10 books to sharpen your leadership skills while on vacation

Are you starting a new role and onboarding or just been promoted?

This book is the blueprint you need to be make a success in the first 90 days

With proven strategies, check lists, evaluation tools, it has chapters on what to do and chapters on not what to do. How to understand people, build alliances, how to build your team and how to manage yourself.

It’s a book you can keep coming back to as you move through your career.

“The First 90 Days” is a book I’ve been searching to read for years. Thanks to Michael D. Watkins.

Hustle culture! Really? 

If life starts at 04:00 AM where you go off the gym, so you can get to the office at 06:00 AM and then work through till 09:00 PM in the evening. Or do you remember the character played by, Michael Douglas in the film “Wall Street”, Gordon Gekko? In which he said “breakfast is for wimps!”

Then you are probably going to burn out and you need to read the book “Flux – 8 superpowers for thriving in constant change”.

Flux is the opposite of hustle culture.

April Rinne’s book “Flux – 8 super powers for thriving in constant change” provides you a framework to slow down and get more done. To work smarter and to get to a point where you don’t burn out. To quote, Lao tzu “when I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”.

Do you know what whakapapa is?

Whakapapa is the Māori idea that people and community need to belong. It represents a spiritual belief that each of us is part of an unbroken chain of people and ancestors that share our culture and identity.

This has been used as an anchor for sports and business to maximise a team’s performance. Having been used by the South African, Scottish and English rugby teams.

Owen Eastwood, explains using his own story as well as other teams he has worked with on how whakapapa is the missing link to make a bridge from being just a team to a high-performance team. 

Not my usual book, but enjoyed it anyway. My partner’s 27-year-old dropped by with some books saying he had finished with them and we could take them up the charity shop if we didn’t want them.

Do you know what do with your life?

Maybe you a student and not sure how to find your path or maybe you are working and you don’t feel fulfilled in the role.

In this book, Ken Robinson walks you through how you can find you “north star” and what to do when you find it. From “cutting and running” to doing it as a “side hustle”. Finding your passion isn’t just about the role, but feeling comfortable in the space, finding your community and tribe.

If you don’t know where you are going in life, then this is worth a read.

I must admit that having finished this book and put it down, I’ve had to take time and process what John Carreyrou has written.

John was a journalist at the Wall Street Journal and he got a “sniff” that things weren’t right at the company, Theranos. It’s CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, in October 2014 was on the front cover of Forbes magazine and her net worth was $4.5 billion. Following Carreyrou’s investigation, Forbes revised this estimate to zero in 2016.

So where did it all go wrong? Well, that’s why you need to read the book.

Carreyrou details the culture of fear within the business, the culture of selling something that didn’t exist. Now remember, that what Theranos did was test blood. 

Now, if you went for a blood test, you would expect this to be with tried and tested technology and you would believe the result that came back. If the result came back and it suggested you might have prostate cancer, your world would change. Just think about the things that would go through your head. Playing fast and loose with patient’s data is morally wrong, but where did it all go wrong?

Not my usual book, but enjoyed it anyway. My partner’s 27-year-old dropped by with some books saying he had finished with them and we could take them up the charity shop if we didn’t want them.

This book is an interview or maybe it’s a conversation between Dr. Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey. The title of the book “what happened to you?” is a better question to ask people with trauma, than say “what’s wrong with you?”.

The book is a journey, through different types and levels of trauma and Dr. Bruce tries to explain, with Oprah asking questions. Whether you are impacted by trauma or just interested in the subject it’s a fascinating book by one of the world’s leading trauma specialists, backed by Oprah’s curiosity and own life experience.  

How can I explain and talk about my emotions more?

How can I make sure that when I talk to people and don’t hurt them?

I recently read this book by Marshall B. Rosenberg, which is called “non-violent communication – the language of life”

The book provides a process known as compassionate communication or NVC

The NVC process provides four components: 1. Observations, 2. Feelings, 3. Needs, and 4. Requests

Which break down into

1. The concrete actions we observe that affect our well-being
2. How we feel in relation to what we observe
3. The needs, value, desires, etc that create our feelings
4. The concrete actions we request in order to enrich our lives

I love the frameworks, the case studies, the examples of wording we use to pass moralistic judgements, make comparisons, deny responsibility and other forms of life alienating communication. How to observe without evaluating, identifying and expressing feelings, with a vocabulary for feelings, taking responsibility for our feelings, receiving empathically, how to be empathic in communication.

With the final chapters on conflict resolution and mediation, it’s certainly a book I can say I will read many times.

Thanks to @Lenwood Ross for recommending this book.

This is Simon’s 3rd edition of his book “digital marketing strategy” which originally came out in 2016, but he has kept updating it. This 3rd edition is updated to support a post-covid world.

The book runs to nearly 400 pages and covers all the subjects you need to setup and define your digital marketing strategy. From knowing your business objectives and your customer, to integrating digital change into your wider organization, from using a channel strategy to reach your clients to conversion, retention and measurement.

As I’m sure Simon would admit, each of these subjects could take a book in itself, this book is an overview and Simon even suggests further reading should you want to dive in and read more on the subject.

Just be aware I read the 3rd edition that came out in May 2022. 

Demand side sales, is a book that gets the reader (whom will be salespeople) to understand it’s not all about them.

Many companies are still going to market pitching “features and benefits” many if not all, the buyer does not care about and in many cases the competition say exactly the same thing.

In this book, Bob Moesta, gets you to understand that the buyer may make a purchase based on other criteria. It is our job as salespeople to understand that “demand side” part of the sale and match our sales position to these buyers wants and needs.

Bob has a nice framework that he draws up to help businesses come up with their own “demand side” understanding of the customer journey. Bob also has a number of case studies which he works through with you in the book. 

If you don’t know Steven Wilson but he is the creative force behind a progressive rock band called, Porcupine Tree. He even admits it’s a wired name, but there again it was all made up. The records were all created in his bedroom. He has come along way since then, even called “the king of Prog”.

This is not your usual boring rock autobiography of drink and drugs in fact Steven admits he pretty boring. But he and Mick Wall (the ghost writer*) know that the modern reader needs to be engaged with more than just words.

So while you get an autobiographical story there are also lists of Steven’s favourite songs of all time, plus musings about various stages in his career, which keeps the book interesting,

I read the limited deluxe version which features a second volume of some “contextual” zoom conversations between Steven and Mick, some of Steven’s short stories as well as the detail behind the additional CD. The CD has tracks from Steven’s career, from school bands through to his work in the advertising industry. As well as Blazing Apostles, God, No man is an island and of course, Porcupine Tree. A great dive into Steven’s actual musical journey. 

*I had a conversation with Mick Wall on Instagram and he said it was a collaboration with Steven, rather than ghost written. Mick went onto to say that Steve is a good writer. 

The new wave of British heavy metal (commonly abbreviated as NWOBHM), pronounced “Nuh-wobbum” was a creation by a music newspaper at the time, Sounds. Following, punk in 1977, which had been pounced upon by its competitor, the New Musical Express (NME). The newspaper needed a movement, like punk, that it could hang its hat on and it found it. Not with the rock music of the past, Deep Purple, Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, which punk had rebelled against. The 20-minute drum solo and 20-minute guitar solo had been killed off by the 3-minute punk song. But what grew out of the ashes was this new generation of rock musician, it was harder, faster and it was grew out of the British pubs and clubs. In other words, like punk you didn’t need to be a trained musician to play this rock, in fact this harder and faster sound was called “metal”.

“Denim and Leather – The rise and fall of the new wave of British Heavy metal”. Is an audio history of this time, taken from interviews from the people that were there, the journalists, the band members and the people that mattered. If you were there, as I was, it’s a nostalgic look back on music you grew up with, if you were not there, it is part of musical history, especially rock and metal musical history. After all it was from NWOBHM that Iron Maiden, Saxon, Def Leppard grew from.

Of course, a blog like this, is going to mention my two books. My first book on social selling, is not about personal branding, it's not about how to use LinkedIn, it's not about my journey. From the start I offer you techniques to increase the number of deals you can win from using social selling. 

These are techniques on how to be social on social, this increasing your conversations, the number of leads you create and the number of deals you will close. 

The book is written as a workbook (don't buy the kindle edition, or the audible, buy the book) that you can work through. None of this "ivory tower" stuff, it's highly practical with techniques you can action today.

My second book, if I had written it today, we would have called it RevOps (RevenueOperations). 

The book is about how to merge sales and marketing under one single strategy, measurement and governance structure. It's based on an actual case study, but we cannot mention who that is. 

What I mean is the book, (like my first book) is practical and takes you through the steps you need to under take to implement a RevOps strategy. Right down to reporting and things you need to look out for so the project is a success.