RECOMMENDED READING
 

7/17/

Recommended Reading

7 Simple Steps to Unclutter Your Life
By Donna Smallin

This book is a fun and easy read, but it offers valuable suggestions for tackling clutter in your life, and more importantly, dealing with the underlying issues that are creating the clutter. You'll find yourself reassessing your life in deep and important ways, if you choose, but will also be supplied with plenty of practical and simple information on reducing clutter, and the stress it causes, in many areas of your life.

PROS It offers tips on tackling the underlying causes of clutter as well as clutter itself. It addresses many areas of life that create stress and clutter--both mental and physical. It offers the best advice from many different schools of thought. It offers advice on not only clearing clutter, but on living a more authentic life. The suggestions are do-able, and offered in a simple, easy-to-read format.

7/10/2008

Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office 101   
By Lois P. Frankel

If you work nonstop without a break… worry about offending others and back down too easily… explain too much when asked for information… or “poll” your friends and colleagues before making a decision, chances are you have been bypassed for promotions and ignored when you expressed your ideas. Although you may not be aware of it, girlish behaviors such as these are sabotaging your career!
NICE GIRLS DON'T GET THE CORNER OFFICE
Lois P. Frankel, Ph. D., an internationally recognized executive coach who has worked with Fortune 500 companies, reveals why some women roar ahead in their careers while others stagnate. She's spotted a unique set of behaviors-101 in all-that women learn in girlhood that sabotage them as adults. Now, in this groundbreaking guide, she helps you eliminate these unconscious mistakes that could be holding you back-and offers invaluable coaching tips you can easily incorporate into your social and business skills.

7/3/2008

First Break All the Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
By Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

In seven chapters, the two consultants for the Gallup Organization debunk some dearly held notions about management, such as "treat people as you like to be treated"; "people are capable of almost anything"; and "a manager's role is diminishing in today's economy." "Great managers are revolutionaries," the authors write. "This book will take you inside the minds of these managers to explain why they have toppled conventional wisdom and reveal the new truths they have forged in its place."
The authors have culled their observations from more than 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. Quoting leaders such as basketball coach Phil Jackson, Buckingham and Coffman outline "four keys" to becoming an excellent manager: Finding the right fit for employees, focusing on strengths of employees, defining the right results, and selecting staff for talent--not just knowledge and skills. First, Break All the Rules offers specific techniques for helping people perform better on the job. For instance, the authors show ways to structure a trial period for a new worker and how to create a pay plan that rewards people for their expertise instead of how fast they climb the company ladder. "The point is to focus people toward performance," they write. "The manager is, and should be, totally responsible for this." Written in plain English and well organized, this book tells you exactly how to improve as a supervisor. ~Dan R ing  

6/19/2008

Start Right ... Stay Right: Every Employees Straight-Talk Guide to Job Success    
By Steve Ventura

Start Right … Stay Right is a powerful guidebook for ALL employees, regardless of their level, function, or time on the job. Using a straight-talk, real-world approach, it pinpoints the critical behaviors necessary for individual and organizational success. This is the handbook you'll want everyone reading and using...TODAY! 

6/12/2008

Getting to Yes    
By Roger Fisher and William Ury

The foundation of all great negotiation books, Getting to Yes gives you the real essence of mutual gains negotiation. It's a neat, concise, little paperback, and a fast read. It's so neat and concise, in fact, that you should buy multiple copies and hand them out to people you like - or to people you want to like you. The main ideas of the book are that positional negotiation is pointless, and that our negotiations should focus on interests rather than positions. By the time you finish Getting to Yes, you'll be convinced that negotiation is a simple matter of figuring out what you really want, what the other side wants, and working out the space where those interests intersect -- despite the generalizations, deletions, and distortions the other side might use to confuse you.  

6/5/2008

The Change Cycle: How People Can Survive and Thrive in Organizational Change  
By Ann Salerno & Lillie Brock 

Co-written by one of our very own 2008 NACWAA/HERS, Leadership Enhancement Institute and Executive Institute speakers, Ann Salerno, this read will provide insight on how to deal with the constant changes in our life. However necessary, organizational change is likely to be angst ridden and frustrating to the workforce. The Change Cycle will help readers to more resourcefully cope with change at work by helping them understand and predict their behavior and the behavior of others. Authors Salerno and Brock teach readers about six predictable and sequential stages that accompany any sort of change. This model is firmly grounded in recent discoveries in social psychology and cognitive neuroscience, but is presented in a straightforward, conversational style peppered with humor. Salerno and Brock describe how we think, feel and act during each stage, utilizing stories of common work/life transitions and how organizations have successfully dealt with the challenges accompanying the stages. They offer tools and success strategies needed for individuals at all levels, helping them understand what they ought to expect, from themselves and others, as they move through each stage of The Change Cycle.  

5/29/2008

Bringing Out the Best in People
By Aubrey Daniels

The classic bestseller on performance management is updated to reflect changes in today's working environment. When an employer needs to know how to gain maximum performance from employees, renowned behavioral psychologist--Aubrey Daniels is the man to consult. What has made Daniels the man with the answers? His ability to apply scientifically based behavioral stimuli to the workplace while making it fun at the same time.

Now Daniels updates his ground-breaking book with the latest and best motivational methods, perfected at such companies as Xerox, 3M, and Kodak. All-new material shows how to: create effective recognition and rewards systems in line with today's employees want; Stimulate innovations and creativity in new and exciting ways; overcome problems associated with poorly educated workers; motivate young employees from the minute they join the workforce.

5/23/2008

Leadership Courage
By David Cottrell and Eric Harvey

This hard-hitting book covers some of the tough tasks and responsibilities of every leader. And, most importantly, it gives the reader the techniques to be the best he/she can be!

For every person in every organization, there comes a moment when they must have courage to step forward and meet the needs of the time. Regardless of whether your time is now or in the future, you must be prepared and willing to seize that moment as a courageous leader!

Leadership Courage outlines eleven elements or actions of courage in a good leader.  This book also has a wealth of leadership quotes from such leaders as Winston Churchill who stated:  “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.”

5/15/08

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
By Marshall Goldsmith

The corporate world is filled with executives, men and women who have worked hard for years to reach the upper levels of management. They're intelligent, skilled, and even charismatic. But only a handful of them will ever reach the pinnacle -- and as executive coach Marshall Goldsmith shows in this book, subtle nuances make all the difference. These are small "transactional flaws" performed by one person against another (as simple as not saying thank you enough), which lead to negative perceptions that can hold any executive back. Using Goldsmith's straightforward, jargonfree advice, it's amazingly easy behavior to change. Executives who hire Goldsmith for one-on-one coaching pay $250,000 for the privilege. With this book, his help is available for 1/10,000th of the price.

 

Forget the Glass Slipper-Build Your Own Castle: 10 Traits of a Million Dollar Business
By Carolyn Sawyer

Designed for you to be able to read quickly, Carolyn Sawyer’s Forget the Glass Slipper - Build Your Own Castle: 10 Traits of a Million Dollar Business is essential reading for the inspired entrepreneur. Broken into logical sections and written in a fast-paced narrative, Sawyer guides the growth-minded reader towards Million Dollar success.

A successful broadcaster, Sawyer traded in her teleprompter for a laptop and set about creating an award-winning communications company. Undoubtedly successful, her company did not get that way overnight. Sawyer shares lessons learned through hard work and trial and error, and offers her reader sound advice to help improve the pace at which their company grows.

 Carolyn Sawyer and Doris McMillan will be conducting a seesion on “Effectively working with the Media” at the NACWAA National Convention.

 

Walk Awhile in My Shoes: Gut Level, Real-World Messages Between Managers and Employees
By Eric Harvey and Steve Ventura

The revolutionary handbook that’s actually two books in one! Break down "we vs. they" beliefs and behaviors while encouraging new levels of understanding, empathy, and cooperation. Use this popular one-of-a-kind book to help everyone as they focus on achieving the organizations mission in a values-based way. 

 

The Dash Book & Song Special Edition Gift Set
by Linda Ellis and Kirk Dearman, from Walkthetalk.com

The Dash Poem Gift Book and Song Special Edition Gift Set! The words of Linda Ellis' poem The Dash have been turned into a beautiful song that's sure to touch you and those you love. The Dash Song was written and performed by award winning composer, song writer and singer Kirk Dearman.

Please click here to listen to the inspiration song!  

 

Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times
By Donald T. Phillips

This book offers a unique perspective into Lincoln's leadership style. Donald Phillips has studied Lincoln's presidency to identify those personality characteristics that made him such a charismatic leader. This would be interesting in itself; but Phillips goes further to infuse these traits with life in the context of modern leadership issues. In studying the management techniques and people skills that Lincoln used to achieve the impossible, Phillips finds a number of useful lessons for today's managers: "Get Out of the Office and Circulate Among the Troops ... Persuade Rather than Coerce ... Lead by Being Led ... Keep Searching Until You Find your 'Grant'" are just a few of the book's chapters.

Phillips divides his book into a sequence of key lessons, each based on one of Lincoln's distinctive leadership traits and illustrated by specific examples. At the end of each lesson, he summarizes the Lincoln principles as they apply to leaders today.
In this book you will discover why you should:
•         Seize the initiative and never relinquish it
•         Wage only one war at a time
•         Encourage risk-taking while providing job security
•         Avoid issuing orders and instead-request, imply, or make suggestions

Monday Morning Leadership for Women
By: Valerie Sokolosky

Monday Morning Leadership for Women is a wonderful story about how to balance work and life! Written in a pleasant, easy-to-read tone, it takes you on a journey with a struggling manager and her mentor. Monday Morning Leadership for Women is written with vivid stories and keen insights. This powerful book will help you achieve greater success as a manager, employee and person. Valerie Sokolosky has identified and addressed eight key issues that all women in business face at one time or another. The fictional characters, Taylor and Stephanie, meet on eight consecutive Mondays at Starbucks. Their discussions are open and candid about how to handle work and life. The book is easy to read and has applicable learning points to take away.

Standing Tall : A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
By: C. Vivian Stringer and Laura Tucker

Standing Tall is a story of quiet strength in the face of punishing odds. Above all, it is an extraordinary love story—love for the game, for the players she has coached, for her close-knit family, and for the husband she lost far too soon. It will resonate long after the last page.

“Lots of people have dreams, but C. Vivian Stringer is the dream—a coalminer’s daughter who believed when her Poppa told her there was no obstacle she could not surmount. And she lives that dream, teaching others to rise up to meet challenges, turning underdogs into champions again and again—on and off the court. This is the quintessential American story, of a woman and of a family pulling together against the odds. Standing Tall offers an important message of hope to so many.”
John Chaney, Hall of Fame college basketball coach

 

Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny  
By Suze Orman

bookMoney maven Suze Orman's latest book, Women & Money, addresses the complicated (and often dysfunctional) relationship women have with personal finance. Orman's direct, non-condescending style is perfect for this subject matter--she begins with the premise that "Women can invest, save, and handle debt as well and skillfully as any man" and then tackles the important question--"So why don't they?" Designed to educate and inspire, Women & Money also offers a "Save Yourself Plan," a five-month program that "delivers genuine long-term financial security." Read this book, and you'll be "controlling your destiny" in no time. 

 

Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers 

By Lois P. Frankel

In the bestselling tradition of Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman by Gail Evans comes the breakthrough book that teaches women how to stop sabotaging their careers-and start getting ahead. For every professional woman who wants to get ahead-but feels she is at an impasse-Nice Girls Don’t get the Corner Office comes to the rescue. When overlooked for that special assignment or promotion, many women point the finger outwardly, looking for someone else to blame. Now, Lois P. Frankel presents a different view in her empowering career primer that helps women identify ingrained habits they learned as girls that may be holding them back, such as couching statements in a question, smiling inappropriately, tilting the head while speaking, and others. Only by overcoming these self-defeating behaviors will the 'nice girl' learn to leverage her power in the workplace-and claim the corner office she so richly deserves.  

 

See Jane Win

By Dr. Sylvia Rimm

JaneDr. Rimm presents the conclusions of an extensive survey she conducted with her daughters among over 1000 satisfied, successful women, exploring what they had in common in their upbringing and how parents can give their own daughters the same advantages. Based on extensive original research, See Jane Win provides invaluable advice for helping girls deal with issues such as middle school grade decline; math anxieties; eating disorders; social and academic insecurities; feelings of being different; self-esteem and competition; the career family balance; and the glass ceiling. Included are profiles (based on in-depth interviews of over 100 women) of women in disparate careers that illuminate the rewards and penalties of linear vs. delayed career p atterns and show us the typical pathways for women in nontraditional and traditional fields, including medicine, science, law, business, education, politics, the arts, education, homemaking, and allied and mental health.  Despite the many victories of the women's movement, little girls are still given negative messages about their potential and prospects for their futures. Dr. Rimm shows parents how to combat those messages and give their daughters the confidence and skills they need to follow in the footsteps of successful women surveyed.  

 

Leading From the Front: No-Excuse Leadership Tactics for Women
By Courtney Lynch and Angie Morgan

Ask yourself honestly, is your professional life going according to plan? If you are not developing your leadership skills, there is an essential element missing from your efforts for success. Leading from the Front will show you how to start leading your life rather than allowing your life to lead you.

Many women have never received formal leadership training. They weren’t taught to be decisive, commanding, and ready to take risks. But it’s never too late to change. Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch weren’t born leaders-they became leaders during their years in the U.S. Marine Corps, enduring some of the toughest training on earth. Now they pass the leadership know-how and experience from that training on to you.

Drawing on their years as Marine Corps officers and successful private consultants, Morgan and Lynch deliver 10 key practices to becoming a powerful leader. You'll improve your decision making, focus, and performance as you learn to

Set an inspiring example
Think fast on your feet
Stop making excuses
Take care of your team (so they’ll take care of you)
Respond without overreacting
Stay cool while dealing with crises
Have the courage to achieve your goals

Learn how to effectively take on any challenge that comes your way-with the confidence you need to lead like the toughest Marine, but with a woman's touch.

For more information click here.

Start Right, Stay Right…LEAD RIGHT: Every Leader’s Straight Talk Guide to Success on the Job
By Steve Ventura

Having a leadership position and being a leader are not one and the same. “Leader” is a descriptor…a label that you earn through specific behaviors. It's based on what you do today, and what you will do tomorrow – not what's printed on your business card or engraved on your name tag. Simply put, in order to be a leader, you must do the things that leaders do. Written in a pull-no-punches style, Start RIGHT, Stay RIGHT...LEAD RIGHT contains a collection of ideas and proven strategies guaranteed to help you become a more effective and respected leader.

Click here for more information.

Three Cups of Tea
By Greg Mortenson

http://www.threecupsoftea.com/

Greg Mortenson is the co-founder (with Dr. Jean Hoerni) and Executive Director of nonprofit Central Asia Institute www.ikat.org. Since a 1993 climb on Pakistan's K2, he has dedicated his life to promote community-based education and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson is also founder of Pennies For Peace www.penniesforpeace.org and co-author of New York Times best-seller, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School At A Time (Penguin 2007) www.threecupsoftea.com

“Three Cups of Tea is one of the most remarkable adventure stories of our time. Greg Mortenson’s dangerous and difficult quest to build schools in the wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only a thrilling read, it’s proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world.” -Tom Brokaw

"A stunningly simple story of how to make peace" -Bloomsbury Review

"Fascinating...one only hopes U.S. policymakers read Mortenson's book" -Philadelphia Inquirer

"Astonishing tale of compassion - and of promise kept" -Time Magazine Asia Book of the Year

Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality
By Dr. Henry Cloud

A clinical psychologist and co-author of the best-selling Boundaries argues that integrity and character are integral to success, introducing his six key components--the ability to connect and build trust, to be reality-oriented, to be effective, to embrace and resolve negative reality, bring about increase or growth, and to be transcendent. Success is not related to only talent or brains. There are a lot of bright, talented people who are never successful. And the most successful are not only the ones with the most talent. The real factor, Cloud demonstrates, is the makeup of the person. All of us can grow in the kinds of real character that bring about fruitful relationships and achievement of purpose, mission, and goals. Integrity is not something that you either have or don't, but instead is an exciting growth path that all of us ca n engage in and enjoy.

For more information click here.

The SPEED of Trust
The One Thing That Changes Everything

by Stephen M.R. Covey, Rebecca R. Merrill

In this powerful new book, Stephen M. R. Covey articulates why trust has become the key leadership competency of the new global economy. He eloquently informs readers how to inspire lasting trust in their personal and professional relationships, and in so doing to create unparalleled success and sustainable prosperity in every dimension of life. He shows business, government, and education leaders how to quickly and permanently gain the trust of their clients, coworkers, partners, and constituents. Covey convincingly makes the case that trust is a measurable accelerator to performance and that when trust goes up, speed also goes up while cost comes down, producing what Covey calls a “trust dividend.”

How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less
By Milo O. Frank

You can get your point across in 30 seconds. Media research proves it. Television commercials capitalize on it. People are only able to give their full, undivided attention in 30 second "bites."

People Pleasers: Helping Others Without Hurting Yourself
By Les Carter

While the unhealthy effect of controlling personalities has long been discussed, Dr. Les Carter has also recognized another pattern of behavior that can be just as destructive.

Equal Play: Title IX and Social Change, edited by Nancy Hogshead-Makar and Andrew Zimbalist (Temple University Press, 2007) and the Encyclopedia of Title IX and Sports, by Nicole Mitchell and Lisa A. Ennis (Greenwood Press, 2007) each offer a wealth of information on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the landmark federal law that, among other things, swelled the ranks of the nation's college and high-school athletic programs with women.

But it is Playing With the Boys: Why Separate Is Not Equal in Sports by Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappano (Oxford University Press, 2008), that suggests a major shift in the way Americans view sports.