The Art of Followership
How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Organizations
Ronald E. Riggio, Ira Chaleff and Jean Lipman-Blumen
Jossey-Bass, 337 pages, $55
Have you been in the business section of a bookstore lately? Then
you know there are no shortage of
books on how to be a leader—
including how to walk, talk and even
dress. But alas, we can’t all be
leaders. In fact, most of us will be
followers. Where’s that book?
Well, it exists now that Ronald E.
Riggio, Ira Chaleff and Jean Lipman-Blumen turned those leadership books on their heads in The
Art of Followership. And, as the
authors argue, followership is more important now than it ever has
been. Why? Well, leaders haven’t been all that great lately, and the
worst of the bunch often have made terrible mistakes despite the
advice of others. That, of course, shines more light on the need for
fantastic followers— engaged employees offering sound feedback
up the chain of command. Come to think of it, those folks probably would make great leaders, wouldn’t they?
The Secret Language of Business
How to Read Anyone in 3 Seconds or Less
Kevin Hogan
Wiley, 213 pages, $24.95
When you walk into a client site for
the first time, how long do you have to
make an impression? How about three
seconds? That’s the premise laid out
by author Kevin Hogan in The Secret
Language of Business, a fascinating
read designed around the science of
non-verbal communication. Hogan, a
body language expert and public
speaker, helps to unlock some of the
hidden messages the client across the
table may be telling you. Is his head
tilted up, down or to the side, is her arm position up or down,
straight or bent? The book also is valuable for you to evaluate the
signals you may be sending. Everything from your posture to the
way that you dress tells others a lot more than you probably realize. Some of this you’ve undoubtedly heard before, but there’s
enough new here to make it worth the read.
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Think Better
(Your Company’s Future
Depends On It... And
So Does Yours)
An Innovator’s Guide to Productive Thinking
Tim Hurson
McGraw-Hill, 241 pages, $25.95
In Think Better, author Tim Hurson
lays out his six-step Productive Think-
ing Model. Those steps include directives such as understand the challenge, envision the ideal
outcome, list many possible solutions and create an action plan,
among others. Of course, this begs the question of whether or
not you can actually “teach” someone to think better. Hurson, a
founding partner of ThinkX Intellectual Capital, a firm that provides training and advisory services in productive thinking, says
you can. For starters, he suggests separating your thinking into
creative thinking and critical thinking, staying with the question, generating lots of ideas and then looking for unexpected
connections. Hurson also has a lot to say about the corporate-friendly brainstorming sessions—mainly, they don’t work. The
best way to brainstorm, he says, is to not discuss the ideas.
Think Better provides some sound insights, but still leaves one
wondering if great thinkers are born or made.
Big Ideas To Big Results
Remake and Recharge Your Company, Fast
Michael Kanazawa and Rober Miles
Financial Times Press, 211 pages,
$27.95
Are there still big ideas out there to be
had? Tough to say, but that’s not what
this book is all about. Michael
Kanazawa, CEO of Dissero Partners
and Robert Miles, chairman of Dis-
sero, outline a step-by-step approach to driving business transformation and performance. The solution? In a word, simplify.
Just remember that everything is not a priority, they say, and
you will not fall victim to “Corporate ADD.” So what if the
authors don’t lay out any big ideas in the Big Ideas To Big Results? Don’t let that stop you from picking up this book. What
they do lay out is a methodology for getting things done—
hence the “remake and recharge your company fast”—and
making sure the employees are on board as well. That, after
all, is better than any idea they could have come up with the in
the first place.
