Tag Archives: Book reviews

How I trimmed 1,900 messages and never felt hungry!

I reduced my work inbox from 1,904 messages to zero over the weekend. I can’t tell you the peace of mind. Back about 1,800 inbox messages ago, I started to fret. The scrolling screens of red unread messages were my hamster wheel. A thousand inbox messages later, I felt symptoms of drowning each time I [...]
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A book for resolve: Change or Die

Change or Die by Alan Deutschman was referred to me by a physician who is using its ideas to help her patients make life changes (thanks, Deb). It was an ideal read to usher in a new year, a new decade and a new phase in my career. Many of the change ideas were familiar to [...]
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Filmmaker’s advice for great business storytelling

Filmmaker Peter Guber (Rainman, Batman, The Color Purple) once used storytelling to win Fidel Castro’s support for filming in Havana Harbor. The official application form had been torpedoed, but El Presidente enthusiastically endorsed the project once he heard Guber tell of the harbor’s historic significance and Castro’s responsibility to the world to share that piece of [...]
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Put the “public” back in PR

Review: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge Key idea: Public Relations today means attending to relationships. Good PR starts with listening to the desires, needs and pain points of our customers and potential customers. It also starts with an excellent understanding of what our organization can offer to [...]
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How much time is left to civilization?

What was going through that Easter Islander’s mind when he cut down the last palm tree, sealing his people’s doom? Was the last Viking to die in Greenland a wealthy man or a peasant who stormed his farm to butcher his last cow? Jared Diamond excels at putting human flesh on the archaeological bones left [...]
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Proud that he’s an American

I am asking my relatives to donate to the Central Asia Institute in lieu of birthday and Christmas gifts this year. I figure every dollar that goes to Greg Mortenson’s project to educate Muslim girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan undoes the damage of at least 1,000 military dollars. Mortenson discovered the root of extremism — [...]
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Best book on teams

Katzenback, J.R. & Smith, D.K. (1993, Rev.). The Wisdom of Teams. New York: HarperBusines. Team building in organizations too often attends to the interrelationships of individuals and neglects performance. Organizations that create a culture that monitors and values group achievement are more flexible, innovative and efficient, Katzenbach and Smith say. They lay out the fundamentals [...]
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Best book for daily centering

Dreher, D. (1996). The Tao of Personal Leadership. New York: HarperBusiness. Dreher, an educator, aikido practitioner, and student of the Tao organizes passages from the Tao Te Ching to guide leaders to awareness, centeredness, honor, and humility. The first section of the book addresses inner processes that help leaders achieve personal confidence in their role. [...]
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My favorite org comm book

Clampitt, P.G. (2004). Communicating for Managerial Effectiveness. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Clampitt suggests that effective communication is like dance, with partners passing messages back and forth, learning about each other and co-creating meaning. It is an ongoing process, rather than definitive episodes of message transmission and receiving. If a leader understands communication in this way, [...]
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