Category Archives: Leadership Books

The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive

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The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership FableThe Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable
by Patrick Lencioni

This is the stunning follow-up to the author’s best-selling book, The Five Temptations of a CEO. You’ll certainly enjoy the author’s profound insights and the simplicity of his theories. According to Lencioni, there are truly only four things that should keep you, as a leader, up at night in order to sustain a successful organization. The rest can and should be delegated to your able team. 

This book is a very quick read that still manages to hit you right between the eyes with a one-two punch of reality and hope. I don’t know how he does it, but the author has a knack for story-telling that will convince you that he knows your organization and your people as well as you do … maybe even better. The good news is that he articulates a straight-forward prescription for a better functioning organization. This is a powerful model for any organization, large or small.

(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.

Now, Discover Your Strengths

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Now, Discover Your StrengthsNow, Discover Your Strengths
by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton, Ph.D.

From the coauthor of the national bestseller First, Break All The Rules comes the revolutionary program that shows you how to develop your unique talents and strengths—and those of the people you manage. It’s based on the Gallup study of more than two million people.

At the heart of the book is the Internet-based StrengthsFinder Profile, the product of a 25-year, multimillion-dollar effort to identify the most prevalent human strengths. This book contains a unique identification number that allows you to access the profile on the Internet. This Web-based interview analyzes your instinctive reactions and immediately presents you with your five most powerful signature themes. Once you know which of the 34 themes you lead with, the book will show you how to leverage them for powerful results. With profound insights on how to turn talents into strengths, and with the immediate online feedback at its core, this is one of the most ground-breaking and useful business books ever written.

(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.

Learning Journeys

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Learning JourneysLearning Journeys: Top Management Experts Share Hard-Earned Lessons on Becoming Great Mentors and Leaders
by Marshall Goldsmith, Beverly L. Kaye, and Ken Shelton

Here’s another masterpiece that belongs in your library and should be shared with everyone in your organization. This book brings together a “who’s who” of today’s most successful leadership experts and consultants, who share personal lessons—many learned the hard way—about what it takes to attain success. These intimate stories—about childhood experiences, school life, friendship and marriage, sports, and, of course, careers and business—reveal a compelling truth about what enables individuals to stand out as great mentors and leaders: They seize opportunities to learn wherever they find them.

Each essay includes questions for reflection to help readers apply the lessons learned to their own lives and careers. You’ll learn a great deal from such notable world-class thought leaders as: Joel Barker, Wally Amos, Elizabeth Pinchot, Warren Bennis, Peter Block, Stephen Covey, Nancy Adler, Charles Garfield, Beverly Kaye, Spencer Johnson, Lou Tice, and many others.

(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.

Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will

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Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will
by Noel M. Tichy and Stratford Sherman

This runaway national bestseller was originally published in 1993. In a recent cross-country trip on behalf of a client, I was fascinated to find this classic prominently displayed on the bookshelves of every major airport I passed through. There’s a good reason for this well-deserved longevity. In short, the content of this masterpiece is as relevant today as it was the day it was written. Maybe even more so. 

This is an inside story written by two men who observed General Electric from very different vantage points—one as a deeply involved participant and the other as a skeptical outsider. The result—an in-depth, honest, revealing rendition of the Welch Revolution. Noel Tichy is a professor at the University of Michigan School of Business and director of the School’s Global Leadership Program. He also ran GE’s executive training center for two years. Stratford Sherman is a management specialist on Fortune Magazine‘s board of editors and has been covering the world of business since 1977. He’s been writing about GE for more than a decade. 

This is the first scholarly attempt to pin down the secrets of GE’s phenomenal success. Its straightforward, riveting content is sprinkled with eye-opening case studies. This is a must-read for every student of business regardless of your current position, product, service, company or industry. Here’s a sample of what you’ll find in this totally involving read:

The Six Rules Jack Welch Lives by:

  • Control your destiny or someone else will.
  • Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it were.
  • Be candid with everyone.
  • Don’t manage, lead.
  • Change before you have to.
  • If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.

(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.

Don’t Fire Them, Fire Them Up

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Don’t Fire Them, Fire Them UpDon’t Fire Them, Fire Them Up: Motivate Yourself and Your Team
by Frank Pacetta

This is a maverick’s guide to motivating yourself and your team by the man who turned around sales teams at Xerox. Learn how to build a better business team: how to develop trust, create loyalty, and generate enthusiasm and excitement. This book explains how to build or rebuild an organization, lead and energize it, and put it on top and keep it there, year after year.

The author includes his top ten tips, which were featured in The Wall Street Journal and have been copied and posted on office bulletin boards everywhere. He also adds ten more top tips in this book.

This is a real-world story of winning in business by motivating employees in the most positive way possible—nurturing them, showing that you value accomplishment, and giving them the skills and the responsibility to become winners.

(This book review was originally published in 2000 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 5.)

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.

The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management

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The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft ManagementThe 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management: How to Think and Act Like a Microsoft Manager and Take Your Company to the Top
by David Thielen

WAIT! Don’t skip this particular review because you lack interest in technology or maybe even despise Bill Gates. This book offers its readers a wealth of information, ideas, and strategies that can easily be adapted to any organization. It’s a quick read, very candid and to the point. 

You may admire him for his chutzpah or detest him for his audacity, but you can’t deny that Bill Gates has developed a company capable of dominating any market it resolves to enter. This is not an accident, contends David Thielen—a 20-year veteran of the technology industry who once toiled at Microsoft as a senior software developer on Windows 95 and other projects—and in fact stems directly from the chairman’s own unique attitudes on corporate administration.

The author reveals a dozen key elements he learned during three years at Microsoft. This book is an inside look at the way Gates and his lieutenants have successfully harnessed those particular practices that initially put the firm on the map and subsequently used them to build their business into one of the world’s largest. “Microsoft’s management style is its core strength,” writes the author. “There are other companies that produce better software, market better, and make fewer mistakes. However, no other large company manages its business as well.”

This book puts forth a convincing case for the competitive advantage that exists in Microsoft’s management style: a big company’s resources with a small company’s agility and focus. While other books talk about Microsoft’s success and what it has done, this books tells you how Microsoft became successful.

(This book review was originally published in 2000 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 5.)

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.

The Guru Guide

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The Guru GuideThe Guru Guide: The Best Ideas of the Top Management Thinkers
by Joseph Boyett and Jimmie Boyett

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had the time to read all of the business books that hit the best-seller list? Well, if you’re striving to make your mark in the business world, you simply don’t have that kind of time. However, it’s obvious that you do need the essential information they contain. You need to keep up with the latest business trends and understand emerging ideas and new terminology. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have concise, penetrating explanations of today’s most advanced thinking on business management and leadership.

In this easy-to-use primer, two internationally respected business consultants provide an executive summary of the most effective and successful management ideas put forth by the leading business thinkers and doers of our time: Peter Drucker, Stephen Covey, Warren Bennis, Michael Hammer, Margaret Wheatly, Peter Senge, and many more. They also give you:

  • Clear explanations of essential business terms, concepts, and theories
  • Profiles of more than 75 top management figures and their ideas
  • Cross-links to issues on which these gurus agree and disagree
  • Insightful commentaries and real-life case studies
  • Quick-reference charts, bulleted lists, chapter summaries, and other creative quick-learning tools.

The Guru Guide is a must for your personal and/or corporate library!

(This book review was originally published in 2000 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 5.)

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.

Everyone a Leader

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Everyone a LeaderEveryone a Leader: A Grassroots Model for the New Workplace
by Horst Bergmann, Kathleen Hurson, and Darlene Russ-Eft

For years now, AchieveMax® consultants, trainers, and speakers have promoted the idea that true leaders can and do emerge from every level of the organization. We have witnessed organizations that believe, promote, and benefit from this approach, and we have sadly observed companies that disbelieve, refuse to encourage, and pay the price as a result.

An employee doesn’t necessarily need a title, seniority or position to demonstrate leadership. Initiative, creativity, and ideas can and do come from every level of the organization. Imagine a company where every employee does what it takes to help his or her organization reach its goals! 

If chaos and confusion come to mind, think again! Spreading leadership and decision-making responsibilities liberates, inspires, and motivates everyone to achieve more and contribute the maximum—making a positive impact on both productivity and business results.

Based on a landmark study that involved 2,000 people across 450 organizations, Everyone a Leader explores the critical moments when employees at all levels step forward into leadership roles. The findings are summarized in five key strategies the authors call the CLIMB model of leadership effectiveness:

Create a compelling future
Let the customer drive the organization
Involve every mind
Manage work horizontally
Build personal credibility

The CLIMB model’s step-by-step tools for grassroots leaders build competencies such as presenting thoughts and ideas, listening proactively, giving recognition, managing priorities, turning conflict into collaboration, identifying and meeting unspoken customer needs, and many, many more.

To remain flexible and responsive in today’s dynamic, highly competitive marketplace, successful organizations recognize the critical need for greater flexibility, knowledge, and adaptability across the entire organization. To do so means everyone must learn to be a leader.

(This book review was originally published in 2000 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 5.)

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.

Best Practices

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Best PracticesBest Practices: Building Your Business with Customer Focused Solutions
by Robert Hiebeler, Charles Ketteman, and Thomas B. Kelly

What makes the world’s top companies so adept at providing stellar customer service? How do they meet the needs of every customer and still turn healthy profits? And, most important, how can you adapt their practices to fit your business?

Thanks to more than six years of ongoing research and an investment of $30 million, Arthur Andersen has created its Global Best Practices Database to uncover breakthrough thinking at world-class companies. Now, in Best Practices, Arthur Andersen for the first time shares its understanding of how more than 40 best-practices companies focus on their customers, create growth, reduce cost, and increase profits. Managers of any business in any industry can adapt and apply what those companies do best.

Unlike most books based merely on an author’s own theories or limited anecdotal experience, Best Practices is backed up by 30,000 pages of active, documented data on hundreds of companies worldwide. This book concentrates primarily on customers and how to involve them in everything from the design of products and services to marketing, selling, and product delivery.

Perhaps the greatest value of the book lies in its linking of best practices to business processes, thereby encouraging managers to expand their thinking and engage in creative problem-solving with the help of insights from companies inside or outside their own industry. For example, the manager of a clothing store chain can study how Federal Express adapted the concept of just-in-time manufacturing to its rapid delivery of parts between supplier and customer. The owner of a small coffee shop chain might learn from American Express and Peapod how to target customers by offering particular products and predicting exactly when they will make their next purchases.

These and other examples will help business people diagnose the processes in place at their own companies and determine how best to improve them. Comprehensive and on the cutting edge, Best Practices will serve as an invaluable information resource.

(This book review was originally published in 2000 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 4.)

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.

Lessons from the Top

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Lessons from the TopLessons from the Top: The Search for America’s Best Business Leaders
by Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin

What makes a business leader great? This is one of the burning questions in companies and boardrooms across America. An even more compelling question: Are there things each of us can learn from these leaders that we can apply to our own lives? Not surprisingly, there is no single answer to copy or formula to follow in order to excel in business. 

In fact, the leaders selected in Lessons from the Top are wildly different in their personalities, their paths to the top, and the industries they work in. But perhaps the best way to learn how to excel is by studying the strategies and thinking of the wide range of leaders who have proven themselves the best in their industries. 

Spencer Stuart, specialists in hiring CEOs, is one of the nation’s leading executive recruiting firms. Neff is the chairman and Citrin a managing director. After several of their clients had asked them to identify the traits that make a leader successful, the firm commissioned the Gallup Organization to conduct a survey to “nominate” the best leaders in the U.S. on the basis of 10 factors, including vision, long-term performance, customer focus, and impact on business or society. 

The result was a list of 240 successful leaders, which the authors narrowed using the same proprietary criteria they use to select executives for their clients. This roster of America’s 50 best is the end product. Finalists’ profiles include their comments on the difficult issues, what they consider to be most important about leadership, and how those factors improve organizational performance. In the final section of the book, the authors distill the surprising number of qualities and characteristics that these extraordinarily accomplished individuals share, to offer lessons to help us in our own lives and careers. It is noteworthy that those at “the top” represent a wide range of leadership styles. 

A groundbreaking book on business and success, Lessons from the Top should be required reading by leaders—and future leaders—everywhere.

(This book review was originally published in 2000 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 4.)

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.