Here are the Top 5 on the list for June 2008. To see the complete list (and to see a great choice at #15) follow this link.
At number 15 this month is a great read from Marshall Goldsmith called What Got You Here Won’t Get You There – How Successful People Become Even More Successful! I highly recommend it. This book will show you twenty workplace habits that you need to break in order to reach the highest rungs on the ladder.
Of course, number 1 on the list, The One Minute Entrepreneur, by Ken Blanchard et al, is a quick and useful tome from the guy who brought us one of the greatest leadership books of all time: The One Minute Manager.
This
Month
Last
Month
1
THE ONE MINUTE ENTREPRENEUR, by Ken Blanchard, Don Hutson and Ethan Willis. (Currency/Doubleday, $19.95.) A fictional parable incorporating real-life advice on how to start a business. (†)
2
THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK, by Timothy Ferris. (Crown, $19.95.) Because life isn’t all about work. (†)
1
3
DEBT CURES “THEY” DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT, by Kevin Trudeau. (Equity, $25.95.) How the credit industry is rigged against you, and how to fight back by changing your financial habits. (†)
4
HARMONIC WEALTH, by James Arthur Ray with Linda Sivertsen. (Hyperion, $24.95.) Creating the life you want through financial, mental, physical and spiritual wealth. (†)
15
5
THE TOTAL MONEY MAKEOVER, by Dave Ramsey (Thomas Nelson, $24.99.) Debt reduction and fiscal fitness for families, by the radio talk-show host. (†)
A weird thing happened to a friend of mine recently (let’s call my friend Sue). Her company is one of the three largest customers of one of their providers. The provider, we’ll call them Widgets, Inc. had spent thousands of dollars entertaining Sue and some of her coworkers over the last couple of years. During this time, her company purchased a fair amount of their products.
Sue isn’t the decision maker, per se, though she can influence others to make favorable or unfavorable decisions about Widgets’ products and services. I’ve always known Sue to have very high integrity. In fact, I’ve never known Sue to be influenced by expensive dinners or sports tickets.
Over the last two years, Sue has been honest about Widgets’ products, which are pretty good. She’s recommended to her peers that they try some of Widgets’ offerings on more than one occasion. When Widgets dropped the ball, Sue didn’t cover it up. Rather, Sue called them out and demanded appropriate credits. In Sue’s mind, Widgets’ entertaining was their choice and created no contract between Sue and Widgets, Inc.
In planning a recent trip to Widgets’ headquarters, Sue was asked if she would join the Widgets team at their skybox for a Major League Baseball game during the trip. While she felt she would enjoy it, it was more important to Sue that her subordinates be given some of the spoils she had been receiving. When she mentioned this to the Widgets team, they said “the more the merrier” and agreed to invite five people from Sue’s team. This was six weeks before the event.
When Sue told her excited team the news, they each booked an extra night in Widgets’ hometown so that they would be able to attend the game.
Exactly two weeks before the event, the Widgets account manager emailed Sue to explain that there had been a “snafu” and that there would be no tickets for Sue’s teammates. Long story short, Widgets, Inc. overbooked their skybox and chose to jettison Sue’s subordinates in favor of their company’s executives.
Bad move. Had the Widgets account manger ever bothered to really get to know Sue (instead of trying to buy her loyalty with $100 steaks), he would have discovered that she valued integrity over entertainment.
When Sue explained to the account manager that this decision was unacceptable, and that this would hurt their business and personal relationship, the account manager barked, “what about all the dinners we bought you?”
Really bad move. I cannot print what Sue said, so I’ll just explain to the readers that keeping your word, especially when it costs you, is a sign of a true leader.
Needless to say, Sue no longer dines with Widgets, Inc. Her company, does however, still buy Widgets’ products. Sue’s strong belief in integrity won’t allow her to recommend against products that help her company, regardless of how poorly she’s been treated by the vendor.
Go ahead, ask him. Are you afraid? Is it possible you’ll be humiliated? Brow-beaten? Demoted?
Guess what? You’ve got the poster-child of managers. If your manager was a leader, you not only wouldn’t be afraid to ask him questions, you’d probably already have the answer.
True leaders check their egos at the door and empower their teams to achieve more than they’ve achieved. True leaders are like loving parents – they only want what’s best for their children and they strive to raise their brood better than they were raised. This doesn’t mean loving parents are pushovers, who allow their children to run around with knives and lit torches. True leaders, like loving parents, balance the short-term happiness of their charges with the long-term health and needs of the organization.
All leaders make excellent managers, but very few managers are leaders.
So, go ahead and Ask The Manager.
Are you the manager? Is your team afraid to ask? Don’t fool yourself, if you’re a typical manager, they probably are. When was the last time someone on your team made a colossal error that cost the company money? How did you react?
Leadership and empowerment are about helping people fail, because it is only by allowing tremendous failures that we can expect tremendous successes.
If you want your team to “Ask The Manager” try this little tip: the next time someone honestly and with the best intentions tries something new that fails, congratulate them in front of the entire company and award them a $100 gift certificate to their favorite restaurant. You’ll be amazed at the positive returns.
