BLT Discussion – Most useful Business/Personal Development Books

Discussion: What is your favourite Business/Personal Development Book and why?

This was the discussion topic for our fortnightly BLT networking group.

Participants were asked to produce a summary of their favourite Business/Personal Development Book; i.e. how its message helped their thinking, their business, or their effectiveness.

Brain Loosener – Describe your business to a 6-year old

To kick off, as we always do, we briefly introduced ourselves around the table with reference to this week’s ‘Brain Loosener’, describing our businesses as if talking to a 6-year old.

That meant no jargon, no long words, no presumption of prior knowledge.…it’s harder than you think actually!

I’ve summarised a selection of the answers below:

• (Printer) I make things for you to read
• (Business coach) I teach teachers to play nicely together
• (Mediation consultant) I help people make friends at work
• (Copywriter) I help people who aren’t very good at writing
• (Will writer) I make sure your best friends get your toys after you’ve gone to heaven
• (Financial Director) I help people to count their money

Best Business books

This was a round-table discussion, and as always, threw up some interesting insights, not least the need to market ourselves and our USPs with an interesting story (the ‘6-year old’ Brain Loosener could have something going for it here!) and to manage technology rather than let it manage us (smartphones do have a lot to answer for!).

1. Ogilvy on Advertising – David Ogilvy

KEY POINT: It’s not necessarily about selling your USP, it’s about selling your story

EXAMPLE: A certain US brewery (Brewery A) produced beer in exactly the same way as its competitor (Brewery B), using the same local water source, suppliers…etc. However nobody had ever told the customers this ‘story’ – Brewery A went on to ‘own’ the story,’ in the process prevented Brewery B from doing so, and eventually took it over

2. Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age –  Jonah Berger

KEY POINT: Why do some things go viral and not others?

EXAMPLE: A restauranteur in Philadelphia opened a luxury boutique steakhouse. The only problem was that Philadelphia is home to the cheesesteak, so the restauranteur needed to create a conversation piece. He invented the $100 cheesesteak which was absurdly successful – even those who didn’t order it (that being the majority of customers) gained ‘story-telling rights’ by dining at the restaurant.

3. Mindset – Carol S Dweck

KEY POINT: Praising success and achievement may actually be detrimental to success

EXAMPLE: Groups of children were given an ‘impossible’ puzzle to solve (but were not told this at the outset). The ‘High-achievers’ grew increasingly frustrated and their ‘failure’ had a knock-on effect, whereas the ‘Tryers’ kept on going, believing they would get there in the end.

4. First, Break all the Rules – Marcus Buckingham & Curt Koffman

KEY POINT: Don’t concentrate on weaknesses, but seek to develop strengths

EXAMPLE: Numerous examples of great managers from all sorts of companies, who excelled at turning each employee’s talent into performance. Some opinions were commonly held – Never pass the buck, Make few promises but keep them all – but others were revolutionary and unique to that particular manager….but they all worked for the specific situation they were applied to.

5. Do it Tomorrow and Other secrets of Time Management – Mark Foster

KEY POINT: Just prioritising and writing ‘To Do’ lists is not enough – once we have taken on a commitment, we need to do everything relating to that commitment to make sure it actually happens.

EXAMPLE: Something as simple as turning off the email/phone pinger and scheduling a time to answer emails. This resonated with the BLT group, as it turned out that many members practised variations on this such as enabling an ‘Out of Office’ auto reply for a morning when they didn’t want to be disturbed, or installing a function generating an email reminder for all unanswered calls.

Other books mentioned

• Your Best Year Yet – Jenny Ditzler
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig
• Mindfulness for Dummies – Shamash Alidina
• Eat That Frog! – Brian Tracy
• The Decision Book – Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking – Roman Tschappeler & Mikael Krogerus
• Hawthorne Experiments – Elton Mayo

Related articles

http://www.nobleword.co.uk/do-it-tomorrow-and-other-secrets-of-time-management/