Reviews

Bill Hybels is the senior pastor at Willow Creek Community Church and runs the annual Global Leadership Summit, which I have been attending for the last few years with the leadership team from my church. Hybels’ book list is a good starting point for developing your own leadership, in a church, business or whatever setting.

I was presenting a strategy workshop recently in Phuket (!) and had occasion to borrow the Logitech R800 Presenter belonging to my colleague Mark Law of Advanced Management Skills. The device works well enough but I found it frustrating to use.

Former colleague, Duncan John of StrategicFit, asks, “What books would you recommend for someone starting out as a decision analysis consultant?” It’s a great question. Here are a few of my suggestions.

Rethink Reinvent Reposition, by former colleague Leo Hopf and William Welter, is a great new book aimed at people looking at where to go next with a mature business: into decline, or onward and upward with renewal.

The Flaw of Averages, by Sam Savage, describes a set of common avoidable mistakes in assessing risk in the face of uncertainty. It helps explain why conventional methods of gauging the future are so wrong so often, and is an accessory to the recent economic catastrophe. Once grasped, these ideas can lead us to more effective forecasting and decision making.

If, like me, you are starting to embrace social networking and the networked economy, you now have networks in your email address book, on LinkedIn, Ecademy and elsewhere. Given that these networks all overlap, you are beginning to get frustrated that you need to manage each of them separately. Here’s a new tool that eases a good chunk of that frustration.

How to Build Your Reputation, by Rob Brown, will help you build your reputation to earn attention, respect and money.

True North, by Bill George, sets out what it means for a leader to be authentic, with a programme to start a leader on a lifelong journey of self development to establish his/her authenticity.