The success of your organization is largely dependent on the capabilities and leadership of your management team. Effective managers must be able to communicate with many different personalities to encourage productivity, achieve goals and create a positive working environment. It benefits everyone working for your company to invest in management training courses that teach delegation, communications skills training, mentoring, conflict resolution, change management and other valuable skills. Through these programs, managers learn about employee development and how to lead individuals to work together as a team to reach common objectives.
If you want to start an ongoing conversation about best practices in management and leadership, create a business book club or a recommended reading list for your organization. This list will be a helpful supplement to the knowledge gained in training classes and a way to inspire an exchange of ideas among your employees. Consider buying a few copies of each book and circulating them throughout the office.
Five Business Book Club Recommendations
Jim Collins, co-author of Built to Last, and his research team delve deeply into how a merely good organization can be transformed into a great organization with long-term, sustained success. Good to Great examines almost 1400 companies, covering a wide variety of industries, to find the common factors that may surprise even the most seasoned manager.
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point explores the causes of “social epidemics” – the small changes in a society that cause a ripple effect and result in significant effects in everything from crime to shopping trends. Malcolm Gladwell describes the importance of the three different personality types who are influential in reaching this “tipping point”: Mavens (collectors and communicators of knowledge), Connectors (social butterflies who bring others together) and Salesmen (charismatic persuaders).
- Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
David Allen, an executive coach and management consultant, boils down his workflow management system into simple, effective and easy-to-implement steps. He offers useful, common sense tips and techniques for channeling scattered mental “to-do” lists into concrete action plans to increase productivity and organization, both professionally and personally.
- First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
The authors study 80,000 managers in 400 different companies to discover how exceptional managers find, retain and motivate talented employees. The book uses case studies, interviews and diagrams to turn conventional wisdom on its head and outline what the most effective managers are doing right.
- Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
In Switch, the authors examine the conflict between the two major systems that control our brains—the rational mind and the emotional mind. The rational mind may want to make a big change in the company, while the emotional mind may fight to keep the consistency and ease of the existing routine. Chip and Dan Heath advocate strategies for aligning these competing systems and making hard changes a little bit easier.
Host informal discussions about the books on your company reading list, and look for ways to incorporate strategies into your organization. These conversations, paired with effective management training courses, will have a powerful effect on how your company operates.
Do you have any must-read business books you would add to this list? Suggest them in the comments below.
