Does your business have a strategy or a mission statement?

Is it based on platitudes or does it really commit your business to a clear vision?

In the follow up to his book “good strategy / bad strategy” Richard Rumelt details using his own case studies, some of which are good and some are really cringey.  Richard talks about the need to have strategies that are NOT linked to some financial year or financial impact.  He also talks about the need for buy in across the business.

If you are a leader of a business or on a leadership team you should read this.

Does pride come before a fall?

Why it’s OK sometimes to be second?

“Ego is the enemy” is a book about Ego it explains that we must stop some of society norms

To stop being passionate, stop try to be first, to stop this drive to be first

Ryan Holiday argues that this culture to always being first, the best is harming us and sometimes it’s great to sit back and look out of the window and enjoy the view.

What motivates you? How can get more motivated?

In this book by Dan Pink, he explains some of the myths and details scientific research as to what does motivate humans

From what he calls the three elements, purpose, mastery, and autonomy

And the difference between “carrots” and “sticks” and why sometimes it’s about mental attitude

There are also a bunch of exercises at the back to test your new powers of motivation

A great book to give you drive or find the drive you need

Are you about to start a start-up or taking your first seed round then read this book

OK, you could be anyway through the stages of building a startup

Written by Tony Fadell, the guy who helped create the iPod and Nest, which he sold to Google for $3.2 billion

In the book, Tony shares his knowledge in terms of what it takes to create a startup, from finance to culture.  He also shares many of his market secrets, the importance of storytelling and what it takes to be a people leader.  He also takes you through some of the rough aspects of being in a company which many people don’t talk about.  Such as, why and when should you quit.

Tony also worked for Steve Jobs at Apple so you get some Steve Jobs history and history of building the iPod and iPhone thrown in

The book was recommended to me by Gavin Dimmock

Do you lead or manage people who are introverts, want to know how to get the best out of them?

Maybe you’re an introvert living in an extrovert world and find it difficult to fit in? 

If so, this book is for you….

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Steve was a classic introvert 

He would listen to extroverts in meetings solutionizing but nobody ever turned to Steve and asked his opinion 

When the extroverts had finished and had a solution, Steve would speak up and the extroverts would say “why didn’t you say that before?”. But why would Steve, he hadn’t been asked

So how do you manage and lead teams of extroverts and introverts and get the best out of them? 

In the book “Quiet” by Susan Cain, she takes us through the difference between extroverts and introverts as well investigating the difference in nature and nurture to the way we grow and develop 

It’s written in a style rather like Malcolm Gladwell which uses research and a narrative to tell the story

In a world that can’t stop talking how do we empower the introvert?

This book was recommended to me by Julie Harris 

What is a learning organization? How do you create one?

The only competitive advantage is for your organization to learn faster than it’s competitors 

So what is the book all about? 

The business issue behind the book is that?

As organizations grow, they lose their capacity to learn as company structures and individual thinking becomes rigid

Organizations do not organically develop into learning organizations; there are factors prompting their change

To create a competitive advantage, companies need to learn faster than their competitors and to develop a customer responsive culture

For any learning to take place, also in organizations, there needs to be diffusion of knowledge

Diffusion is not always easy to perform, since it depends on the recipient’s willingness to accept the new knowledge, their need of the new information and the relationship of their existing knowledge to the new information 

This book is about creating a learning organization, from people’s learning mindsets, to the mental models that restrict people and therefore the companies, to building a shared vision and creating an environment for personal and team learning

The book is filled with case studies and anecdotes from interviews with leaders who have created learning disciplines in their teams, departments and organizations

Want to understand the Metaverse?

In this book by Cathy Hackl, Dirk Lueth and Tommaso Di Bartolo they explain the basics of what the Metaverse is all about, talk about the business benefits as they see them and give case studies as to what is about right now

It's non-technical, as much as it can be and I thought it was a great introduction

For example, there are other books that explain the blockchain mathematically, this book, quite rightly keeps away from all of that

Are you in IT leadership or want to get into IT leadership, this is the book for you

“Digital Trailblazer” is the latest book, following his book “Driving digital” in 2017

Written as a novel, Isaac has written a semi-autobiographical book, using his extensive IT experience in start-ups as well as major corporations.

Each chapter is a business scenario, for example, the critical application that is being developed and is behind schedule, the merger with another company, the lack of Agile and DevOps skills on a project.  You are there in the Boardroom with Isaac, what are you going to do?

Isaac, then takes you through what he did with outcomes both good and bad.

Is it time to “Energise”?

In his book “Energise – make the most of every day”, Simon Alexander Ong talks about his own journey.

From a job where he didn’t like the culture and were he faced burn and then to take the scary step to of quitting too work for himself

Simon, wanted to work on his own terms and live the life that he wanted

The book isn’t about quitting, but it does take you through the tools and techniques that Simon uses in his day-to-day life as well as teaches clients to get the energy back in your life

The book starts by getting you to take back your life and get in control, “awaken your power” Simon calls it and how to “focus on what matters”.  Then the book moves to “rewiring your energetic state”, which is about breaking free of energetic blocks.  Then Simon talks about “protecting your personal energy”, which is about managing your energy and not your time

It's certainly a great book if you are looking to take back control of your life and energy or feel that you are reaching or have reached burn-out

In the book “strategic doing – ten skills for agile leadership” the five authors, work you through just that.  10 skills.  They admit that they doubt you can take on more than two, but I think even if you do that you are a better self then you were before you read this book.

Each chapter also has a case study which will allow you to see the practical application of the skill.

It wouldn't be an article about books without me mentioning my own books.

The first edition of "social selling - techniques to influence buyers and changemakers" was written in 2015 and published in 2016.  We have just launched the second edition.

I spent two weeks totally updating the book to modern current thinking, I also wrote an additional 30% too update the book. 

I also reached out to 15 practitioners.  That is people that are using social strategically in their business.  Chief executives (CEOs), Sales leaders, Chief marketing leaders (CMOs), people running digital transformation projects, clients of ours, a head hunter (executive search), etc, etc.  This provides content from different voices, but people that live by social in their business.  The forward is by Mark Schaefer.

The book is now over 300 pages where as the first edition was 187 pages.

The book sticks to the vision I had when I pitched it to Kogan page.  It is a workbook, a book you will want to continually refer to.  A book that will help you get a real return from social media.  As a CEO told me on the first edition 

"it's the first book that read on social media where I got to realise there is a connection between social media and revenue."

My second book, if I had written it today, we would have called it RevOps (RevenueOperations). The book is about how to merge sales and marketing under one single strategy, measurement and governance structure. It's based on an actual case study, but we cannot mention who that is. What I mean is the book, (like my first book) is practical and takes you through the steps you need to under take to implement a RevOps strategy. Right down to reporting and things you need to look out for so the project is a success.