We are at mid-point in 2018. Hope your year has been great thus far. Here are 6 business books I liked reading recently.
Dream Teams by Shane Snow – The premise of the book is simple. It is that the sum is greater than the individual parts. Also, it is not a team of super stars that win all the time. There are a lot of anecdotes here and one of them I liked was about the Wright brothers. They would like to discuss about one issue and then after some time they would take the opposite view and argue for that as well. The Daimler-Chrysler merger is also discussed here and why it didn’t work as expected. Culture fit is very important for any merger to work. His other book “Smart Cuts” is also a delightful read.
Build an A-team by Whitney Johnson – Again another book on building winning teams. There is something called learning curve which she encourages everyone should undertake. Make sure you have everyone on your team on a steep learning curve. Once they achieve one accomplishment use the AID principle which is applaud the accomplishment, invent a new learning curve and deliver on what you promised. Check out my review of her earlier book “Disrupt Yourself.” Disrupt Yourself
Open Source Leadership by Rajeev Peshawaria – We are living in the open source world. The leadership required now is very different from the 20th century. An open source leader has a burning desire to create a future that doesn’t exist yet. The key here is based on his research the autocratic leader is what is required now. This is because if they are creating a future which doesn’t exist they will be met with resistance and this requires a strong leader to go against the crowd. Also, he defines something called leadership energy this is like what Nelson Mandela had for 27 years. These leaders have a strong value system or convictions from which they never deviate. They also have a strong purpose or they have found a larger cause. Only if you have a larger cause you can sustain your energy for a long time. It was an excellent read.
Five Stars by Carmine Gallo – Carmine Gallo has literally walked through the best presentation secrets in all his books. I really enjoyed his other books Talk like Ted, The Story tellers secret and The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. In this book he argues that the new world of world which might be highly automated requires people who are excellent at persuasion. The biggest takeaway of this book is you need to be good at storytelling. Replace bullet points in power point presentations with persuasive stories. Also, the Aristotle model of communication is mentioned which is ethos, pathos and logos. Pathos is the key to effective communication. Tapping into people’s emotions is the key.
New Power by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms– This is an excellent book on the new power structure. They key is most of the new power structures will be decentralized and more transparent. There are numerous examples here of movements that have changed the world and leaders who are doing the same. They have classified leaders into crowds, co-opters, cheerleaders and castles. It is an informative read.
The Power of Positive Leadership by Jon Gordon – I read this book some time back but it is a really good book on teams. It gives good tactics to build a great culture. There are a lot of examples and it does leave you more positive after reading it. His other book “The Power of a Positive Team” is just out this week. His other book “The Energy Bus” is also inspiring.
Check out these books and they are pretty good for you to have an even greater 2018.
The views expressed here are my own and do not represent my organization.