Reading List for Delivering Behaviourial Change
Recommended Reading
We regularly update the reading list on our e-learning online development academy. This exciting new facility is designed to both enhance our Face to Face development services and also to act as an invaluable learning resource our clients can use throughout their managerial career. We look forward to working with you to help achieve your workplace development goals.
To give you an idea of the book reviews and recommended reading available then read on for some examples of current reviews.
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
A Mind of its Own
Author: Cordelia Fine
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty
Publish Date: 2005
ISBN: 184046678
The world is full of disagreements - differences in values, perceptions and opinions. We argue with each other with varying degrees of passion, supporting our arguments with rational evidence (we think.) We often fail to understand why others fail to grasp our points. Obviously, they are guilty of confused thinking. While others seem confused, at least we know our own minds, do we not?
A great little book, written with wry humour by Dr Cordelia Fine (who has an impressive cv from the Universities of Cambridge, London and Melbourne), should dispel any such confidence. As she writes:
"The truth of the matter ... is that your unscrupulous brain is entirely undeserving of your confidence. It has some shifty habits that leave the truth distorted and disguised. Your brain is vainglorious. It deludes you. It is emotional, pigheaded and secretive. Oh, and it is also a bigot. This is more than a minor inconvenience. That fleshy walnut inside your skull is all you have in order to know yourself and to know the world. Yet, thanks to the masquerading of an untrustworthy brain with a mind of its own, much of what you think you know is not quite as it seems."
Do As I say Not As I Did
Author: Carol Frank
Publisher: Brown Books
Publish Date: 2005
ISBN: 0976049201
We usually like to discuss the central themes of the books that we review. It is a little difficult to do this with this book but I wanted to draw your attention to it in any case. Sub-titled "Gaining wisdom in business through the mistakes of highly successful people," it is a fascinating series of accounts of the mistakes other people have made. At the end of each account, Carol Frank draws the lessons to be learned, so that you do not fall into the same trap as the entrenpreneurs who share their experience in this book.
Because the editor concentrates on entrepreneurs, the accounts are down to earth and about situations that most of us will recognise. In fact, I would go as far as to say that any entrepreneur out there absolutely must read this book. It is likely to save you a lot of money, might save your whole company - and might even save your life.
The editor, Carol Frank, has persuaded a number of people to give an honest account of what went wrong. Either they are all good writers or she is an exceptional editor, because the accounts are eminently readable and actually engrossing. (I was on my way to a meeting by car and took this with me to look at over a brief lunch on the way. An hour later, I looked up from the book and realised that I was going to be late for the meeting. I cut my losses. I carried on reading and missed the meeting! In fact, the only things wrong with this book are some of the photographs that make the entrepreneurs look like Realtors - Estate Agents to some of you.)
There are seven sections to the book:
- Know the business you are in
- Employees - a necessary evil?
- When good partners go bad
- The corporate culture
- Entrepreneurship 101
- Tough times
- Selling your ‘baby’
