the pinnacle of succinct clarity: “Lure them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion” or “Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability is in the opponent.” Sun-tzu’s maxims are widely applicable beyond the military because they speak directly to the exigencies of survival. Your new tools will serve you well, but don’t flaunt them. Remember Sun-tzu’s advice: “Though effective, … Read the rest of this entry »Tribes by Seth Godin
General Description (from Publisher’s Weekly)
Short on pages but long on repetition, this newest book by Godin (Purple Cow) argues that lasting and substantive change can be best effected by a tribe: a group of people connected to each other, to a leader and to an idea. Smart innovators find or assemble a movement of similarly minded individuals and get the tribe excited by a new product, service or message, often via the Internet (consider, for example, the popularity of the Obama campaign, Facebook or Twitter). Tribes, Godin says, can be within or outside a corporation, and almost everyone can be a leader; most are kept from realizing their potential by fear of criticism and fear of being wrong. The book’s helpful nuggets are buried beneath esoteric case studies and multiple reiterations: we can be leaders if we want, tribes are the way of the future and change is good. On that last note, the advice found in this book should be used with caution. Change isn’t made by asking permission, Godin says. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later. That may be true, but in this economy and in certain corporations, it may also be a good … Read the rest of this entry »The Art of Exceptional Living by Jim Rohn
General Description (from Amazon.com)
The world’s foremost producer of personal development and motivational audio programs now provides the secrets for living an exceptional life.You begin by making your life a work of art. You don’t have to be a super-achiever. You don’t have to be unusually creative. You don’t have to endure great obstacles. According to success expert, Jim Rohn, you don’t have to do exceptional things at all. Just do ordinary things exceptionally well. That’s The Art Of Exceptional Living.
According to Rohn, there are things you can, should and must do to get your life on track for success. You may not be aware of it, but they are already in your heart. Once you learn the fundamental secrets, these things come as naturally as breathing.
In The Art Of Exceptional Living, Rohn provides the ideas and inspiration that will lead to unstoppable daily progress. Using his exceptional powers of communication, he helps you through difficult, sometimes painful subject matter, and teaches you how to get beyond personal setbacks to begin living according to your own rules. You’ll begin by following the strategies of exceptional living, including:
- Four major lessons that must be mastered in life.
- The
Lead the Field by Earl Nightingale
General Description (from Amazon.com)
IF THE GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE…It’s probably getting better care. Success is not a matter of luck or circumstance. It’s not a matter of fate or the breaks you get or who you know.
Success is a matter of sticking to a set of commonsense principles anyone can master. In Lead the Field Earl Nightingale explains these guidelines: the magic word in life is ATTITUDE. It determines your actions, as well as the actions of others. It tells the world what you expect from it. When you accept responsibility for your attitude, you accept responsibility for your entire life.
Earl Nightingale — the “Dean of Development” — offers you a treasure trove of uplifting and insightful information like:
* The importance of forgiveness
* How “intelligent objectivity” can improve your professional life
* The usefulness of constructive discontentNow it’s your turn to bring positive changes to your own life, changes that will allow you to lead the field yourself!
About the Author
In 1956, Earl Nightingale recorded his essay The Strangest Secret. This recording became the first spoken message ever to receive a Gold Record by selling over one million copies. … Read the rest of this entry »Leadership and Self Deception by The Arbinger Institute
General Description (from Amazon.com)
Using the story/parable format so popular these days, Leadership and Self-Deception takes a novel psychological approach to leadership. It’s not what you do that matters, say the authors (presumably plural–the book is credited to the esteemed Arbinger Institute), but why you do it. Latching onto the latest leadership trend won’t make people follow you if your motives are selfish–people can smell a rat, even one that says it’s trying to empower them. The tricky thing is, we don’t know that our motivation is flawed. We deceive ourselves in subtle ways into thinking that we’re doing the right thing for the right reason. We really do know what the right thing to do is, but this constant self-justification becomes such an ingrained habit that it’s hard to break free of it–it’s as though we’re trapped in a box, the authors say.Learning how the process of self-deception works–and how to avoid it and stay in touch with our innate sense of what’s right–is at the heart of the book. We follow Tom, an old-school, by-the-book kind of guy who is a newly hired executive at Zagrum Corporation, as two senior executives show him the many ways he’s … Read the rest of this entry »