WHO’S READING WHAT
Books for Building your Management Skills
➊ The Language of Trust:
Selling Ideas in a World
of Skeptics
by Michael Maslansky,
Gary DeMoss, and Scott West
(Prentice Hall Press, 2010)
How do communicators, managers,
and marketers sell their ideas, products, and services to a generation that
is more skeptical and less influenced
by conventional communication and
marketing than ever before? Based on
groundbreaking research conducted
with thousands of individuals, this step-by-step guide will
help you understand your audience and how to communicate
with them more effectively. Topics include the mechanics and
mindset of communicating with trust and credibility; choosing the right words; structuring a message; and putting the
audience’s interests before the organization’s.
➋ StrengthsFinder 2.0
by Tom Rath
(Gallup Press, 2007, revised 2010)
Built on the premise that most people
spend their professional lives trying
to improve their weaknesses instead
of working within their strengths,
the StrengthsFinder assessment is
designed to help readers optimize
their talents and the talents of their
employees. This book can be used
with employees at all levels. Thirty-four individual strengths are identified ranging from achiever to WOO (winning others over).
Readers can take a web-based assessment, and the results highlight five top talents in ranked order. Each strength is accompanied by an explanation, anecdotes from others who share
that strength, and a to-do list with actions to implement to
develop specific talents.
DISCOVER;YOUR;STRENGTHS
The 2011 Institute for Aspiring Senior Student Affairs Officers,
set for January 6–9, 2011, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will include a
StrengthsQuest session. Participants will learn to harness their
natural talents to achieve personal and professional success.
Apply for the institute or recommend someone who should
attend at www.naspa.org/programs/aspire.
➌ Come to Win: Business
Leaders, Artists, Doctors, and
Other Visionaries on How Sports
Can Help You Top Your Profession
by Venus Williams, Kelly E. Carter,
and Richard Branson (Amistad Press,
2010)
Grand Slam Tennis Champion Venus
Williams turned to leaders across a
variety of fields, all of whom previously played competitive sports
and who are now at the top of their
professions, and asked them essential
questions: What principles that inspired you toward success as
an athlete are helpful in life? In business?
Ebay’s former CEO Meg Whitman, Nike’s co-founder
Philip Knight, stateswoman Condelezza Rice, entrepreneur
and former NBA player Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and designer
Vera Wang respond with useful tips woven through anecdotes
from their athletic past that have been instrumental in their
post-sports life success. Whether it’s visualizing a course of
action before it happens, turning losses into learning tools,
figuring out who best plays what position in a team environment, or remembering that there is no substitute for preparation, they offer wisdom from a winner’s perspective.
➍ The Checklist Manifesto:
How to Get Things Right
by Dr. Atul Gawande
(Metropolitan Books, 2009)
The author begins the book explaining how a simple five-item checklist
in the operating room can dramatically reduce hospital-acquired infections, which kill 99,000 Americans
each year. But the majority of the
book builds a larger case for how, in
virtually every assigned profession,
critical steps are forgotten and chaos
ensues. “The volume and complexity of what we know has
exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably,” writes Gawande. The solution: Use
checklists. Once you get the checklist right, you may become
a hero, such as Captain Chelsey B. Sullenberger, who followed
a detailed emergency checklist that multiplied his chances of
successfully landing a US Airways flight in the Hudson River.
