Strategy #35: Establish a leadership, self-help, and career library

One way to show your people that you care about them is to set up a Personal Success Library. It’s a great way of saying that you want people to be successful in every dimension of their lives, not just in what they do for you on the job. Here are some of the topic categories I suggest, including several recommended book titles for each:

Success and Motivation: The Success Principles by Jack Canfield; All You Can Do Is All You Can Do, But All You Can Do Is Enough by A. L. Williams; Attitude Is Everything by Keith Harrell; What Makes the Great Great by Dennis Kimbro; Unstoppable by Cynthia Kersey; Million Dollar Habits by Robert J. Ringer; Live Your Dreams by Les Brown; You Can Have It All by Mary Kay Ash; The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale; Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins; The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck; Life Strategies by Phillip C. McGraw; What’s Holding You Back? by Sam Horn; and The Highest Goal by Michael Ray.

Leadership: Learning to Lead by Warren Bennis and Joan Goldsmith; Leadership A-to-Z by James O’Toole; Leadership Is an Art and Leadership Jazz by Max DePree; The Servant Leader by James A. Autry; On Leadership by John W. Gardner; Leadership and the New Science by Margaret Wheatley; Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman; Servant Leadership by Robert Greenleaf; The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell; Resonant Leadership by Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee; Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson; and Why Smart Executives Fail by Sydney Finkelstein.

Personal Finance: The Total Money Makeover by David Ramsey (there is also a companion workbook); Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin; How to Get Out Of Debt, Stay Out Of Debt, and Live Prosperously by Jerrold Mundis; Debt-Proof Living by Mary Hunt; Money and the Meaning of Life by Jacob Needleman; Credit Card Nation by Robert D. Manning; The Seven Stages of Money Maturity by George Kinder; and The Millionaire Mind by Thomas J. Stanley.

Time Management: No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy; First Things First by Stephen Covey; The Time Trap by Alec MacKenzie; How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein; Time Tactics of Very Successful People by Eugene Griessman; The Power of Focus by Jack Canfield (et al); Never Check Email in the Morning by Julie Morgenstern; Time and the Art of Living by Robert Grudin; and Timeshifting by Stephan Rechtschaffen.

Spirituality: The Heart of Christianity by Marcus J. Borg; A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield; The Spirituality of Imperfection by Ernest Kurtz and Catherine Ketcham; Essential Spirituality by Roger Walsh; Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore; When All You Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough by Harold Kushner; The Man Who Walked Through Time by Colin Fletcher; Gifts of the Spirit by Philip Zaleski and Paul Kaufman; Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh; Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell; and Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water by Brian Luke Seaward.

Creativity:The War of Art by Steven Pressfield; Creativity in Business by Michael Ray; Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker; A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech; The Circle of Innovation by TomPeters; The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block; Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins by Richard Farson; Jump Start Your Business Brain by Doug Hall; and The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

“As strange as it sounds, all learning… stems from values…  That’s because the first step in creating an atmosphere for learning is to enlist the hearts and minds of employees and tie them to the company’s purpose.”

Richard Tanner Pascale: Managing on the Edge

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