The Achiever Newsletter
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Encouraging our clients to read books has always been an integral part of our business. As a result, we’d like to periodically share 10 books that we feel should be included in your business and/or personal library. These books are not listed in order of sales, popularity, or recommendation. The numbers are used only for reference purposes.
It’s been said for many years that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long. It’s also been said, "If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first." Your "frog" is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to put off. This analogy is just one of many concepts targeted by best-selling author Brian Tracy in his latest book, Eat That Frog. You probably know him as one of America’s leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness. We’ve previously reviewed his best-selling books Maximum Achievement and The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success. You may be a proud owner of his best-selling audiocassette program The Psychology of Achievement. Now he shares the very best ideas and insights on time management in this very fast read, rich in practical advice in the form of twenty-one logical, immediately applicable steps. Each chapter provides specific exercises you can use to implement Tracy’s advice immediately to see the results for yourself.
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 5 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.
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.
The dynamic duo strikes again! Roger and Joyce 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 over 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 IS NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED. Those predisposed to protect "dead wood" will take issue with the basic underlying philosophy of this book. Those who, way down deep, would sooner see an organization die than nudge a hopelessly incompetent person out of a job, should not read this book. This person is probably not an A player, will not become an A player, will not want to hire A players, will not want to coach people to become A players, has difficulty retaining A players, and does not belong in a premier, topgraded organization. Topgrading is for A players and all those aspiring to be A players. The author defines Topgrading as the practice of filling every position in the organization with an A player, at the appropriate compensation level. A player is defined as the top 10% of talent available at all salary levels— best of class. He believes that great companies are made, not born. The secret is hiring the right people—the "A" players. This is, of course, easier said than done. Statistically, 1/2 of all employment situations result in a mis-hire: the wrong person for the wrong job. And with the cost of a mis-hire at 24 times salary, the financial drain can be staggering. This 400+ page book is a compilation of insights and advice based on more than 4,000 career case studies ... first-hand, exhaustive interviews of successful managers’ entire careers. The tools and strategies offered here come from 27 years of working with dozens of organizations, many premier in their industries. Discover a silver-bullet assessment technique, the Chronological In-Depth Structured (CIDS) interview. CIDS can boost your hiring success rate from 50% to 90% or better. It’s not perfect, but close enough that it permitted entire companies to topgrade in one year, replacing players with almost all A players and a few Bs. If you attempt to topgrade and your batting average in replacing C players is only .500, you will fail. CIDS is not just desirable, but necessary in assuring that you replace Cs with As. I could go on and on describing the useful contents of Topgrading but I fear you’d break a leg racing to the bookstore. Walk slow. Read fast. You need this one.
I’ll be short with this one. For over 30 years, Brian Tracy has been teaching the world about business success via his best-selling books and audio tapes. This book is the bottom-line, cut-to-the-chase, keep-it-simple success guide. Here is a set of principles or "universal laws" that lie behind the success of business people in every kind of enterprise, large and small. These are natural laws and they work everywhere and for everyone, virtually without exception. Every year, thousands of companies underperform or even fail, and millions of individuals underachieve, frustrated by thwarted ambition and dreams — all because they either attempted to violate or did not know these universal laws. However, ignorance of the law is no excuse! Tracy breaks the 100 laws into eight major categories: Life, Success, Business, Leadership, Money, Selling, Negotiating, and Time Management. He not only identifies and defines each, he also:
Brian Tracy has done it again and you’ll want to take advantage of it a.s.a.p.
The myth of "born leaders" has been with us for decades. However, that myth misses an important fact: the qualities great leaders display are waiting in all of us to be discovered, developed, and magnified. No one is actually born a leader. Anyone can become one. All you need is to master the specific set of skills people commonly associate with so-called "natural born" leaders. Included in this book is a Self-Assessment Inventory which you can you to ascertain which skills are most in need of improvement. You must know where you are before you can determine where you need to go. Warren Blank’s work identifies the 108 specific traits that typically cause others to see people as natural born leaders. The Self-Assessment Inventory allows you to match up to that common portrait. The book then provides strategies and methods for developing your strengths and improving on your weaknesses. With examples ranging from Franklin D. Roosevelt to G.E.’s Jack Welch, this book illustrates that leadership qualities fall into three basic categories: Foundational Skills (such as self-awareness), Direction Skills (including the ability to set a course and develop others as leaders), and Willing Follower Skills (such as the ability to influence others and create a motivating environment). The ongoing theme is the simple fact that everything you need to become a leader is right inside of you. This book will help you let your own "natural" skills blossom.
For most companies, the issue of customers in charge is just coming onto the radar screen. For many, it was over before they had an inkling. Patricia Seybold, author of the influential, best-selling Customers.com, makes it plain in her most recent offering, that this can be either your biggest problem or your greatest opportunity. Thanks to the Internet and mobile wireless devices, both business and consumer customers are demanding that you change your pricing structure, distribution channels, and the way you design and deliver products and services. Your business must be transformed so that it is completely customer-centric, or you will be out of business. You can fight it if you want but you’re better off, says the author, to practice "sweet surrender," just as the music industry has started to come to terms with Napster. Many try to characterize the changes taking place as the New Economy, the Internet Economy, or the information, knowledge, or bio-economy. However, simply put, what we now have is a customer economy and it’s going to result in changes that you would not have thought possible even a few short years ago. Seybold has been on a worldwide quest to find companies in North America, Europe, and Asia that are developing the state-of-the-art practices that will help them win in the new area of the customer economy. They’re profiled and analyzed in case studies ranging from small businesses to multinational giants and range from manufacturers to retailers, and service firms. What she provides is not only a brilliant analysis but also a practical program for how you can make the customer revolution a profitable one. The companies that thrive in the customer revolution will be those that measure and monitor what matters to customers, in near real time!
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 who 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, Pam 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!
Here we go again! Cute title, large number of suggestions, but same bottom line message ... you’d better start concentrating on how to make your company a great place to work. If you don’t, your employees will find such a place elsewhere. Workplace performance expert, John Putzier, offers a goldmine of ideas for attracting and retaining the best talent available. He has managed to compile an incredible array of unusual yet theoretically sounds tips, tools, and techniques for today’s managers. The majority of his ideas are fast, easy to implement, inexpensive, and very unique. By changing the very tone and culture of your company, you can enhance employee morale, creative thinking and productivity — thus creating that magnetic environment that will attract and retain today’s most productive talent. |
Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a firm specializing in custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. He can be reached at 800-886-2MAX or by visiting http://www.AchieveMax.com.
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