If you’re in need of some new ideas for engaging your team, improving communication and achieving better results overall, the books on this list will inspire and motivate you to grow your business and make changes in your organization culture and organizational structure.
1. You Don’t Have to be Ruthless to Win: The Art of Badass Selfless Service by Jonathan Keyser
Jonathan Keyser is out to prove that you don’t have to be all about yourself in business but instead can excel by taking a selfless approach to servicing customers.
Keyser shares how he had a job he hated in commercial real estate brokerage and how it turned him into the worst version of himself. From there, he explains how he decided to reinvent himself as a selfless leader. As a result, his brokerage firm achieved eight figures.
Keyser walks you through the transformation process in mindset, perspective and action to explain how you can become a selfless servant and leader of a company who is focused on others. Beyond business, he explains how you can be selfless in all aspects of your life without being taken advantage of or losing your own identity.
2. Mean People Suck: How Empathy Leads to Bigger Profits and a Better Life by Michael Brenner
Author Michael Brenner challenges the idea that leaders must be “mean” in order to be authoritative and an effective manager. Instead, he introduces the idea of using empathy to connect and communicate better with your employees.
When employee engagement is low in the workplace, poor management and lack of leadership are often to blame. Negativity in company culture, poor relationships with co-workers and a boss who’s just plain mean will lead to unhappy employees, worse performance and lower profits.
Brenner uses his own experiences and challenges from his career as a corporate sales and marketing executive alongside proven research to create a guide to developing empathy in the workplace. It all comes together to better engage employees and enjoy a more meaningful career.
3. Elevate by Robert Glazer
Robert Glazer provides an inspiring read about how you can bring out the best in yourself as well as those around you. Building on the power of a positive focus and his thought leadership as a visionary in the business world, he includes real-life lessons from numerous individuals.
The primary aim of the book is not to just help elevate readers to achieve individual sense. Instead, Glazer goes much deeper than that.
He examines how spirituality, emotional intelligence and intellectual ability provide pathways toward becoming a better person and igniting the best in those around you. As a result, he delivers the recipe for happiness, joy and satisfaction in work and life.
4. Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live by Laszlo Bock
Google is not only one of the world’s most successful companies, but it’s also one of the most sought-after places to work. Google is famous for its employee perks like free gourmet food and innovative working environments, but is there more to the organization’s success? Who better to give away the secrets to Google’s success than one of its insiders?
Author Laszlo Bock was the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google — a job role that entailed being in charge of attracting and retaining “Googlers”, and making Google win the title of Best Company to Work for more than 30 times around the world.
5. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
Good management is all about helping every member of your team to reach their full potential. Sometimes those with the most potential aren’t the ones self-promoting their skills and vying for your attention, but the quiet individuals who remain in the background.
Cain takes us on a journey inside the mind of an introvert and shows us how much they’re often undervalued in the workplace and elsewhere.
This is not just a book written for introverts (although if you class yourself as one, you’ll find much value in it.) Leaders and managers can also learn how to get the most from their most introverted employees and understand that working in a team isn’t always the way to get the best out of everyone.
6. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh
Online retailer Zappos has featured as an example of excellent workplace culture in many other books, so there should be no surprise in seeing a book written by Zappos CEO in this list.
Hsieh reveals the secrets of an organization that’s not only hugely financially successful (Zappos was bought out by Amazon in a deal worth $1.2 billion), but also frequently named as one of the best companies to work for.
7. Shut Up and Listen!: Hard Business Truths That Will Help You Succeed by Tilman Fertitta and Jim Gray
Also known as the Billion Dollar Buyer, author Tilman Fertitta is an entrepreneur who turned one restaurant into a global hospitality empire worth billions. Now, he’s sharing how you can do the same with your business.
Over the course of 30 years in business, Fertitta has gone through the challenges and failures to get to the successes. What’s gotten him through are a set of principles that he has adhered to and that have shapes his company, which includes Landry’s Seafood, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, Morton’s Steakhouse, The Chart House, Rainforest Café and more than forty restaurant concepts as well as five Golden Nugget Casinos. Plus, Fertitta is the sole owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets.
8. Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform For Change by Marc Benioff and Monica Langley
Written by the founder and co-CEO of Salesforce, this new New York Times bestseller guides you through the ways you should proactively seek out change as your primary business purpose and vehicle for innovation and growth. Besides change, how values need to define your business culture because these are what shape your business purpose.
To explain what he means, Benioff provides a behind-the-scenes look at Salesforce and its core values, which include trust, customer success, innovation and equality. He goes through each value to illustrate how it is a clear component to the organization’s culture and how it drives the change necessary to keep the company relevant and competitive.
Happy Reading!
Let us know if you like any of the books and share your insights. We would love to hear them:)
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