Ted Talk superstar and best-selling author Simon Sinek, best known for Start With Why, brings us Leaders Eat Last — a book that deals with creating the type of environment that inspires people to come together and work naturally to create remarkable things. He looks into the fundamental philosophies that separate great leaders from the not so great. Based on his learnings from a range of companies around the world, Sinek explores the truth that some teams tend to work better than others, and how to adopt the principles that facilitate greater working culture. Sinek draws inspiration for the book from a conversation with a Marine Corps general, who said 'Officers eat last.' He makes the argument as to why this symbolic perspective is a strategic lever for business leaders. In a highly competitive and chaotic business world that's filled with ego, paranoia, self-interest and cynicism, Sinek calls business leaders to create a working model that’s built on trust and corporation, drawing his leaders in areas as wide as military to business, government to investment banking and more. Book review here: businessbooksnow.com/post/book-review-leaders-eat-last-by-simon-sinek
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Stephen R. Covey’s seminal bookThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective People looks at the step-by-step principles of people who live with a bit more conviction, revolution, and success. It’s a book that underpins the strategy of people who solve problems, both personal and professional, and gear themselves up for success because they can take advantage of every scenario. The book explores fundamental themes like fairness, integrity, human dignity, service and taste that help in giving people the means to learn, adapt and make the most of opportunities. It reveals timeless, fundamental wisdom that can be integrated into everyday thinking to improve people’s holistic approach to self-improvement, personality, productivity, orientation and success, irrespective of who they are. It’s a book that helps each of us cultivate better habits that have a transforming impact in everything we do. Book review here: businessbooksnow.com/post/book-review-the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-people-by-stephen-r-covey
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What does it take to lead and win? This is the basis of the book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin — two U.S. Navy SEAL officers, who bring their real life learnings and experiences from the battlefield to inspire business leaders of all kinds the powerful principles of leadership. Of all things, the art of combat teaches people a great deal about how to manage unimaginable, dynamic situations where courage and leadership are necessities, not nice-to-haves. U.S. Navy SEAL officers Willink and Babin explain the nature and role of leadership in the essence of combat, drawing insight from the world’s most dangerous battlefields of Iraq. This is a book that’s filled with gripping, firsthand accounts of heroism, loss, and victory, and spotlights leadership as the central theme in determining whether a team succeeds or fails. Laying out a list of principles, this book inspires potential leaders in all fields. Willink and Babin, on leaving the U.S. Navy SEALs service, go on to establish a company called Echelon Front that promotes these leadership principles, training leaders across every category nationally and internationally, designed to turn teams into high-performance teams. Companies worldwide have used parts of these principles to design their own leadership programs, and this is a book that serves as a comprehensive guide to extreme leadership, useful for personal and professional context. Book review here: businessbooksnow.com/post/book-review-extreme-ownership-by-jocko-willink-and-leif-babin
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Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead explores the premise that leadership takes courage. The book looks into what makes leaders strong, to rise above and face situations with conviction. Leadership, Brown suggests, isn't about titles, status, or power but about the ability to take responsibility in understanding the potential of people and ideas, and finding the best way to realise that potential to full effect. This book delves into the core concepts of leadership that are human. In a world dominated by fear, scarcity and uncertainty, certain skills are essential to navigate the world better. These sets of skills transcend what AI and machines offer. They're skills born from human emotions, empathy, connections and courage. Brown demonstrates that daring leadership skills are teachable, and available for anyone to learn and execute so as to better lead in all areas of life and business. These skills help manage all sorts of difficult scenarios, conversations and challenges. Brown explores the question on how to cultivate brave, daring leaders, while establishing a culture of courage in whatever the workplace is. To be brave isn’t a basic human endeavour, it’s a way to step up and lead life with purpose, action and intention. Book review here: businessbooksnow.com/post/book-review-dare-to-lead-by-bren%C3%A9-brown
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Habits, habits, habits. Everyone wants to form good habits and kill bad habits. But it’s easier said than done. James Clear’s Atomic Habits is one of the best-selling books on habits. Something that’s interesting for anyone to read. Clear is one the world’s most renowned experts on studying habits. He developed this book by observing people as wide as artists, athletes, physicians, comedians and business leaders among others. The premise of the book is that small, tiny changes can lead to big, remarkable results. Clear notes that changing your habits isn’t about you, the person, but about the system within which you operate. So to change habits is to change the way you operate. The book condenses complex topics into simple behaviors that can be applied in the things we do everyday, inspiring better habits, and eliminating bad habits. The book explores themes such as how to make time for new habits, how to overcome motivation and willpower, how to design the right space to achieve better habits and how to get back on track when you slip. It’s a book that can transform your habits, and make you more successful in all sorts of life challenges: quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, do more, do less, learn something new etc. Book review here: businessbooksnow.com/post/book-review-atomic-habits-by-james-clear
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John Doerr is among the most famous venture capitalists, and is best-known as one of early investors in Google. He gave $12.5 million to experienced tech wizards, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google who had tech ideas and entrepreneurial spirit but no business knowledge or business plan to command the investment. However, Page and Brin, with the support of Doerr, ended up learning how to strategize, prioritize, and track progress to measure what matters and lead the success story Google as we know of. Doerr’s strategic inputs were primarily based on the art of goal-setting, and the two factors of operating excelling: objectives and key results (OKRs). The premise of John Doerr’s Measure What Matters deals with how setting objectives and key results can lead to explosive growth, helping any organization achieve great success. Book review here: businessbooksnow.com/post/book-review-measure-what-matters-by-john-doerr
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The question of what makes some companies do better than others, and more so how some companies go from good to great. This is the subject of enquiry in Jim Collins’ Good to Great. While Collins’ previous book, the defining Built to Last explored the basis for how some companies endure with sustained long-term performance while others don’t with strong DNAs, Good to Great looks into what good, mediocre and even bad companies need to do to achieve greatness. Some companies do not have a strong DNA, and yet manage to defy the forces of business gravity and turn long-term mediocrity into long-term superiority. Collins reveals what factors and characteristics allow merely good companies to become great. Collins and his team undertake robust research to show how good to great companies outperform the stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, and twice that of great companies like Intel, Coca-Cola, Merck and General Electric. Collins and his team study good-to-great companies and match them against those that don’t and conclude with a range of findings. That is, to go from good to great, companies need a special type of leaders, transcend the curse of competence, allow discipline to mix with alchemy, innovation and acceleration, resist radical restructuring that create doom.
Book review here: businessbooksnow.com/post/book-review-good-to-great-by-jim-collins
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Daniel Kahneman is a Princeton University psychologist who won a Nobel Prize in economics. What’s interesting is that he’s a psychologist winning an economics prize. By bridging psychology and economics, Kahneman’s influential work — influencing the likes of Steven Pinker to Malcolm Gladwell — has spawned the exciting field of behavioral economics. Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow is a highly interesting book that explains how people think, and will change the way you think about thinking. It establishes the idea that the mind essentially works in two streams: System 1 and System 2. System 1 is the fast, intuitive and emotional brain. System 2 is the slow, deliberate and logical brain. This explains how we make decisions, some fast, some slow, and some in combination. At times, for certain decisions, we rely on our gut, instinct and intuitions. During other times, we rely on slow, logical, reasoning. There is a contrast in how these two biases impact the way we think about decisions and contrast the thinking proposed by the standard rational economic agent. This book helps people think about thinking, offering practical insights into how choices are made and can improve the way we take personal and professional decisions, and is therefore a refreshing read. Book review here: businessbooksnow.com/post/book-review-thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman Get your copy here: amzn.to/3vpez9g
TED Talks superstar Simon Sinek’s Start with Why is a definitive business book that has inspired thousands of marketers and business leaders to understand their why; the reason why they/their company exits. He makes a compelling case for the power of recognising the why in driving great success and clarity. It all started with a TED Talk Sinek gave that went viral, and is perhaps the most popular TED Talk of all time, with 56 million views and counting. In this talk, Sinek brings to light that every single company leader knows what they’re doing and how they’re doing what they’re doing, but only a very few understand why they’re doing what they're doing. He makes the case for founders and business leaders to flip the format on how they should approach their strategic playbook. To start now with the how, what, and then why but to start with the why and then reveal the how and what. He introduces readers to the strategic framework of ‘Golden Circle’ — to define the why, how, what, which has served as a strategy guide for thousands of founders, business leaders and marketers around the world. This is a book that asks leaders to recognize their purpose, which acts as a source of greater relevance and intent. Simon Sinek’s ‘Start with Why’ is an essential read because, among many useful lessons, it reveals why some leaders, companies and communicators are more influential and successful than others, and on how they’re able to ignite passion and motivation across teams — it all starts with why.
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There’s a general tendency that assumes that external rewards drive motivation. That people’s motivations are explained by the ’carrot-and-stick’ approach: money being the driver. In Drive, The New York Times bestselling-author Daniel H. Pink makes a compelling case that the secret to satisfaction and greater performance isn’t external rewards or money, but the deeper human need of direction — the ability to direct one’s own lives, and in doing so, learning and creating things that help them do better for themselves, and the world around them. This finding, he argues, manifests across all areas of life: work, school, home. Pink highlights the distinction between what science knows and what business does in terms of motivation, and its implications on every aspect of our lives. Pink identifies autonomy, mastery and purpose as the key elements of motivation, and reveals a number of strategies and techniques to put these into play. This book will help readers rethink their approach to life, and realise and activate the power of motivation in their transformation. Book review here: businessbooksnow.com/post/book-review-drive-by-daniel-h-pink Get your copy here: amzn.to/3TUADSu