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Recommended
Reading
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"The 4 Disciplines of Execution"
By Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling
Since its introduction in the spring of 2012, The 4 Disciplines of Execution has garnered critical acclaim from business leaders around the globe. This book is full of memorable gems and real business insight that can help any company achieve superb results—regardless of the goal.
It will only take you the first few pages of reading 4DX to realize you have come across something capable of profoundly changing the way you set out to manage your busy schedule every single day. “Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important” teaches us that trying to push too many goals at once will usually result in a mediocre job on all of them. As you approach your seemingly never-ending list of things to do, 4DX teaches that you can still maintain all of your goals as important, but right now, you have only one or two wildly important goals that are owed your finest diligence and efforts. In 4DX, this is called managing the whirlwind of your day-to-day job.
Many people who have read 4DX have come to the same conclusion: Before they learned to manage the whirlwind, their minds were like a giant cloud with a lot of great ideas and worthy goals, but no real structure. Now, after implementing the book’s teachings, their minds operate like a clean flow chart with strategic intent and clearly defined finish lines—and all that is from just one Discipline!
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 "The
Coming Jobs War"
By Jim Clifton
Gallup chairman Jim Clifton offers a timely and
compelling exploration of the urgency of job
creation and the current "all out global war for
good jobs". Jobs are critical, Clifton contends,
because they underpin societies and allow people
to prosper, thereby creating well-being and
fostering new achievements in all areas of human
development.
Unfortunately, we face a global job shortage
approaching 2 billion with no apparent driver
for jobs imminent. The country that does the
most to enable job growth will become the next
economic superpower. The text explores
the multifaceted dimensions of this topic, with
plenty of corroboration from Gallup data.
As an American, Clifton admits to a U.S. bias
and speculates on what America must do to
maintain its predominant economic position and
prevail in the coming jobs war. His ideas
include encouraging job creation in cities,
emphasizing entrepreneurship over innovation,
drastically cutting healthcare costs, improving
employee engagement, creating friendlier
economic conditions for small businesses,
encouraging American business to do more to
establish global customers, and promoting the
need to increase exports several-fold during the
next decade and beyond.
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"People Buy You"
By Joe Blount
A fundamental
fact in sales is people don't buy your products
and services, your slogans, marketing materials
or cheesy lines . . .
People Buy YOU!
In his Amazon #1 bestselling sales book -
People Buy YOU, Jeb
Blount teaches you WHY people buy you and HOW to
use this information to get them to want what
you've got.
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"Sheep Thief: How Anyone, Anywhere Can Make A
Positive Change in Life"
By Al Walker
Several hundred years ago in a quaint village in
Italy, two young men were caught stealing sheep.
They were immediately taken to trial before the
town judge, found guilty and, there in front of
their fellow villagers, were given their
sentence. It was a cruel, harsh and painful
sentence that would mark them for life.
One of these men died a lonely, embarrassed and
embittered old man who was far away from home,
penniless and without any friends, while the
other overcame his past to become the
wealthiest, most successful man in the region.
Everyone knew his name and honored him. He
became the patriarch. There was not one human
being who had not been touched by him in some
way.
Al Walker utilizes the parable of The Sheep
Thief and the character of Mr. Taylor, a
successful corporate board member and mentor, to
remind us that anyone, anywhere can make a
positive change in life.
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 "Leading
Outside the Lines" How to Mobilize the
Informal Organization, Energize Your Team, and
Get Better Results
By
Jon
Katzenbach and Zia Kahn
Every enterprise has an informal as well as a
formal organization. The formal is the side with
which business people are usually most familiar.
It consists of analyses, strategies, structures,
processes and programs – all codified in memos,
charts and power-point presentations. These
tools are designed to align decisions and
actions. The informal is generally less
familiar. It consists of emerging ideas, social
networks, working norms, values, peer
relationships and communities of common interest
– the elements that often hide beyond the
boundaries of the formal. In “Leading Outside
the Lines”, authors Jon Katzenbach and Zia Khan
make the compelling case that it is in the less
familiar informal world where magic happens …
yet one without the other is unlikely to sustain
peak performance over time.
“Katzenbach and Khan’s book is a must-read for
leaders who want their teams to shine in terms
of performance, innovation, retention, or any
other metric of success...”
Keith Ferrazzi
Author,
Who's Got Your Back
and
Never Eat Alone
To view a complete list of testimonials -
click here
Through persuasive case studies from enterprises
of all sizes around the world—in business,
government and the social sector —Katzenbach and
Khan reveal how top-level organizations balance
informal and formal elements to achieve
outstanding results. Leading Outside the Lines
represents an insightful new approach for
understanding and improving the success of
corporate initiatives by showing when you can
get the most done by using elements that operate
under the radar (the informal), and when it is
in fact better to use more traditional processes
(the formal). Most importantly, the book
illustrates how the two can work together to get
the best of both. The book also provides
self-assessment guidelines for senior leaders,
front-line managers, and individual
contributors.
Using the information and tools outlined in this
book, leaders and potential leaders at all
levels can tap into the power of the informal to
achieve top-notch, sustainable performance and
results.
Jon Katzenbach
is a senior partner
at Booz & Company and leads The Katzenbach
Center at Booz & Company.
View bio >
Zia Khan
is vice president for
strategy and evaluation at the Rockefeller
Foundation.
View bio >
Leading Outside the Lines
is published by
Jossey-Bass.
Copyright 2010 Booz & Company
Inc. All rights reserved.
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"The Carrot principle"
By Adrian Gostick & Chester Elton
Got
carrotphobia? Do you think that recognizing your
employees will distract you and your team from
more serious business, create jealousy, or make
you look soft?
Think
again.
"The
Carrot Principle" reveals the groundbreaking
results of one of the most in-depth management
studies ever undertaken, showing definitively
that the central characteristic of the most
successful managers is that they provide their
employees with frequent and effective
recognition. With independent research from The
Jackson Organization and analysis by bestselling
leadership experts Adrian Gostick and Chester
Elton, this breakthrough study of 200,000 people
over ten years found dramatically greater
business results when managers offered
constructive praise and meaningful rewards in
ways that powerfully motivated employees to
excel.
Drawing
on case studies from leading companies including
Disney, DHL, KPMG, and Pepsi Bottling Group,
bestselling authors Gostick and Elton show how
the transformative power of purpose-based
recognition produces astonishing increases in
operating results -- whether measured by return
on equity, return on assets, or operating
margin. And they show how great managers lead
with carrots, not sticks, and in doing so
achieve higher
Productivity Engagement Retention Customer
satisfaction
"The
Carrot Principle" illustrates that the
relationship between recognition and improved
business results is highly predictable -- it's
proven to work. But it's not the employee
recognition some of us have been using for
years. It is recognition done right, recognition
combined with four other core traits of
effective leadership.
Gostick
and Elton explain the remarkably simple but
powerful methods great managers use to provide
their employees with effective recognition,
which all managers can easily learn and begin
practicing for immediate results. Great
recognition doesn't take time -- it can be done
in a matter of moments -- and it doesn't take
budget-busting amounts of money.
This
exceptional book presents the simple steps to
becoming a Carrot Principle manager and to
building a recognition culture in your
organization; it offers a wealth of specific
examples, culled from real-life cases, of the
ways to do recognition right. Following these
simple steps will make you a high-performance
leader and take your team to a new level of
achievement.
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 Updated Publication
Wood’s natural
warmth, beauty and durability makes APA Rated
Siding popular for scores of indoor and outdoor
applications. The updated version of
APA’s Product Guide:
Performance Rated Siding
describes the features of APA Rated Siding and
shows the wide variety of patterns and textures
that are available. This guide also includes
recommendations for finishing and refinishing
exterior siding.
Available
only as a free downloadable pdf.
Updated June
2009. Form E300, 16 pages.
Featured Website
APA recently added three new features to
PerformancePanels.com.
The website - APA's primary tool to reach the
industrial marketplace - provides extensive
information about the attributes and
non-construction applications of engineered wood
panels. The new additions include:
-
Wood -- Green &
Growing,
a four-and-a-half-minute video produced
exclusively for
PerformancePanels.com.
This presentation highlights the many
environmental advantages of building with
engineered wood, detailing wood’s natural,
sustainable and carbon neutral
characteristics.
-
The
Sustainable Forest
Management Certification page
identifies the programs that verify the
stewardship and use of forests in a way that
maintains their biodiversity, productivity,
regeneration capacity and vitality. A list
of the forest management certification
programs employed by participating APA
members is provided.
The
Panel Locator
is a new tool that makes finding Performance
Panel manufacturers quick and simple. Visitors
can click on one of five panel category buttons
to view a list of related manufacturers and
detailed wood structural panel information.
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 Wall
Bracing Publications
The fourth piece in APA’s bracing
series,
Build Energy Efficient Walls
is now available. This brochure provides five
basic steps to construct energy-saving wood wall
systems that meet code, are durable to the
forces of nature, and save homeowners money.
Available for purchase or as a downloadable PDF.
Form J440, 16 pages, $2.
For complete wall bracing
information and links to all four of APA’s Wall
Bracing publications visit
www.wallbracing.org.
Updated Publications
APA Builder Tips feature common construction
details and provide straightforward solutions to
common problems in concise, two-page
publications. Five Builder Tips have recently
been updated.
Builder Tips: How To Minimize Buckling of
Asphalt Shingles,
describes procedures to ensure optimum
performance of the shingle roofing and reduce
roof callbacks and complaints. Available for
purchase or as a downloadable PDF. Form K310, 2
pages, $0.10
Builder Tips: Cut Callbacks with Proper Spacing
and Nailing,
includes spacing and nailing recommendations for
APA Rated Sheathing, APA R ated Sturd-I-Floor,
and APA 303 Siding. Available for purchase or as
a downloadable PDF. Form M300, 2 pages, $0.10
Builder Tips: Proper Installation of APA Rated
Sheathing for Roof Applications,
offers step-by-step instructions for roof
sheathing installation. Available for purchase
or as a downloadable PDF. Form N335, 2 pages,
$0.10
Builder Tips: Steps to Construct a Solid,
Squeak-Free Floor System,
describes how to prevent floor complaints and
callbacks with proper floor sheathing
installation. Available for purchase or as a
downloadable PDF. Form Q300, 2 pages, $0.10
Builder Tips: Minimize Nail Pops,
describes how to reduce nail pops through
recommended fastener selection and installation.
Available for purchase or as a downloadable PDF.
Form S300, 2 pages, $0.10
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SBMA Book Review
With the economic times we are experiencing, it
is easy for our employees and yeas even us to
get down.The below book has some great ideas for
helping you to look at the positive side of
things. The below review was written by the
author Mac Anderson.
In a perfect world, we hear something once,
record it in our brain and never have to hear it
again.
Well, I don't know where you're living, but my
world is far from perfect. I occasionally have
doubts, fears and disappointments in my life.
During those times, I need “shots of
inspiration” to reinforce, to encourage, and to
motivate.
That's what my new book
Charging the Human Battery is all about...50
ways to motivate yourself!
I think that one of the great challenges in life
is to get inside our own heads, and truly
understand what makes us tick. It's not easy,
but this little book was written with that in
mind.
Just remember...people are like sticks of
dynamite; the power's on the inside but nothing
happens until the fuse gets lit.
It is my hope that as you read there will be
many “a-ha moments” to light your fuse, and keep
it lit, through good times and bad.
But here's the key...keep it close and read it
often. Because as my friend Zig Ziglar said,
“People often tell me that motivation doesn't
last, and I tell them bathing doesn't either,
that's why I recommend it daily!”
As I mentioned, there are 50 short chapters, and
each one shares an idea that has the potential
to turn your switch from “off” to “on.” Today
I'd like to share chapter two titled: You are
Only One Choice Away from Changing Your Life.
Enjoy!
an excerpt from
Charging The Human Battery
by Mac Anderson
Think about that. One choice, just one, can
change your life forever. Simply put, your life
today is what your choices have made it, but
with new choices, you can change directions this
very moment. For me, that idea alone is highly
motivational because it offers tremendous hope,
regardless of circumstances, for a better
tomorrow.
Your life-changing choice may be to switch
careers, to leave an abusive relationship, to go
back to school, to stop drinking, to adopt a
child, to start a business, to lose weight, to
start a charity...to name a few. If you have the
courage to do so, you could make any one of
those choices, or others, today. And you would
change your life.
Sometimes it's a different kind of choice. It
can be to not quit, to not give up in the face
of adversity. We've all been there.
Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen received 77
rejections for their idea Chicken Soup for the
Soul. They had to make a decision each
time...should they throw in the towel and say
enough is enough, or should they keep trying to
pursue their dreams? You know the rest of the
story. The 78th publisher said “Yes” and they
went on to sell over 100 million books.
So never forget that you are only one choice
away from changing your life. Do you have the
courage to make it?
Live with Passion,
Mac Anderson
Founder, Simple Truths
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