As we are entering in August, you will probably have time to read and think. Here are 5 books among my last readings.
They are not new releases but all good ones. I found good points in all of them. Did not read them all in the past few weeks of course but in the past 2 years. It is always a good way to challenge yourself with good ideas. Some are good or excellent, some others less, but you will always get something.
1
The
Chimp Paradox:
The
Acclaimed Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and
Happiness, from Prof. Steve Peters.
Summary:
Do you sabotage your own happiness and
success? Are you struggling to make sense of yourself? Do your emotions
sometimes dictate your life?
The Chimp Paradox is
an incredibly powerful mind management model that can help you become a happy,
confident, healthier and more successful person. Prof Steve Peters explains the
struggle that takes place within your mind and then shows how to apply this
understanding to every area of your life so you can:
- Recognise how your mind
is working
- Understand and manage
your emotions and thoughts
- Manage yourself and
become the person you would like to be
The Chimp Mind Management Model is based on scientific facts and
principles, which have been simplified into a workable model for easy use. It
will help you to develop yourself and give you the skills, for example, to
remove anxiety, have confidence and choose your emotions. The book will do this
by giving you an understanding of the way in which your mind works and how you
can manage it. It will also help you to identify what is holding you back or
preventing you from having a happier and more successful life.
Each
chapter explains different aspects of how you function and highlights key facts
for you to understand. There are also exercises for you to work with. By undertaking
these exercises you will see immediate improvements in your daily living and,
over time, you will develop emotional skills and practical habits that will
help you to become the person that you want to be, and live the life that you
want to live.
2
Strengths Finder 2.0:
By the New York Times Bestselling Author, Tom Rath.
Summary:
Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
Chances are, you don't. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.
To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, Strengths Finder, in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists and ignited a global conversation, while Strengths Finder helped millions to discover their top five talents.
3
|
Leading Outside the Lines:
How to Mobilize the Informal Organization, Energize Your Team, and Get Better Results, by Jon R. Katzenbach and Zia Khan.
|
An all-new approach to understanding the (in)formal connections of an organization.
From the bestselling coauthor of the business classic The Wisdom of Teams comes an all-new exploration of the modern workplace, and how leaders and managers must embrace it for success. Katzenbach and Khan examine how two distinct factions together form the bigger picture for how organizations actually work: the more defined "formal" organization of a company-the management structure, performance metrics, and processes-and the "informal"-the culture, social networks, and ad hoc communities that spring up naturally and can accelerate or hinder how the organization works. With dynamic examples from enterprises around the world, this book takes a timeless organizational approach and creates a powerful paradigm-shifting tool set for applying it.
- Includes self-assessment guidelines for senior leaders, front-line managers, and individual contributors
- Features organizations in business, government, the nonprofit sector, and academia-including the New York City schools system, Aetna, the Marines, United Nations, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Home Depot, Bell Canada, and the Houston Police Department
Leading Outside the Lines illustrates how leaders can make the two distinct factions work together to get the best of both.
4
Leading Change, by John P. Kotter.
Harvard Business School professor Kotter (A Force for Change) breaks from the mold of M.B.A. jargon-filled texts to produce a truly accessible, clear and visionary guide to the business world's buzzword for the late '90s?change. In this excellent business manual, Kotter emphasizes a comprehensive eight-step framework that can be followed by executives at all levels. Kotter advises those who would implement change to foster a sense of urgency within the organization. "A higher rate of urgency does not imply everpresent panic, anxiety, or fear. It means a state in which complacency is virtually absent." Twenty-first century business change must overcome overmanaged and underled cultures. "Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders." Kotter also identifies pitfalls to be avoided, like "big egos and snakes" or personalities that can undermine a successful change effort. Kotter convincingly argues for the promotion and recognition of teams rather than individuals. He aptly concludes with an emphasis on lifelong learning. "In an ever changing world, you never learn it all, even if you keep growing into your '90s." Leading Change is a useful tool for everyone from business students preparing to enter the work force to middle and senior executives faced with the widespread transformation in the corporate world. 60,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; dual main selection of the Newbridge Book Club Executive Program; 20-city radio satellite tour.
5
The End of Competitive Advantage:
How to Keep Your Strategy Moving As Fast As Your Business, by Rita Gunther McGrath.
Are you at risk of being trapped in an uncompetitive business?
Chances are the strategies that worked well for you even a few years ago no longer deliver the results you need. Dramatic changes in business have unearthed a major gap between traditional approaches to strategy and the way the real world works now.
In short, strategy is stuck. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a different era of business and based on a single dominant idea—that the purpose of strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Once the premise on which all strategies were built, this idea is increasingly irrelevant.
Now, Columbia Business School professor and globally recognized strategy expert Rita Gunther McGrath argues that it’s time to go beyond the very concept of sustainable competitive advantage. Instead, organizations need to forge a new path to winning: capturing opportunities fast, exploiting them decisively, and moving on even before they are exhausted. She shows how to do this with a new set of practices based on the notion of transient competitive advantage.
This book serves as a new playbook for strategy, one based on updated assumptions about how the world works, and shows how some of the world’s most successful companies use this method to compete and win today.
Filled with compelling examples from “growth outlier” firms such as Fujifilm, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Infosys, Yahoo! Japan, and Atmos Energy, The End of Competitive Advantage is your guide to renewed success and profitable growth in an economy increasingly defined by transient advantage.
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