Free Resources
- Newsletter - Sign up
for our free e-mail newsletter and receive our free report "10 Strategies to Achieve Your Organization's Most Important Goals!" when you sign up.
- Book Recommendations - Click
on the book covers below to read reviews and/or to purchase
- Additional free resources - enjoy these additional tips to help you be more effective!
Free E-Mail Newsletter
Sign up here......to receive the free InSights newsletter, which contains
thought-provoking questions and tips to help you be your best!
BONUS! Sign up today and you will receive a free report "10
Strategies to Achieve Your Organization's Most Important Goals!"
To subscribe, enter the requested information below, then click once
on "Submit Subscription Request." Within minutes, you will receive a confirmation
e-mail indicating that your information has been received, along with a separate e-mail containing your free report. Thanks for joining our online community!
Feel free to browse our past issues and encourage your friends and colleagues
to join our online community!
For more past issues of InSights, CLICK HERE
return to top
Book Recommendations - MORE COMING SOON, so check back often!
The following books are frequently recommended to our clients and colleagues to supplement the work we do together, so we've made it convenient for you to find all of our recommendations in one place. Enjoy!
Bridges, William: Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes
Transitions has helped hundreds of thousands of readers to cope with changes by providing a roadmap of the transition process. Whether switching jobs or moving house, leaving school or retiring, change brings both opportunity and turmoil. Most of us struggle through such periods.
This classic book shows how making a successful transition lets you recognize and seize new opportunities.
Carson, Rick: Taming Your Gremlin
This is a completely updated edition of the classic that introduced a powerful method for gaining freedom from self-defeating behaviors and beliefs. Rick Carson revised the book to include fresh interactive activities, real-life vignettes we can all identify with, and new loathsome gremlins ripe for taming. Among the things you will learn: 1)Techniques for getting a sliver of light between the natural you and the monster of your mind, 2) The extraordinary power of simply noticing and playing with options and 3) Six keys to maintaining emotional balance amid upheaval.
Collins, Jim: Good to Great
Can a good company become a great company and if so, how? Collins concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come.
Collins, Jim & Porras, Jerry: Built to Last What makes a visionary company? This book, written by a team from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, compares what the authors have identified as "visionary" companies with selected companies in the same industry. The authors juxtapose Disney and Columbia Pictures, Ford and General Motors, Motorola and Zenith, and Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments, to name a few. The visionary companies, the authors found out, had a number of common characteristics; for instance, almost all had some type of core ideology that guided the company in times of upheaval and served as a constant bench mark. Not all the visionary companies were founded by visionary leaders, however. On the whole, this is an intriguing book that occasionally provides rare and interesting glimpses into the inner workings and philosophical foundations of successful businesses.
Dyer, Wayne: The Power of Intention
After years of spiritual study and reflection, inspirational speaker and best selling author Wayne Dyer has emerged a highly esteemed teacher. This book might help readers land a better job, but it's more relevant for those who are ready to detach from an ego-driven life filled with quick fixes of happiness and step into a more authentic, joyful, and spiritually fulfilling life. His core teachings speak to tapping into a universal source of energy that can also be called the "power of intention." He calls people who are consciously co-creating with this energy source "connectors" and describes them as "individuals who have made themselves available for success...They don't say With my luck things won't work out. Instead, you’re more likely to hear something like, "I intend to create this and I know it will work out."
Covey, Stephen: First Things First
What are the most important things in your life? Far from the traditional "be-more-efficient" time-management book with shortcut techniques, First Things First shows you how to look at your use of time totally differently. Using this book will help you create balance between your personal and professional responsibilities by putting first things first and acting on them. Covey teaches an organizing process that helps you categorize tasks so you focus on what is important, not merely what is urgent. He points you toward the real human needs--"to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy"--and how to balance your time to achieve a meaningful life, not just get things done.
Gerber, Michael: The E-Myth Revisited
An instant classic, this revised and updated edition of the phenomenal bestseller dispels the myths about starting your own business. Small business consultant Michael E. Gerber, with sharp insight gained from years of experience, points out how common assumptions, expectations, and even technical expertise can get in the way of running a successful business. Gerber walks you through the steps in the life of a business -- from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective. Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. The E-Myth Revisited will help you grow your business in a productive, assured way.
Heffernan, Margaret: The Naked Truth - A Working Woman's Manifesto on Business and What Really Matters
"I never wanted to work in business," writes Heffernan. Twenty years after expressing that sentiment, as CEO of a technology company, she found herself "having the time of my life" and wondered whether she had "completely lost my mind? Or sold my soul?" Heffernan sees "women creating a new business order that places values at the heart of business, takes sustainability seriously, and recognizes that business is and always will be emotional." Readers are told how to climb the corporate ladder, maintain a female identity, navigate toxic environments, see through common fallacies, acquire power, balance work with personal life, break into top management, assert autonomy, strike out on their own and reinvent a "parallel universe" of humanitarian alternatives.
Johnson, Spencer: Who Moved my Cheese
Change can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective. The message of Who Moved My Cheese? is that all can come to see it as a blessing, if they understand the nature of cheese and the role it plays in their lives. Who Moved My Cheese? is a parable that takes place in a maze. Four beings live in that maze: Their lives and belief systems are built around the cheese they've found. Most of us reading the story will see the cheese as something related to our livelihoods--our jobs, our career paths, the industries we work in--although it can stand for anything, from health to relationships. The point of the story is that we have to be alert to changes in the cheese, and be prepared to go running off in search of new sources of cheese when the cheese we have runs out.
Katzenbach, Jon & Smith, Douglas: The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization
The authors, who are both consultants, conducted extensive interviews with companies to discover how successful teams are created and sustained. The result is not a research report but a collection of minicase histories and commentary. Some of the findings: Teams respond to performance challenges and not to managers' exhortations for more "teamwork." Organizations committed to high-performance standards and willing to modify individual accountability requirements experience the greatest success with teams. Successful team leaders are not necessarily those with remarkable leadership qualities. Instead, they "simply need to believe in their purpose and their people." Team leaders do real work, remove obstacles, and build trust and confidence.
Kotter, John: Our Iceberg is Melting
Most of the denizens of the Antarctic penguin colony sneer at Fred, the quiet but observant scout who detects worrying signs that their home, an iceberg, is melting. Fred must cleverly convince and enlist key players, such as Louis, the head penguin; Alice, the number two bird; the intractable NoNo the weather expert; and a passle of school-age penguins if he is to save the colony. Their delightfully told journey illuminates in an unforgettable way how to manage the necessary change that surrounds us all. Simple explanatory material following the fable enhances the lasting value of these lessons.
Ruiz, Don Miguel: The Four Agreements - A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
Sit at the foot of a native elder and listen as great wisdom of days long past is passed down. In The Four Agreements Don Miguel Ruiz exposes self-limiting beliefs and presents a simple yet effective code of personal conduct learned from his Toltec ancestors. Full of grace and simple truth, this handsomely designed book makes a lovely gift for anyone making an elementary change in life. The four agreements are these: 1) Be impeccable with your word. 2) Don't take anything personally. 3) Don't make assumptions. 4) Always do your best. It's the how and why one should do these things that make The Four Agreements worth reading and remembering.
return to top
