The Top 5 Books on my Holiday Reading List
After a holiday in Borneo this week I’m heading over to Malaysia to speak at the IFTDO 2015 conference next week .
With a week away I’ve been ploughing my way through the great reads that I picked up at the ATD conference in the USA earlier this year.
Whether you are enjoying the Asian heat like me, relaxing in the summer sun of Europe and the Americas, or snuggling up in the Australasian winter – here’s 5 books not to be missed this season.
1. Be a Mindsetter (Gobran, Greenwald, Roberts)
Based on the latest research in brain science, Be a Mindsetter addresses just how to effectively cut through the chatter and deliver an impactful message. Gobran, Greenwald and Roberts illustrate simple, practical steps to take any message and make it memorable and lasting.
I love this book for the creative, fable-like way that it’s written. It combines messages about how the brain works within the story, whilst also giving some practical tips on how to make this useful and relevant. It’s an easy and enjoyable read.
2. Unchain the Elephant (Erik Wahl)
I met Erik Wahl at the ATD Conference, and was totally sold on his philosophy. Unchain the Elephant encourages you to let loose and rediscover your inner creativity and passion.
This is a beautiful book with some photographs and again a fable-like feel to it. A coffee table book, or one to dip into on a short plane ride. Enjoy!
3. Measuring the Success of Coaching (Phillips, Phillips & Edwards)
This book details the factors contributing to the ROI gained from coaching and looks into a number of different case studies. As most of you know I’m a huge fan of Jack and Patti Phillips and their approach to measurement. I love the way this book breaks down different projects, and tells you how people within different networks have successfully measured coaching. It’s something that has been grappled with for so long, so I was really thrilled to discover how others are tackling this problem. Really interesting to read if you are looking to measure any coaching assignments.
4. Measuring the Success of Organizational Development (Phillps, Phillips & Zuniga)
Measuring the Success of OD examines the strategic role of Organisation Development (OD), explains the reasons for measuring OD efforts, and proposes a framework for measuring effectiveness. As I said above – love the Phillips’ work! Organisational Development is something I want to know more about, so that’s why I’m delving into this one.
5. Your brain at work (David Rock)
Rock creates two characters to examine how the brain copes with the modern day workplace. He provides insight into how to manage distractions, maximise resources and make better decisions. I knew that it was time to get into neuroscience, and I found this a really great read as an introduction.
It’s less about learning and more about how the brain works in the workplace, so I actually found it really useful for me as an individual, helping me manage how I prioritise and how I work with my team. But of course we can extrapolate these principles into our own learning assignments. A book that I believe has sold out at the ATD for the last two years running, I highly recommend this read.
For more tips based on my learnings from the ATD 2015 – check out my recent webinar…
