Business Builders Recommended Reading List

Management
	Chris Zook All companies must grow to survive-but only one in five growth strategies succeeds. In Profit from the Core, strategy expert Chris Zook revealed how to grow profitably by focusing on and achieving full potential in the core business. But what happens when your core business provides insufficient new growth, or even hits the wall?
	Ram Charan Unleash one of your company's greatest competitive weapons. In this timely new work, ace consultant Ram Charan takes an eye-opening look at how many boards are transcAnding tradition by becoming dynamic partners in corporate governance. He also shows CEOs how they can go about tapping the vast storehouse of experience and wisdom a board's membership represents. Filled with specific instructions and strategies, Fortune 500 examples, and real-time tools for initiating board transformations, Boards At Work takes readers to the front lines of the American board revolution.
	James C. Collins, Jerry I. Porras Groundbreaking research intothe development of America's most enduring and successful corporations thatshatters myths, provides new insights, and gives practical guidance forcompanies that would like to follow in their footsteps. Back to Top
	Marshall Goldsmith, Laurence Lyons, Alyssa Freas Put coaching into practice in your organization! Executive coaching is dramatically increasing in popularity. Leaders around the world are both using coached and becoming coaches. But, the understanding of what executive coaching is and how it can increases leaders' effectiveness has not grown as fast as the application of this process. Back to Top
	Marshall J. Cook Research proves that employees will work harder and produce more when they feel appreciated, valued, and understood. Easier said than done? Effective Coaching explains how you can: Apply good coaching methods in the workplace; Quickly establish the discipline you need in a cooperative, non-threatening atmosphere Instinctively use effective problem solving strategies in every situation Back to Top
	Daniel Goleman Is IQ destiny? Not nearly as much as we think. This fascinating and persuasive program argues that our view of human intelligence is far too narrow, ignoring a crucial range of abilities that matter immensely in terms of how we do in life. Back to Top
	Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan The book that shows how to get the job done and deliver results... whether you’re running an entire company or in your first management job. Larry Bossidy is one of the world’s most acclaimed CEOs, a man with few peers who has a track record for delivering results. Ram Charan is a legendary advisor to senior executives and boards of directors, a man with unparalleled insight into why some companies are successful and others are not. Together they’ve pooled their knowledge and experience into the one book on how to close the gap between results promised and results delivered that people in business need today. Back to Top
	Patrick Lencioni In this stunning follow-up to his best-selling book, The Five Temptations of a CEO, Patrick Lencioni offers up another leadership fable that's every bit as compelling and illuminating as its predecessor. This time, Lencioni's focus is on a leader's crucial role in building a healthy organization--an often overlooked but essential element of business life that is the linchpin of sustained success. Readers are treated to a story of corporate intrigue as the frustrated head of one consulting firm faces a leadership challenge so great that it threatens to topple his company, his career, and everything he holds true about leadership itself. In the story's telling, Lencioni helps his readers understand the disarming simplicity and power of creating organizational health, and reveals four key disciplines that they can follow to achieve it. Back to Top
	Patrick Lencioni In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams. Back to Top
	Patrick Lencioni Absorbing, compelling, and utterly memorable, The Five Temptations of a CEO is like no other business book that's come before. Author Patrick Lencioni -- noted screenplay writer and sought-after executive coach -- deftly tells the tale of a young CEO who, facing his first annual board review, knows he is failing, but doesn't know why. Back to Top
	Getting Your Shift Together; Making Sense of Organizational Culture and Change : Introducing Cultural Due Diligence P. J. Bouchard, Lizz Pellet, Sally S. Stamp (Contributor), Andrew J. Riddell (Contributor), Sal Caputo (Editor) In today's business environment, changes come in staggering succession: mergers, acquisitions, rightsizing, downsizing, restructuring. As accountants, lawyers and executives scrutinize these changes for bottom-line impact, they pay little attention to how change will affect an organization's culture or how its culture will affect change. This dooms many corporate change initiatives before they even start. A whopping 75 percent of change initiatives fail within the first three years. Getting Your Shift Together: Making Sense of Organizational Culture and Change explains - in plain English - why companies need to conduct a cultural assessment like Cultural Due Diligence before embarking on any change initiative. Bouchard and Pellet say that nothing can be more deadly to an organization's long-term ability to sustain change and grow than a dysfunctional "incongruent" culture that depends on the old "do as I say, not as I do" method of leadership. An "incongruent" culture destroys morale, decimates productivity and encourages workers to resist and even sabotage change. Therefore, the authors offer techniques and tools, such as their own Cultural Due Diligence process, to measure the congruence of an organization's culture and to reshape it into a healthy - and successful - congruent culture. Back to Top
	Mark Lipton When it comes to sustained success, vision matters more than strategy. Scores of studies have proven this statement, and millions of business leaders believe it. Yet few executives understand what vision is. They embrace the idea, but ignore the implementation - a disconnect that threatens companies striving for growth in a volatile marketplace. Back to Top
	Warren Blank Some people appear to be "natural born leaders." But are they literally born that way? Or have they been taught, coached, rewarded, and reinforced in ways that enable them to be leaders? According to The 108 Skills of Natural Born Leaders, no one is born a leader. But everyone has the natural born capacity to lead. We label people "natural born leaders" because they consistently and frequently model qualities that inspire others to commit to their direction. Back to Top
	Lynne Joy McFarland, Larry E. Senn, John R. Childress This book will change your life and your future! Hundreds and thousands of readers from every walk of life are finding inspiration, empowerment and truly effective solutions with this very important book of our time. You are there- in person with 100 of America's greatest leaders, such as Billionaire Bill Gates, the outspoken Ross Perot, the legendary Lee Iacocca, many superb female leaders like Cathleen Black and Peggy Dulaney, top notch CEO's like Jack Welch of GE, futurist John Naisbitt, motivators Tony Robbins and Stephen Covey and Cabinet Members, Robert Reich and Donna Shalala. As each leader shares their life stories and secrets for success, you will benefit with well-proven practical ideas you can use right away in your own life. You will learn how to really improve personally and professionally. Back to Top
	John C. Maxwell Drawing from John Maxwell's bestsellers Developing the Leader Within You, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, and Becoming a Person of Influence, Leadership 101 explores the timeless principles that have become Dr. Maxwell's trademark style. In a concise, straightforward style, Maxwell focuses on essential and time-tested qualities necessary for true leadership —influence, integrity, attitude, vision, problem-solving, and self-discipline —and guides readers through practical steps to develop true leadership in their lives and the lives of others. Back to Top
	Michael Fullen "At the very time the need for effective leadership is reaching critical proportions, Michael Fullan's Leading in a Culture of Change provides powerful insights for moving forward. We look forward to sharing it with our grantees." --Tom Vander Ark, executive director, Education, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Back to Top
	James M. Kouzes, Barry Z. Posner When it was initially written in 1987, few could have predicted that The Leadership Challenge would become one of the best-selling leadership books of all time. Now, faced with the new challenges of our unpredictable global business environment, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner--two of the country's premier leadership experts--have completely revised and updated their classic book. Building on the knowledge base of their previous books, the third edition of The Leadership Challenge is grounded in extensive research and based on interviews with all kinds of leaders at all levels in public and private organizations from around the world. In this edition, the authors emphasize that the fundamentals of leadership are the same today as they were in the 1980s, and as they've probably been for centuries. In that sense, nothing's new. Leadership is not a fad. While the content of leadership has not changed, the context has-and in some cases, changed dramatically. Back to Top
	Ken Blanchard, Mark Muchnick Now can you become a more successful manager, a stronger team leader, and a motivator who gets the best results from a group? Ken Blanchard and Marc Muchnick's The Leadership Pill provides the answer. In the bestselling tradition of Whale Done! and The One Minute Manager, their entertaining and inspiring new book is a parable about the competition between two leaders with totally different management styles -- a story that reveals the ingredients of truly effective leadership. Back to Top
	Alexander Hiam Streetwise Motivating & Rewarding Employees teaches you that giving someone a jar of candy with their name on it is not what true motivation is all about. It's about making sure employees know what they're doing, why they're doing it, and then giving them some control. It's about giving employees appropriate challenges. And it's about creating a positive, informative feedback network that lets employees judge for themselves how well they're doing. Back to Top
	Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, Annie McKee Daniel Goleman's international bestseller Emotional Intelligence forever changed our concept of "being smart," showing how emotional intelligence (EI)-how we handle ourselves and our relationships-can determine life success more than IQ. Then, Working with Emotional Intelligence revealed how stellar career performance also depends on EI. Back to Top
	Jon R. Katzenbach It is common knowledge that CEOs declare their direct reports as a "team at the top." Yet with a culture of individual accountability and self-reliance prevading executive suites, few management groups ever function as real teams. Now, in a natural follow-up to his bestselling The Wisdom of Teams, John Katzenbach moves his focus farther up the organizational ladder to offer practical guidelines for increasing leadership capacity at the highest executive levels. In Terms at the Top, he shows how even the strongest and most successful CEO can improve a company's performance by turning the senior executive group into a real team-without sacrificing each member's individual leadership capabilities. Teams at the Top explains how to recognize when a team effort at the management level is preferable and when a work group under single leadership will do. Then, the book shows how to develop the capability to shift into whichever mode is appropriate. With stories and examples from well-known companies including Enron, Ben & Jerry's, Champion, Citicorp, and Mobile, as well as lessons that are applicable for management groups anywhere in the organization, Teams at the Top will help companies of all sizes and in all industries maximize the full potential of their leadership. Back to Top
	Ram Charan Ram Charan learned about business from his family's shoe shop in India before attending Harvard Business School and going on to advise senior executives in companies large and small. His experiences taught him that universal laws apply "whether you sell fruit from a stand or are running a Fortune 500 company," and that the business acumen that comes from understanding these basics can be applied throughout any operation. What the CEO Wants You to Know is Charan's primer on this point, which he illustrates with explanations filtered through the eyes of street venders and other small shopkeepers. Back to Top
	Jon R. Katzenbach, Douglas K. Smith Teams -- the key to top performance Motorola relied heavily on teams to surpass its competition in building the lightest, smallest, and highest-quality cell phones. At 3M, teams are critical to meeting the company's goal of producing half of each year's revenues from the previous five years' innovations. Kodak's Zebra Team proved the worth of black-and-white film manufacturing in a world where color is king.

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