The Invisible Employee: Realizing the Hidden Potential in Everyone
by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

Here we find another of the “mini-books” (140 pages), which continue to inspire us via a business fable packed with hard-won wisdom. This one comes to us from the co-authors of a previous bestseller A Carrot a Day.

These authors know of what they speak as they both certainly “walk the talk.” Adrian Gostick is the Managing Director of The Carrot Culture Group, a consulting and training division of the O.C. Tanner Company. Chester Elton is the Vice President of Performance Recognition at O. C. Tanner, the world’s leading employee recognition firm. If you’re interested in learning more about this subject, organization or the authors … be sure to visit www.carrots.com.

The authors, using a fable format, share a familiar message: praising employees is the “single business strategy” that meets “all your business objectives simultaneously.” Praising employees generates commitment, which leads to high-level performance, which causes customer and investor loyalty. It’s been around a long time. It’s been proven to be true time and time again. Many don’t believe this message and disregard it regularly. However, many in this latter group would have to admit that they have yet to attempt the actual application of this message.

This business fable follows a group of people who live and work together on a mysterious island. We follow the tribes of “Highlanders” and “Wurc-Urs” as they teach us how to combat one of the most negative attitudes in business while introducing us to “The Invisible Employee.”

Learn how effective leaders engage their people and find a way to bring out the best in everyone. This isn’t always easy to do when you face challenges like those described in a study quoted in The New York Times:

• 25% of employees reported being driven to tears in the workplace.
• 50% call their place of work a place of “verbal abuse” and “yelling.”
• 30% are regularly given unrealistic deadlines.
• 52% have to work 12-hour days to get the work done.
• One in 12 complain their chair hurts their posterior.

However, consider the consequences if nothing is done to address these conditions. Don’t wait to find out.

In the event you may have developed a case of “thanker’s block,” the authors provide you with a list of 70 fun ways to recognize your best and brightest.

Those in search of rocket science need to search elsewhere as the basic principles detailed here are tremendously simple and yet very profound:

1. Set the vision.
2. Observe employees supporting the vision.
3. Praise and celebrate that behavior.

(This book review was originally published in 2007 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 16.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Fish! Tales: Real-Life Stories to Help You Transform Your Workplace and Your Life
by Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul, John Christensen, Philip Strand

If you’re reading this book review, you have at least heard about the book from which FISH! Tales evolved. It’s the runaway national bestseller FISH! … the wildly popular little book inspired by observing workers at Seattle’s Pike Place Fish Market. In FISH!, we learned the beauty and power of a very simplistic philosophy:

• Play
• Make Their Day
• Be There
• Choose Your Attitude.

In fact, for some it was too simplistic. Many others, however, actually took the simple concepts and made them work! It doesn’t always take an expensive, complex initiative. New Yorkers, with the support of their fellow Americans from coast to coast, indeed proved the fact that we didn’t need complex initiatives for energizing people to come together for a common purpose after the 9-11 catastrophe. Total strangers came together immediately to achieve what most would have earlier deemed impossible. It took an instantaneous connection and a vivid reminder of what life is really all about. FISH! Tales will remind readers of what is truly real in life.

In this oFISHial sequel, the authors show how these simple lessons were put into practice at businesses both big (a major hospital and long-distance carrier) and small (a local car dealership and roofing company). Readers will learn how real-life businesses and individuals energized their workplaces—and their lives—by implementing the lessons from FISH!. This book showcases four examples of success, from a well-regarded hospital in Missouri to a Rochester, New York, car dealership. The similarities? Repetitive and boring work and dismal work environments, all in industries reputed to offer less than desirable careers. The authors document with care the four befores and afters, intersperse brief Reader’s Digest-type anecdotes, and then outline 12 weeks of activities to incorporate the FISH! philosophy into your own life or business.

The thrust of this book reminded me much of the Southwest Airlines philosophy for success—”have fun at work but never lose sight of the vision and purpose of your business.” While Southwest has made it seem very easy to accomplish, few have succeeded in duplicating this rare balance. FISH! Tales may just provide you with the blueprint and examples to do just that.

(This book review was originally published in 2002 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 11.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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The War for Talent
by Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod

For the longest time, you had to search for a book that dealt with the subject of attracting, developing, motivating, and retaining talent. Now it seems as though we’re inundated with books on the subject. There’s obviously a reason for this trend. There’s been a real talent search in most every industry for the past few years. However, in a market characterized by uncertainty, instability, and an incredible number of layoffs, many firms have eased their concern about finding and retaining good people assuming the war for talent is over. Experts tell us it is not! In fact, the authors of this book reveal that, because of enduring economic and social forces, the war for talent will persist for the next two decades!

Ed Michaels is a recently retired director of the celebrated McKinsey & Company consulting firm. Helen Handfeld-Jones is a Senior Practice Expert with McKinsey in Toronto, and Beth Axelrod is a Principal of McKinsey in Stamford, Connecticut. The three combined talent to conduct five years of in-depth research to identify the programs and behaviors that help today’s foremost firms attract and retain the best kinds of employees—including surveys of 13,000 executives at more than 120 companies and case studies of 27 leading companies.

As a result of their efforts, they define talent as shorthand for a key employee who possesses “a sharp strategic mind, leadership ability, communications skills, the ability to attract and inspire people, entrepreneurial instincts, functional skills, and the ability to deliver results.” They also uncovered a definitive connection between top performers and superior corporate achievement.

The authors share five common imperatives that companies need to act on if they are going to win the war for managerial talent and make talent a competitive advantage:

• Embrace a talent mindset
• Craft a winning employee value proposition
• Rebuild your recruiting strategy
• Weave development into your organization
• Differentiate and affirm your people

The authors offer an array of unique suggestions that will provide your organization with a new approach to talent management. For instance:

• Move beyond recruiting hype to build a long-term recruiting strategy.
• Strengthen your talent pool by investing in A players, developing B Players, and acting decisively on C players.
• Use job experiences, coaching, and mentoring to cultivate the potential in managers.
• Encourage employees to switch departments.
• With senior hires, look for “leadership style and values” consistent with “the company’s culture.”

The authors offer many examples from companies like the Limited, GE, Amgen, and the Home Depot. You’ll learn much from this clear perspective on how to develop a corporation’s greatest asset—its people.

(This book review was originally published in 2002 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 10.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Keeping the People Who Keep You in Business: 24 Ways to Hang on to Your Most Valuable Talent
by Leigh Branham

When you see a number of business authors addressing the same issue, you can be certain that the subject matter is more than likely timely and relevant to a wide audience. So it is with talent wars. In this book, employee-retention expert Leigh Branham explains what talented employees want more than money. He then goes a step further by shedding a great deal of light on what we can do to create an environment and a reward system that make key employees want to stay with us.

The author offers battle-fatigued managers a plan for victory in the rapidly growing war for talent. Critical to his plan are 24 compelling strategies for keeping good employees. He breaks the strategies into four key areas. Most retention books focus on the first two keys as they are certainly critical as well as challenging. The first key is: (1) Be a company that people want to work for. Many authors use the term “Employer of Choice” to say the same thing. The second key is also the focus of many authors: (2) Select the right people in the first place. This sounds like a simple and obvious step in any process. However, many companies fall short in their efforts at this point.

Branham’s last two keys are seldom mentioned in other books even though they are indeed critical to the process of keeping your best people. It’s refreshing to see an author address both areas in great detail. They include: (3) Get them off to a great start and (4) Coach and reward to sustain commitment. In addition, Branham identifies dozens of companies with outstanding retention programs and provides hundreds of examples of what these companies are doing to hang on to their most productive people.

Filled with guidelines, models, and planning aids, this book is a must for managers searching for ways to retain the people who are priceless to their organization’s success. It’s an easy, interesting read that belongs on your book shelf. You’ll find yourself going back to it time and time again.

(This book review was originally published in 2001 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 8.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Contented Cows Give Better Milk
by Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden

Here we have another cute title designed to grab our attention in order to deliver a “simple as dirt” concept: A person’s degree of satisfaction with their work situation is entirely and directly related to their output. If this concept is so simple, why aren’t more leaders taking advantage of it? Business bookshelves and boardrooms are cluttered with the all too predictable and easy prescriptions for empowerment, restructuring, and the like. Consultants are readily available to assist you in this all important undertaking. It really comes down to a personal decision. You either act or you don’t.

This book provides you with inspiring examples of companies that have made the decision to act … and a few that haven’t.

Learn just what it is that permits one organization to achieve unprecedented levels of success over a substantial period of time while a nearly identical competitor is going down the tube. How, for example, could Southwest Airlines achieve 23 consecutive years of record revenues and profits while TWA, Continental, Pan Am, Eastern, Braniff and others all around them were hemorrhaging red ink?

It’s no accident that the organizations consistently identified as winners also happen to be some of the best places on earth to work. This occurs not as an afterthought, but as a vital, premeditated element of business strategy.

It’s a message that would doubtless be echoed by generations of dairy farmers. Contented cows give better milk!

(This book review was originally published in 2001 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 7.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Lean & Meaningful: A New Culture for Corporate America
by Roger E. Herman and Joyce L. Gioia

The dynamic duo strikes again! Herman and Gioia join forces here to describe the next generation of corporate culture in America. Demographic and economic shifts are changing the face of corporate America and enlightened organizations are learning that they must reduce the “fat” and provide meaningful employment to their workers.

The corporation of the future will look dramatically different than today’s concept—structurally and conceptually. We’ve known for quite some time now that “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.” Obviously, that simply won’t cut it today. Have you developed a strategy to prepare your organization for the “new look”? If not, start bench-marking today within these pages.

A wide range of trends is explored, explained, and illustrated with examples of what more than 200 companies, both large and small, and governmental agencies, city and state, are already doing.

If you’re ready to prepare your organization for future success, this book will give you insights, ideas, resources, and action plans to help you make a meaningful difference.

(This book review was originally published in 2001 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 7.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Workforce Stability, Your Competitive Edge
by Roger E. Herman and Joyce L. Gioia

He’s back … Roger E. Herman. This is the third book we’ve reviewed by this highly respected Certified Management Consultant. The reason, of course, is quite obvious. He writes great books that we think deserve your attention. He has his thumb on the pulse of what’s happening in the area of attracting and retaining the best possible workforce available today.

In this book, Roger joins forces with another very highly respected CMC, Joyce L. Gioia, and the Fellows of the Workforce Stability Institute—a not-for-profit education and research organization. Here is your opportunity to capitalize on the knowledge, experience, and research of some of the most respected consultants and authors in the field of human resources.

It would take far too much time and space to detail the useful content of this offering. However, to provide you with a flavor of its diverse information, let me share a few subject areas … Our Changing Workforce, the Strategic Staffing Process, Selection Tools and Their Applications, Recruiting the Best, Performance-Based Interviews, Computer-Aided Job Analysis and Selection, Orientation and Bonding, Career Development as a Retention and Succession Planning Tool, Training for Retention, Inspiring Front-Line Workers, Internal Marketing, and Recognition for Performance and Retention. If you can say you don’t have a challenge or a concern in one of these areas or you wouldn’t be interested in some terrific guidelines and strategies in these areas, you should consider penning your own best seller. Until then, add this one to your bookshelf.

(This book review was originally published in 2001 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 7.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Keeping Good People: Strategies for Solving the #1 Problem Facing Business Today
by Roger E. Herman

Sounds like a pretty simple title, doesn’t it? So’s the book. It’s a very easy read as it’s written in conversational style by the recognized visionary author Roger Herman. He originally published this book in 1990, and it was featured by two book clubs and published in four languages. It has truly become a classic in the field. With 100 pages added to the original, this volume is the first major expansion and update of the popular guide.

Herman’s table of contents reads better than many books I’ve seen on the subject of employee retention. You’ll have a hard time putting this book down. Learn what good employees are looking for today and why they decide to leave an organization.

Choose from 195 strategies divided into five key areas including: environmental strategies, relationship strategies, support strategies, growth strategies, and compensation strategies. Understand why employee turnover is high today and will be higher in the future. Discover the five principal reasons workers leave their jobs. Take a sneak peek at the corporation of the future and learn the key aspects of behavior styles and leadership styles. This masterpiece is a very valuable tool for individual learning or group training.

(This book review was originally published in 2001 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 7.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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How to Become an Employer of Choice
by Roger E. Herman and Joyce L. Gioia

“Employer of Choice” … another buzz word or your key to a successful future at a time when it is indeed difficult to attract and retain qualified employees? Is employee turnover impacting your organization’s ability to serve customers and maintain productivity and employee morale? Or, are you already successful in these areas and want to ensure that you continue that level of success? If you answered YES to any of these questions, you must read this book. It’s written by a team of strategic business futurists who concentrate on workforce and workplace trends. They integrate a wide range of trend indicators to project change. 

There will be no issue with greater urgency or with more far-reaching consequences in the 21st century for businesses than the attraction and retention of talent. In order to meet the challenge of attracting and retaining world-class talent, organizations must position themselves as Employers of Choice.

Business success and growth in any industry is clearly linked to the attraction and retention of talent. Examine solutions and examples of how to deal with the most vexing problem organizations now confront!

(This book review was originally published in 2001 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 6.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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