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GetAbstract offers you the largest online library of business book summaries. Thousands of the latest and most relevant business books – each summarised in five pages. Learn the key points of a book in just 10 minutes.

Nigel

Our Iceberg is Melting (John Kotter)

I always remember a good story. . .

Our Iceberg Is Melting takes the subject of organisational change, and puts it into a simple and accessible step-by-step form; in this case, a story. This 45 minute read is about a colony of easy-to-relate-to penguins who illustrate perfectly how to manage successful change and the classic obstacles you need to watch out for when on your change journey.

Well worth a read!

Read it already? - let me know your thoughts and leave a comment below.

Anthony

‘The Power of a Positive No – How to Say No and Still Get to Yes’ – William Ury

‘No’ is perhaps the most important, and certainly the most powerful word, in all language. Every day we find ourselves in situations where we need to say ‘No’–to people at work, at home, and in our communities because ‘No’ is the word we must use to protect ourselves and to stand up for everything and everyone that matters to us.

But as we all know, the wrong ‘No’ can also destroy what we most value by alienating and angering people. That’s why saying ‘No’ the right way is crucial. The secret to saying ‘No’ without destroying relationships lies in the art of the ‘Positive No’, a proven technique that anyone can learn.

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‘The Organisation Shadow-Side’ – Bill Tate

Building the skills and capacity of leaders is a priority for all organisations. But sending them back afterwards  to an environment which slows them down or just makes things more difficult than they need to be, deeply frustrates those who had hoped to use their new skills, and dilutes much of the investment.

The questions we should be asking ourselves is not just “how should we build new leadership skills?”, but more importantly, “how can we create an environment in which skilled leaders can flourish and maximise their potential?”

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‘Good to Great’ – Jim Collins

I approached this book with some degree of scepticism, having trawled through endless research on high performance in the past and found little worthy of note or application. I found, however, that I was quickly engaged, and more importantly, it all made sense and was succinctly presented.

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‘The Speed of Trust’ – Stephen Covey

These days, managers need increasingly to be able to influence others, to successfully achieve business goals. To have maximum influence, they realise that they need to build relationships of goodwill and trust with others to be able to operate successfully, and can’t rely any longer on the use of their direct power and authority to move things forward. 

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