Amazon.com updates its list of the bestselling books every hour. Here is a snapshot of what is hot right now, this Monday morning, November 23, in the “Management and Leadership” section of the “Business and Investing” category.
1. Unleashing the Power of Rubber Bands: Lessons in Non-Linear Leadership
by Nancy Ortberg. A look into the qualities, attributes, and practices that turn ordinary leaders into extraordinary ones. Ortberg’s gives her twist on vision casting; managing tensions; nurturing healthy conflict; motivating those around you; fostering creativity, passion, and trust.
2. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell The best-selling author of Outliers: The Story of Success and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
defines a tipping point as a sociological term: “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.” The book seeks to explain and describe the “mysterious” sociological changes that mark everyday life. As Gladwell states, “Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses do.” The examples of such changes in his book include the rise in popularity and sales of Hush Puppies shoes in the mid-1990s and the precipitous drop in the New York City crime rate after 1990.
3. StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths
by Tom Rath. Are you unsure where your true talents lie? Do you feel that you are both a person who gets things done and someone who offers penetrating analysis? Well, you can discover whether you are truly an “achiever” or an “analytical” by completing the online quiz. Then, the book will give you “ideas for action” and tips for how best you can work with others. More of a patiencetester than Strengthsfinder, the quiz/book is probably best for those who have lots of time on their hands.
4. The Oz Principle: Getting Results through Individual and Organizational Accountability
by by Roger Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman. At its root, the principle works like this: Like Dorothy and the gang in The Wizard of Oz, most businesspeople have the tools to succeed, but when things go wrong they blame circumstance or others instead of looking within for the true cause of unsatisfactory results. Once individuals learn to accept responsibility, they can use the Oz Principle to become better leaders.
5. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. Blink is about the first two seconds of looking–the decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the best-selling author of Outliers: The Story of Success and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
, campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid storytelling.
6. Jim Cramer’s Getting Back to Even
by Jim Cramer. The host of CNBC’s Mad Money; cofounder of TheStreet.com, where he is also an online columnist; and “Bottom Line” columnist for New York magazine offers advanced tips for investors.
7. Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
by Gary Vaynerchuk. Vaynerchuk took over his father’s local liquor store, building it from a $4 million business to a $50 million one, created the wine-tasting blog Wine Library TV, and discovered the power of the Internet for driving sales. This book shares his experience and step-by-step advice for using Twitter, Facebook, etc., and suggestions for monetizing an online persona, reiterating that the Internet makes it possible for anyone to make serious cash by turning what they love most into their personal brand.
8. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
by David Allen. Methods for reducing stress and increasing performance.
9. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
by Patrick Lencioni. The author targets group behavior in the final entry of his trilogy of corporate fables. When the instructional tale is over, Lencioni discusses the “five dysfunctions” (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results) and provides a questionnaire for readers to use in evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome these common shortcomings.
10. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: Dritte Ausgabe [GER-GT THE PROJECT MGMT BODY O] [German Edition]
by the Project Management Institute. Includes traditional, proven practices as well as emerging practices.
11. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
by Jim Collins. The author of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
, Collins concludes that it is possible for a good company to become a great company, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11–including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo–and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success.
12. Conquer the Crash: You Can Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary Depression
by Robert R. Prechter Jr. The first half of the book presents the economic facts that show why a massive deflation is not just inevitable, it’s already under way. The second half shows how to avoid becoming “a zombie-eyed victim of the depression” and offers advice on protecting one’s assets in a deflationary environment (cash is king).
13. The 48 Laws of Power
by Robert Greene. Greene distills three thousand years of the history of power in to forty-eight well explicated laws, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and other great thinkers.
14. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Stephen R. Covey. Mainly about resolving conflicts and influencing people, this guide covers every conceivable aspect of talking with others. People hear facts and stories and turn them into shared knowledge when they’re not attacked or overpowered- – in other words, when they feel safe. No mushy mental health lesson, the program explains many types of communication errors and describes the best ways to achieve mutual purpose.
15. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
by Stephen R. Covey. A new edition of the author’s principles for solving problems.
