Check in for tomorrow’s giveaway of “Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude: How to Find, Build and Keep a YES! Attitude for a Lifetime of SUCCESS” by Jeffrey Gitomer.

Since reading a non-fiction book is quite different than reading a fiction book I thought I’d round up some resources that will help you. For a more detailed write-up check out this post on The Practice of Leadership which provides a systematic way to read non-fiction.

(One quick note, this is aimed at those who read non-fiction on the side for enjoyment - it doesn’t apply to reading and studying text books )

If you are a frequent reader of business books you quickly realize that many books released are rehashed material just packaged differently. That’s the reality. Publishers need to make money like all businesses. Due to this you may have to start multiple books before you’ll find something worthy of reading. If you don’t find a connection with the book within the first 20-30 pages, don’t read it. There are far too many books out there to force your way through a book that you don’t enjoy.

Once you have your selection follow the three steps below:

1. Skim through Table of Contents, Index and opening chapter as it will explain what the book will talk about.
2. First time reading through, anytime you come across something worth highlighting or noting, I’ll put parenthesis around the section and then mark in the margin with a Q (for quote). Now if you have a library book this won’t fly so grab an index card and mark the page number down and a few words from the sentence. Keep the index card as your bookmark.
3. Once you’ve finished the book completely – go back to the highlighted sections and review the material. Since most people won’t absorb the information the first time through this will help you grow more familiar with the concepts the book is putting forth.

While the above steps are nothing groundbreaking when implemented I’ve found they help a lot more than just straight reading through. When it comes to reading non-fiction, I’m happy to takeaway 2-3 new ideas or facts.

If you find that this is too little to help you, below are some links that provide more detailed examples of reading non-fiction:

• How to read and digest a book
• How to Read a Book: Strategies for Getting the Most out of Non-Fiction Reading (PDF)
• How to Read Jim Collins, Michael Hammer, Tom Peters, Peter Drucker and the others…

StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths

If you aren’t familiar with StrengthsFinder, it was the online assessment tool which allowed you to discover your strengths. Gallup has broken strengths down into 34 areas or themes. After taking the test you would be presented with your 6 top strengths. This tool was most popular with the top selling management strategy book by Marcus Buckingham, “Now, Discover Your Strengths”, whose main thesis was to focus on building employees strengths, not correcting weaknesses. This is the opposite of what most companies do now. Employees are typically sent to training to correct weaknesses. Marcus argues that motivating employees through building on strengths is a win-win situation for both employees and managers. I personally took the StrengthsFinder test and found it to be generally right on the mark. It’s worth checking out if you are looking to define what your strengths are.

Book Description:

DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO BEST EVERY DAY?
Chances are, you don’t. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.

To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced StrengthsFinder in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book ignited a global conversation, while StrengthsFinder helped millions discover their top five talents.

In StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular online assessment. With hundreds of strategies for applying your strengths, StrengthsFinder 2.0 will change the way you look at yourself—and the world—forever.

The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t

Bob Sutton, co-author of one of the best business books to be released in the past few years, “Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense”, is back again with a book that will sure top the best selling lists of the year. The Stanford professor is out to change the workplace – he wants to rid them of assholes. There is an interesting story behind the title. He was turned down from Harvard Business Press when he went to them to pitch the release. Instead of changing the title to a less ‘vulgar’ term he decided to go elsewhere. Why? Read his blog post “Why I Call Them Assholes’ to find out. (His blog definitely deserves to be on your feeds as well!)

From Publishers Weekly:

This meticulously researched book, which grew from a much buzzed-about article in the Harvard Business Review, puts into plain language an undeniable fact: the modern workplace is beset with assholes. Sutton (Weird Ideas that Work), a professor of management science at Stanford University, argues that assholes—those who deliberately make co-workers feel bad about themselves and who focus their aggression on the less powerful—poison the work environment, decrease productivity, induce qualified employees to quit and therefore are detrimental to businesses, regardless of their individual effectiveness. He also makes the solution plain: they have to go. Direct and punchy, Sutton uses accessible language and a bevy of examples to make his case, providing tests to determine if you are an asshole (and if so, advice for how to self-correct), a how-to guide to surviving environments where assholes freely roam and a carefully calibrated measure, the “Total Cost of Assholes,” by which corporations can assess the damage. Although occasionally campy and glib, Sutton’s work is sure to generate discussions at watercoolers around the country and deserves influence in corporate hiring and firing strategies.

ME, INC. How to Master the Business of Being You

Mind you that this isn’t a review, but this seems to be another popular release of the self-help themed book. While the self-help genre gets thousands of releases each year I can only be skeptical of another book which promotes ideals and platitudes you should follow. In the end self-help books rely on the human desire to find meaning which I personally don’t think you can find through books (at least from the volumes that I’ve read!).

From the Inside Flap:

This proactive, practical guide is unlike any self-help book you’ve ever read. It’s not about simple motivation or inspiration; that stuff only matters if you have a plan. Me, Inc. is designed to help you develop that plan and then execute it to perfection. It’s not a generic, one-size-fits-all program, but a personalized system for improving your life and filling it with purpose, meaning, and contentment.

In Me, Inc., business consultant and executive coach Scott Ventrella shows you how to achieve unlimited success by incorporating the basic principles of good business into everyday living. He starts by sharing the ten time-tested principles that guide most successful and enduring companies and shows you how to apply them to your life. Once you understand those principles, Ventrella helps you design your own custom “exceptional living plan”—much like a business plan—that will guide you on the road to an exceptional life.

What if you were the CEO of a mediocre company? Would you just sit back and let the business plod along on a road to nowhere? Of course you wouldn’t. Any competent CEO would get proactive and start developing and implementing a plan for success. Now think about your life. Isn’t it just as important as any business?

Over the course of twelve “milestones” and accompanying exercises, you’ll learn what you want and why, create your custom exceptional living plan based on your ultimate goals, use that plan as an everyday guide to living, and learn how to maintain your momentum and stay on track. You’ll take stock of your most important “clients,” gather feedback on your actions, set goals and priorities, and implement plans for change and constant improvement. Rather than float through life, you’ll take control, be your own boss, and steer You, Inc. into the black.

You only lead one life, so why lead an average one? Me, Inc. will show you how to stop living by accident and start living on purpose. When you embrace your role as CEO of your own life, you’ll live with enthusiasm, determination, purpose, and confidence. If you want to achieve your goals and dreams, now is the time to take charge and be the boss.

We have some great book giveaway’s coming up in the near future. Starting with tomorrow’s giveaway!

10 copies of “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything” by Don Tapscott this Friday February 2nd

There have been a lot of interesting releases on the subject of mass collaboration/wisdom of crowds/leaderless organizations over the past few years - Wikinomic’s being the most recent. It’s a hot subject that been getting a lot of attention from the media with articles such as this one and this one.

From Wikinomics.com:

In the last few years, traditional collaboration—in a meeting room, a conference call, even a convention center—has been superseded by collaborations on an astronomical scale.

Today, encyclopedias, jetliners, operating systems, mutual funds, and many other items are being created by teams numbering in the thousands or even millions. While some leaders fear the heaving growth of these massive online communities, Wikinomics proves this fear is folly. Smart firms can harness collective capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success.
A brilliant primer on one of the most profound changes of our time, Wikinomics challenges our most deeply-rooted assumptions about business and will prove indispensable to anyone who wants to understand the key forces driving competitiveness in the twenty-first century.

Based on a $9 million research project led by bestselling author Don Tapscott, Wikinomics shows how the masses of people can participate in the economy like never before. They are creating TV news stories, sequencing the human genome, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding a cure for disease, editing school texts, inventing new cosmetics, and even building motorcycles.

10 copies of the “The Halo Effect” by Phil Rosenzweig on Monday February 5th

“The Halo Effect” is an iconoclastic look at management theories. Who is in the cross hairs of his critique? Business magazines such as Business Week and Fortune. Both are guilty of applying simple phrases to explain the success and failures of companies they feature. This oversimplification leads to delusions on parts of managers who want to emulate success in their own companies. Phil also takes aim at such books as In Search of Excellence, Built to Last, and Jim Collins best selling Good to Great. “The Halo Effect” definitely rocks the proverbial ‘business book’ boat.

From Publishers Weekly:

This tart takedown of fashionable management theories is a refreshing antidote to the glut of simplistic books about achieving high performance. Rosenzweig, a veteran business manager turned professor, argues that most popular business ideas are no more than soothing platitudes that promise easy success to harried managers. Consultants, journalists and other pundits tap scientifically suspect methods to produce what he calls “business delusions”: deeply flawed and widely held assumptions tainted by the “halo effect,” or the need to attribute sweeping positive qualities to any company that has achieved success. Following these delusions might provide managers with a comforting story that helps them frame their actions, but it also leads them to gross simplification and to ignore the constant demands of changing technologies, markets, customers and situations. Mega-selling books like Good to Great, Rosenzweig argues, are nothing more than comforting, highbrow business fables. Unfortunately, Rosenzweig hedges his own principles for success so much that managers will find little practical use for them. His argument about the complexity of sustained achievement, and his observation that success comes down to “shrewd strategy, superb execution and good luck,” may end up limiting the market for this smart and spicy critique.

Think Two Products Ahead: Secrets the Big Advertising Agencies Don’t Want You to Know and How to Use Them for Bigger Profits by Ben Mack (Publication Date: January 29th, 2007)

Ben Mack, who is a sales & marketing expert and seasoned ‘ad-man’ provides his insight on the do’s and do not’s of branding. The book is catered to the smaller business owner teaching you how to run brand campaigns on any budget.

From the Inside Flap:

Branding is something you probably only think of in terms of household names and huge conglomerates. But branding isn’t just for the big boys; smart branding is smart business for almost any company, no matter its size. In Think Two Products Ahead, ad agency insider Ben Mack reveals all the branding secrets the pros keep to themselves so you can put branding to work in your business, large or small.

First, Mack destroys the myth that branding is your logo or your color palette. Then, he demonstrates how great branding works, so you won’t waste your money on marketing that gets you nowhere. You’ll learn a practical, commonsense approach to marketing that empowers you to develop your own brand with the same techniques and technologies the big players use—but without breaking the bank. In fact, the less you spend on marketing the more important these tools are to your success.

Branding isn’t magic. Not since Jay Levinson’s original Guerrilla Marketing book has an insider really spilled the beans and taught you how to use the professional grade tools that are so simple they work automatically. Think Two Products Ahead reveals inside secrets that make branding work for marketing budgets of any size—so you can grow your business faster and stronger than you imagined. When it comes to your brand, this insider’s guide proves that if you aren’t thinking two products ahead, you’re hardly thinking at all.

The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy by Jon Gordan (Publication Date: January 22nd, 2007)

Jon Gordan is an energy coach. Energy Coach? Huh? That was my exact thoughts when I saw the author’s website. Sure enough if you Google ‘energy coach’ his website is the third link listed. What does an energy coach do? They help develop programs like the The Positive Energy Program, which helps parents and teachers develop healthy, positive kids. They also write books such as this one – how to incorporate positive energy into everyday problems. Grab a cup of coffee for this one.

From the books website:

In the mode of other best selling business fables The Energy Bus, by Jon Gordon, takes readers on an enlightening and inspiring ride that reveals 10 secrets for approaching life and work with the kind of positive, forward thinking that leads to true accomplishment - at work and at home. Everyone faces challenges. And every person, organization, company and team will have to overcome negativity and adversity to define themselves and create their success. No one goes through life untested and the answer to these tests is positive energy—the kind of positive energy consisting of vision, trust, optimism, enthusiasm, purpose, and spirit that defines great leaders and their teams. Drawing upon his experience and work with thousands of leaders, sales professionals, teams, non-profit organizations, schools, and athletes, Gordon infuses this engaging story with keen insights, actionable strategies and a big dose of positive infectious energy.

You Call the Shots: Succeed Your Way– And Live the Life You Want– With the 19 Essential Secrets of Entrepreneurship by Cameron Johnson (Publication Date: January 9th, 2007)

Young serial entrepreneur Cameron Johnson shares his secrets for the entrepreneurial life. Many may have to swallow their pride by taking advice from a 22 year old, but Cameron has started, run, and sold 12 ‘successful’ companies (many of them Internet based) by the age of 21. This book should be an interesting read for those with entrepreneurial dreams.

Book Description:

Why work for someone else when you can call your own shots, pursue your dreams, and find success on your terms by starting your own business? So many people end up bored with their jobs, stuck in the corporate grind, never following their true passions. As wildly successful young entrepreneur Cameron Johnson shows, you don’t have to live that way. We’ve entered a new age of entrepreneurship, with the Web making it easier than ever to start and run your own company. As Johnson’s remarkable story reveals, the entrepreneurial way of life is a great way to make sure you love what you do — and it offers the potential to achieve extraordinary success by following your gut instincts and going for what you really want.

The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their Employees, Retain Talent, and Drive Performance by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton (Publication Date: January 2nd, 2007)

Adrian Gostick, an employee motivation expert and managing director of The Carrot Culture Group, a consulting and training division of O.C. Tanner Recognition Company, and Chester Elton a Vice President of performance recognition with the same company have teamed up to promote the ‘Carrot Culture’. What are their principles? That recognition is the most effective way to engage employees, retain talent, and accelerate the performance of teams. I found a useful guide on ‘How to Recognize’ employees on their website. Forward it on to your boss if you are feeling under appreciated!

From the Inside Flap:
The Carrot Principle reveals the groundbreaking result of one of the most in-depth management studies ever taken, showing definitively that the central characteristic of the most successful managers is they provide their employees with frequent and effective recognition (if happen to do the opposite, fail to provide recognition to others, you are following one of the habits which prevents further success. This is discussed in “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” which was last Friday’s giveaway)

Mass collaboration (think Wikipedia, and the term Web 2.0) on the web is and has been a hot topic for the past few years. Time magazines recent crowning of You as Person of the Year (read the article here) is just one example of media attention this topic is receiving. One thing that is for sure is this social phenomenon is changing the face of business. One of the latest releases on this subject, “Wikinomics” sets out to argue the benefits of the open source, mass collaboration model for businesses.

The authors are now organizing The Wikinomics Playbook: A Peer-Produced Guide to Business in the 21st Century. From the Wikinomics.com website:

“Wikinomics has 11 chapters, but only ten have yet been written. Chapter 11, The Wikinomics Playbook, will be written by you: a community of readers and experts like yourself who will share ideas about how to embed key Wikinomics concepts and principles in 21st century organizations and business enterprises.

Like Wikipedia, The Wikinomics Playbook will run a wiki: a revolutionary piece of software that enables anyone (including relative novices) to collaboratively edit the content of a Web page. Whether you’re a world renown expert in your field or an aspiring business school student you’ll have the opportunity to help write the definitive guide to strategy and value creation in the new era of mass collaboration.”

The wiki is set to open to the public Feburary 5th. Keep that date in mind if you are interested in collaborating.

Related Links:

• We Are Smarter Than Me - MIT Center for Collective Intelligence is publishing a collaborative book on how the emergence of community and social networks will change the future rules of business.
• Collective Intelligence blog - Not updated that frequently, but contains information surrounding CI
• What is Web 2.0? - Technology guru Tim O’Reily explains the concepts behind the ‘new’ version of the Internet

Books related to this subject:

• Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge by Cass R. Sunstein
• Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace by Pierre Levy, Robert Bononno
• The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler
• The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few by James Surowiecki
• The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All by Tom Atlee, Rosa Zubizarreta

Another week and more business book releases:

Boeing Versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business by John Newhouse (Released: January 16th, 2007)

This is the latest release featuring the two aviation giants Boeing and Airbus. There isn’t a shortage of books featuring these two companies. Try doing an Amazon search on either company and you will get several results returned. Author John Newhouse incorporates interviews he conducted with former managers, Wall Street analysts, and aviation engineers to highlight the up and downs each company has faced over the years, and the future competition they face from China. This book is an update of John Newhouse’s 1982 book on the aviation industry, The Sporty Game.

Anyone familiar with stock market investing is familiar with Burton Malkiel. He is the leading proponent of the controversial ‘efficient market’ hypotheses. If you aren’t familiar with the hypotheses, it states that it is impossible to ‘beat the market’ because the markets have already have incorporated all known information in each stock price. This million-copy best selling book is updated with a new chapter on behavior finance, an often over looked study of human and social biases on financial decisions.

From the The Three Tensions website:

Through extensive research and in-depth discussions authors Dominic Dodd and Ken Favaro explore the three fundamental tensions every company faces:

• Profibility vs. Growth
• Short Term vs. Long Term
• Whole vs. Parts

and how to overcome them. Check out The Three Tensions website for more information.

In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce (Released January 16th, 2007)

From Amazon.com:

“In In Spite of the Gods, Edward Luce, a journalist who covered India for many years, makes brilliant sense of India and its rise to global power. Already a number-one bestseller in India, his book is sure to be acknowledged for years as the definitive introduction to modern India.

In Spite of the Gods illuminates a land of many contradictions. The booming tech sector we read so much about in the West, Luce points out, employs no more than one million of India’s 1.1 billion people. Only 35 million people, in fact, have formal enough jobs to pay taxes, while three-quarters of the country lives in extreme deprivation in India’s 600,000 villages. Yet amid all these extremes exists the world’s largest experiment in representative democracy—and a largely successful one, despite bureaucracies riddled with horrifying corruption.

Luce shows that India is an economic rival to the U.S. in an entirely different sense than China is. There is nothing in India like the manufacturing capacity of China, despite the huge potential labor force. An inept system of public education leaves most Indians illiterate and unskilled. Yet at the other extreme, the middle class produces ten times as many engineering students a year as the United States. Notwithstanding its future as a major competitor in a globalized economy, American. leaders have been encouraging India’s rise, even welcoming it into the nuclear energy club, hoping to balance China’s influence in Asia.

Above all, In Spite of the Gods is an enlightening study of the forces shaping India as it tries to balance the stubborn traditions of the past with an unevenly modernizing present. Deeply informed by scholarship and history, leavened by humor and rich in anecdote, it shows that India has huge opportunities as well as tremendous challenges that make the future “hers to lose.”

Here are some of the more notable business books released today:

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die - Just finished this. Brothers Chip Heath and Dan Heath have combined their efforts to write an in depth book on what makes ideas ’stick’. Why do some ideas thrive while others die? How do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? Read this book and you’ll find out. Made to Stick will be one of the top selling books for 2007.

Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don’t - Ram Charan, co-author of the best selling Execution is back with a new book on leadership for the 21st century. The Know-Hows are practical foundations for success. He touches on subjects such as positioning and repositioning your business, effective goal setting, managing the social system of your business and leadership development. A hodgepodge of ideas, expect Ram to deliver a solid book for top management.

Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life - Alan Deutschman has expands on his 2005 Fast Company cover story to a full length book. Why is it tough to change human behavior?

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade - The award winning book (last year’s FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book Award nominee) on the economic and political lessons from the life story of a simple t-shirt is released in paperback edition. Jack Covert of 800-CEO-Read reviews the book here.