More than 11,000 business books are published every year—an overwhelming choice for busy professionals. Therefore, in partnership with getAbstract, Training brings you March’s top three business books recommended to our readers.
“Painless Performance Conversations. A Practical Approach to Critical Day-to-Day Workplace Discussions,” by Marnie E. Green (John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2013, 204 Pages, ISBN: 978-1118533536; $14.35).
Most managers dislike having critical conversations with the employees they supervise. If not handled well, these “performance conversations” can be painful for employee and manager alike. Leadership consultant Marnie E. Green explains how to make these sometimes wrenching conversations painless and productive. Using the tools she provides, you can turn performance conversations into positive experiences for both you and your staff members. Such discussions can become spark plugs that enhance your employees’ productivity and engage them more fully in their work. Though some of her sample dialogues seem a bit contrived, Green offers checklists, charts, pointers to remember, and the like, as well as an overall pleasing conversational tone. Therefore, getAbstract recommends her insights and advice to all supervisors who dread day-to-day performance discussions.
Rating (out of 10): 8
Applicability: 8
Innovation: 6
Style: 8
“Follow the Leader. The One Thing Great Leaders Have that Great Followers Want” by Emmanuel Gobillot (Kogan Page, 2013, 216 Pages, ISBN: 978-0749469054; $27.09)
Management consultant Emmanuel Gobillot defines leadership in terms of “followership.” He’s convincing about his unusual perspective as he teaches you how to develop charisma, emotional logic, and “follower-resonant” leadership. Gobillot is an intelligent, thoughtful writer with valuable, iconoclastic notions about tactics, strategy, psychology, and personal development and about their relationship to the essence of leadership. For fun, he ends each chapter with a handy, 140-character tweet. getAbstract recommends Gobillot’s insightful approach to current leaders, those who want to lead, and those intrigued by the dynamics of leadership.
Rating (out of 10): 7
Applicability: 9
Innovation: 7
Style: 7
“Fear Your Strengths. What You Are Best at Could Be Your Biggest Problem” by Robert E. Kaplan and Robert B. Kaiser (Berrett-Koehler, 2013, 120 Pages, ISBN: 978-1609949044; $14.68)
Most leadership books focus either on eliminating weaknesses or improving strengths. Leadership development experts Robert E. Kaplan and Robert B. Kaiser take a different approach. They teach leaders how to “dial back” their strengths so they don’t inadvertently sabotage their effectiveness. The authors’ research shows that overplaying strengths is a common leadership problem. Consider the talented, brilliant, articulate boss whose strong presence intimidates and overwhelms everyone in the room—so no one ever offers alternative ideas. With no objective sounding board, such a boss can endanger an organization by exercising his or her unfiltered, unfettered plans, as Jeffrey Skilling did at Enron. This eloquent, evocative book, which includes many compelling references and quotations, captures the corrupting nature of leaders overplaying a strength. getAbstract recommends this novel approach to aspiring leaders, students of leadership, and to thoughtful leaders with the foresight and courage to control their strengths and refocus their abilities.
Rating (out of 10): 8
Applicability: 8
Innovation: 8
Style: 7
For five-page summaries of these and more than 10,000 other titles, visit http://www.getabstract.com/affiliate/trainingmagazine
