Tag Archives: Book Review

Change-Friendly Leadership (Book Review)

Change Friendly Leadership by Dr. Rodger Dean Duncan

change-friendly-leadership-book-reviewWhen I got my review copy of Change Friendly Leadership, I was transported back to my college days of studying change management. It was a great course and I had a phenomenal teacher, so my thirst for ideas related to managing change well started early. Good thing I found this book! I have two pages of notes and I’m not even finished going back and digging into all of the pages I’ve flagged for further review. There may be another review in the future or even some posts on subtopics to delve deeper, because this thing is full of solid advice for business leaders trying to work within the change process.

Okay, now that I’ve built it up, let’s peel back the layers and dig into a few of the key points of Change-Friendly Leadership.

What I liked

  • Training failure-The author quotes a study by ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) that says that despite record amounts being spent on training in the workplace, less than 30% of training is being implemented. Continue reading →

Wisdom Meets Passion (Book Review)

wisdom meets passion dan millerWisdom Meets Passion by Dan Miller and Jared Angaza

I’ve been reading and listening to Dan Miller for over 5 years now. In short, this book is more greatness. I ended up taking very few notes for a few reasons. First, this book is full of things that I live every day, so I didn’t take great notes on those areas since I have a lot of experience with following passions, (trying to) learn from those with wisdom, etc. Secondly, it’s just engaging to read it. It’s not the typical business/career book with a lot of sound bytes. I’ve tried to pull a few together for your benefit below.

What I liked

  • 10 steps to education and getting rich (not what you think!)-I’ve omitted the details here (get the book!), but you can find this list on page 66. These seem so innocuous, but imagine doing even a small handful of these actions every single year. Every. Year. In 10 years that’s over 100 books, 30 training events, 10 new skills, etc. It’s exponential growth! Crazy to imagine doing it all at once, but very doable when you look at reading just one book per month…
    • Read 12 books this year
    • Attend 3-4 seminar/training events this year
    • Subscribe to 2 great magazines
    • Listen to 3-4 podcasts and read 3-4 blogs per week Continue reading →

The Orange Revolution (Book Review)

The Orange Revolution by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

I reviewed a book previously by these authors (All In), and I might start a fan club. They’re darn good at what they do. I purchased The Orange Revolution a few months ago because I had a grand vision. When I read the subtitle (how one great team can transform an entire organization), I instantly started thinking about the team I was working in. Our Operations team touched on all areas of the corporate infrastructure. The Director of Operations was known to say that she would put our team up against any other due to the strong commitment and varied talents of our team. My challenge was filtering that down from the Operations group to the rest of the organization. So in true geek form, I bought a book. the orange revolution book review gostick elton

What I liked

  • Breakthrough teams have members who: demonstrate personal competency, expand their competency with leadership traits of goal setting, communication, trust, accountability, and recognition, clearly visualize the cause, follow the rule of 3 (wow others, no surprises, and cheer for others) Continue reading →

All In (Book Review)

all in by adrian gostick and chester elton

All In by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

All In by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton-A book about culture, belief, and leadership

When I stopped by the Snagajob booth at the SHRM conference this summer, I was lucky enough to receive a copy of All In (How the best managers create a culture of belief and drive big results) (here on Amazon). I knew it would be a great book, and these tried and true authors didn’t let me down.

A few high points

  • Managers matter: The authors mention a very interesting red/green experiment that still rolls around in my mind when I’m thinking about management/leadership topics to write on. They mapped out their departments using green, yellow, or red. Green teams were higher than average in productivity, profitability, etc. Red were just the opposite and were especially poor in the area of turnover. So the company decided to experiment by moving some “green” managers to “red” areas and vice versa to see the results. Here’s a direct quote, “In every single case, no matter the background or expertise of the manager, within a year the red departments were green and green departments were red. It was the manager who made the difference.” Wow! Continue reading →

Turn The Ship Around! (Book Review)

I was very excited to read my copy of�Turn the Ship Around! How to Create Leadership at Every Level by L. David Marquet (here on Amazon). I actually found out about the book through a random link that I followed on Twitter. The link led me to a video interview of the author, and it excited me enough to hunt down the publisher and request a copy of the book.

At its core, this book is about changing the leader-follower model to a leader-leader model. It’s written by a man who spent years in the military (which is probably the most pervasive user of the leader-follower model of any organization you’ll find), so it instantly sticks out as an innovative idea.

A sampling of ideas from Turn the Ship Around Continue reading →

Jolt (Book Review)

When I ordered a copy of Jolt: Get the Jump on a World That’s Constantly Changing from BookSneeze (here on Amazon), I didn’t know what to expect. I ended up with a book containing an interesting blend of leadership, change management, and religious topics.

I’m openly and unabashedly a Christian, so that last part wasn’t really an issue for me, but I know that some people are not big fans of that sort of thing. That said, there were a few parts that I did enjoy.

What I liked Continue reading →

7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave (Book Review)

Recently I received a copy of 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave by Leigh Branham to review. It was great timing, because I’ve had the “big picture” retention ideas floating through my head in preparation for the HR portion of a leadership retreat at work. This truly was a fantastic book with many great insights, and I can’t list them all here. I’ll hit on some of the high points that really got my blood pumping as an “in the trenches” HR pro:

  • There is a major disconnect with regard to how managers understand retention. According to the research, 89% of managers believe employees leave/stay for money; however, surveys show 80-90% of employees leave for reasons not related to pay (job fit, manager, culture, work environment, etc.)
  • In many companies exit interviews are handled by HR. Surely we’re using that opportunity to learn where our weaknesses are and how to manage them, right? Wrong! 42% of HR departments admit their exit interview program isn’t effective. Continue reading →