Posts Tagged ‘management’

Managers, Motivate!

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

This week we have two business books specifically aimed at managers. It’s said that the best companies are those with the best managers. The pressure put on managers to succeed is an unrelenting force making informative resources critical to progress. Former CEO and President of Verizon Wireless, Denny Strigl, and business coach, Brian Tracy, are two authors featured here that have compiled essential methods that promise to supercharge business performance in managers and their teams everywhere.

Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?: Hard-Hitting Lessons on How to Get Real Results by Denny Strigl and Frank Swiatek

For managers, behavior is the real key to achievement. In order to stop struggling and start delivering, you need to close the gap between what you know and what you do. That’s been Denny Strigl’s method, and now it can be yours, too.

Among the most prominent architects of the wireless communications industry, the former Verizon Wireless president and CEO has had one of the most remarkable careers in modern business. In Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?, Strigl shares all the skills and techniques he used to build Verizon into one of the greatest growth companies in any industry. You’ll learn how to:

  • Create a corporate culture where trust, respect, and integrity flourish — and employees and customers alike are appropriately served
  • “Eliminate the fluff,” get focused, and stop wasting time on things that don’t matter
  • Address issues proactively before they become problems — even employee performance issues
  • Get past your “blind spots,” reinforce priorities consistently, and communicate with clarity
  • Master the Four Fundamentals of Management: growing revenue, getting new customers, keeping the customers you already have, and eliminating costs

Managers, Can You Hear Me Now? includes additional suggestions for bringing the best of your energy and passion into your work, helpful anedcotes from Strigl’s career, simple self-assessment questions, and even a look at how your business day as a successful manager should play out.

Whether you’re the CEO of a large corporation or run your own small business, the lessons from Managers, Can You Hear Me Now? are sure to come through — loud and clear.

Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?: Hard-Hitting Lessons on How to Get Real Results from McGraw-Hill is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Full Engagement!: Inspire, Motivate, and Bring Out the Best in Your People by Brian Tracy

As a manager, it’s your role to achieve the highest possible return on the physical, emotional, and mental efforts your people put forth. It’s not a return on investment. . . it’s a return on energy. But how are you supposed to light a fire under each employee when studies find that most of them are working at only a fraction of their potential?

In this essential guide, Brian Tracy, the Master of Motivation, shows you how to unlock superstar performance from every single member of your work team. Based on decades of research and thousands of hours invested in maximizing personal and organizational performance, the hard and fast secrets of what you can do (and what you should stop doing) to inspire your employees to peak performance are now available. Packed with powerful, practical ideas and strategies, Full Engagement! shows you how to:

  • create a high-trust work environment
  • drive out the fears that hold people back
  • set clear goals and objectives
  • unlock the potential of each person
  • motivate and inspire employees to greater heights than they ever believed themselves capable of
  • trigger the “X Factor” that maximizes productivity
  • recognize, reward, and reinforce their efforts in a way that energizes each and every one of your people

Your ability to channel the human energies of your staff into higher levels of productivity and performance is the yardstick by which your ability as an executive will be measured.

The great news is that now you have everything you need right in your hands. In this eye-opening book, you’ll learn how to do and say the things that will make your people feel confident, happy, and motivated. . . and allow you to deliver consistently outstanding results for your company.

In these tough economic times, everyone is expected to produce more with less. The only way to succeed is to consistently inspire your people to perform at their absolute best. Full Engagement! provides you with the keys to unlocking not just the hidden drive and abilities that exist within every one of your people. . . but also your own.

Full Engagement!: Inspire, Motivate, and Bring Out the Best in Your People from AMACOM is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Making It In America

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

What does it take to make it in America? There are so many business, economic, social, and cultural conditions to consider and arguments to be settled to know where to even begin. But the following books will get you on the path to understanding what makes this nation tick and who’s tugging at what ropes so that you can decide for yourself how you’re going to live within one of the most colorful nations in the world.

Divinity of Doubt: The God Question by Vincent Bugliosi

Vincent Bugliosi, whom many view as the nation’s foremost prosecutor, has successfully taken on, in court or on the pages of his books, the most notorious murderers of the last half century – Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Destined to be a classic, Bugliosi’s Divinity of Doubt sets a new course amid the explosion of bestselling books on atheism and theism – the middle path of agnosticism.  In recognizing the limits of what we know, Bugliosi demonstrates that agnosticism is the most intelligent and responsible position to take the eternal question of God’s existence.

Divinity of Doubt from Vanguard Press is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Where Does the Money Go? Rev Ed: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis by Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson

Now revised and updated to include current predictions about the effects of the Great Recession and President Obama’s healthcare overhaul, this guide to deciphering the jargon of the country’s budget problem covers everything from the country’s $12 trillion and growing debt to the fact that, for 31 out of the last 35 years, the country has spent more on government programs and services than it has collected in taxes. It also explores why elected leaders on every side of the fence have so far failed to effectively address this issue and explains what you can do to protect YOUR future.

Where Does the Money Go? Revised Edition from Harper is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking In Your Organization by Daniel Forrester

There’s an intangible and invisible marketplace within our lives today where the products traded are four fold: attention, distraction, data and meaning. The stories and examples within Consider demonstrate that the best decisions, insights, ideas and outcomes result when we take sufficient time to think and reflect. Including interviews with leaders such as General David Petraeus, attorney Brooksley Born and global investor Kyle Bass, Daniel Forrester shows us that taking time and giving ourselves the mental space for reflection can mean the difference between total success and total failure.

Consider from Palgrave Macmillan is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Boombustology: Spotting Financial Bubbles Before They Burst by Vikram Mansharamani

With the increased complexity and volatility surrounding financial bubbles, we need a more effective way to spot and understand these events. Based on his popular seminar at Yale University, Boombustology presents Vikram Mansharamani’s multi-lens framework for evaluating the extremely elaborate social phenomenon of financial market booms and busts.

The framework found within these pages offers a robust understanding of the dynamics that precede, fuel, and ultimately reverse financial market extremes. Regardless of your economic or financial background, Boombustology will put you in a better position to spot financial bubbles before they burst.

Boombustology from Wiley is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

What Could Happen If You Do Nothing? A Manager’s Handbook for Coaching Conversations by Jane Murphy

“What could happen if you do nothing?” offers managers clear, usable tools to enhance the way they listen and engage their people. Mini-dialogues, sample questions, listening tips, and suggestions use familiar situations to show how to transform business challenges into coaching opportunities. This is an essential resource for developing employees to their full potential and for fostering better working relationships for individuals, teams, and the business itself.

What Could Happen If You Do Nothing? from Giraffe Business Publishing is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Balancing New Books

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

We’re nearing the end of the month, but there’s no slowing down for the crew here at FSB.  Our third week into the new year brings us four new projects that are spread across a range of topics including books in fiction thriller, health, adventure memoir, and business management.  Whether we’re getting wiser, healthier, laughing, crying, or gripping the edge of our seats, we’re sure to enjoy this busy balancing act.

From New York Times bestselling author and internationally renowned environmental and consumer advocate Erin Brockovich, comes Rock Bottom, a debut thriller and first in a series of novels that introduces one of the most fascinating and memorable characters in suspense fiction. In Rock Bottom, Erin Brockovich combines passionate intensity, first-rate story-telling, and her real-life experiences in a novel that will leave you breathless. Rock Bottom from Vanguard Press is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

If you’re one of the 13 million Americans who have survived a heart attack or been diagnosed with heart disease, Dr. Janet Bond Brill offers a delicious and foolproof plan that can lower your risk of a second heart attack by up to 70 percent.  Inspired by the heart-healthy Mediterranean diet, the Prevent a Second Heart Attack Plan is based on satisfaction, rather than deprivation. Prevent a Second Heart Attack: 8 Foods, 8 Weeks to Reversing Heart Disease from Crown/Three Rivers Press is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

For Conor Grennan, what began as a footloose adventure volunteering at the Little Princes Children’s Home in war-torn Nepal becomes a commitment to reunite children he had grown to love with their families, but this would be no small task. He would risk his life on a journey through the legendary mountains of Nepal, facing the dangers of a bloody civil war.

Little Princes is a true story of families and children, and what one person is capable of when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. At turns tragic, joyful, and hilarious, Little Princes is a testament to the power of faith and the ability of love to carry us beyond our wildest expectations.  Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal from William Morrow is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

What Could Happen if You Do Nothing? offers managers clear, usable tools to enhance the way they listen and engage their people. Mini-dialogues, sample questions, listening tips, and suggestions use familiar situations to show how to transform business challenges into coaching opportunities. This is an essential resource for developing employees to their full potential and for fostering better working relationships for individuals, teams, and the business itself. What Could Happen If You Do Nothing? A Manager’s Handbook for Coaching Conversations from Giraffe Business Publishing is available on Amazon.