Reader alert: the following list includes my favorites in the Christian genre. I have read significantly in comparative religion, philosophy and spiritual traditions different from my own but this list is specific to my own worldview.

Christianity

The Bible, New International Version

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

The Apostle of Common Sense (G.K. Chesterton) by Dale Alquist

Common Sense 101 by Dale Alquist

Finishing Strong by Stephen Farr

Looking for God Knows What by Don Miller

A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baille

The Divine Mentor by Wayne Cordeiro

An Unstoppable Force by Erwin McManus

The Seeking Heart by Francois Fenelon

What the Bible is All About by Henrietta Mears

This is my shortest list. I enjoy fiction but read very little mass market fiction. The following are four of my  favorites:

Fiction

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

Plain Song by Kent Haruf

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

My last post focused on business, leadership and personal development. In this post I’ll share my favorites on public speaking and writing. My next post will look at my favorite books in the categories of Christianity and fiction.

Public Speaking

Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath

Wake Me Up When the Data is Over: How Organizations Use Storytelling to Drive Results by Lori Silverman

Let Me Tell You a Story by Tony Campolo What’s Your Story?

Using Stories to Ignite Performance and Be More Successful by Craig Wortmann

The Million Dollar Toolbox: A Blueprint for Transforming Your Life & Your Career with Powerful Communication Skills by Ty Boyd

Writing

On Writing by Stephen King

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

On Writing Well by William Zinsser

I am often asked what books I recommend. I’ve recently updated my recommended reading list and am posting it in two parts. This list covers personal development and leadership and business. You’ll find a mix of old and new, some classics and some picks that are a bit offbeat. Feel free to add your favorite books.

Personal Development

Mojo by Marshall Goldsmith

You and Your Network by Fred Smith

The Greatest Miracle in the World by Og Mandino

The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Light from Many Lamps by Lilian Watson

Today Matters by John Maxwell

It’s Called Work for a Reason! by Larry Winget

The Intellectual Devotional (series) David Kidder and Noah Oppenheim 

Leadership/Business

Axiom by Bill Hybels

On Leadership by John Gardner

Good to Great by Jim Collins

Ronald Reagan: How and Ordinary Man became an Extraordinary Leader by Dinesh D’Souza

The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner

Bringing Out the Leader Within by John Maxwell

Next Generation Leadership by Andy Stanley

Survival is not Enough: Why Smart Companies Abandon Worry and Embrace Change by Seth Godin

The Experience Economy by Jim Gilmore and Joe Pine

Competing for the Future by Prahalad and Hamel

Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith

Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders

Innovation is Everybody’s Business by Robert Tucker

The One Minute Entrepreneur by Don Hutson and Ken Blanchard

A Category of One by Joe Calloway

All Business is Show Business by Scott Mckain

Getting Them to Give a Damn: How to Get Your Front Line to Care about Your Bottom Line by Eric Chester

I’ve been listening to a CD of a panel presentation from a conference I recently attended. The participants were all long-time friends and colleagues in the speaking business. They are all highly successful in their respective fields and I’ve seen great growth in them and their careers over the years.

The insights and perspectives they shared were very valuable and I have benefited from their collective wisdom.

In listening, I was reminded of something very important about highly successful people.

First, they invest regularly and significantly in their own growth.

I know each of these individuals and they have spent serious time and money in seeking out the best resources, whether professional associations, coaches or educational experiences.

Second, they become conduits of what they’ve learned.

Each freely shares what they’ve learned with colleagues and clients. Their exceptional expertise has created great demand for their services. Not only have they profited from their skills and abilities, but they have been willing to help others who desire to do the same.

They have become rivers.

Highly successful people are more concerned with their growth than their comfort; they are more committed to learning than leisure. That means they invest in learning and development.

But they don’t stop there. Not only do they share; they increase their expertise and abilities in the sharing. A wonderful synergy takes place when they help others. People learn from the successful, but the successful learn not just from the people they teach but from the teaching process itself.

The lesson, if you aspire to become and stay successful: be a river.

You may not wonder if your software is robust but you notice when it isn’t. Programmers know that robust software is, among other things, simple and transparent. That means they can understand and address the underlying code. You know you have robust software when it works consistently and crashes rarely. If you’re like most, you aren’t concerned with the underlying code until it doesn’t work.

Leaders need to be robust. It is easy to do well when circumstances are favorable, but in these challenging times a leader’s robustness is tested. He or she needs to consider their code–their mental models, values and behaviors–to perform consistently and avoid crashing.

On February 23 I’ll be doing a one hour webinar called The 3R’s of Robust Leadership. For more information and to register go here. I’ll talk about three simple and transparent strategies you can use to lead well despite the challenges you and your organization face.

One of the topics I’ll cover is about how you can change your business or life by changing the questions you ask. The webinar description says I’ll cover 10 mental model changing questions, but I’ve decided to include two extra “bonus questions.”

Here’s an example: most leaders ask, “Are we making our numbers?” or “Are we achieving our goals?” While those are important questions (they create accountability and measure progress or regress) they tend to not only ignore but undermine a more important question which is “Are we pursuing our potential?” Unfortunately the security of an achieved goal can prevent us from pushing to discover what we are truly capable of doing.

Before I open the webinar to an interactive question and answer session, I’ll discuss six things you can do to maintain and increase your mental and physical energy. Not all of the concepts will be new but the application I suggest will be different and make it easier to benefit from the things you know you should do but often don’t.

If your motivation is ebbing and you find it hard to stay motivated yourself much less motivate others, join me on February 23 for a mental rejuvenation.

While editing a promotional piece for a friend’s new book, I was reminded of how hard it is to get attention. The copy had a liberal sprinkling of words like “secrets,” “inspirational” and “profound” and phrases like “life-changing” and “don’t miss.” It also used many exclamation points.

I empathize with the difficulty of writing things that get read. Unfortunately having something worthwhile to say isn’t enough if you can’t cut through the clutter and get the reader’s or listener’s attention.

Here’s the problem: we add to the clutter trying to cut through the clutter.

When you emphasize everything you emphasize nothing. Exclamation points lose their impact!

We live in the age of hyperbole. As someone once said, everything squared equals nothing squared.

We are deluged with so much information that we tend to pay attention only to the perceived exception. Another sales book? Ho hum. Secret Persuaders: How to Morally Use the Immoral Techniques of Bernie Madoff to Get What You Want. Wow–I’ve got to check that out!

Or consider endorsements. “This is a truly thought provoking book and beautifully written.” So? “This book contains information previously hidden from mankind. Reading it will change your life, raise your IQ,  improve your health, help you lose weight and make you infinitely desirable to members of the opposite sex.” Now that might be worth reading…

Regrettably only the exceptions get noted. That means that marketers, advertisers, writers, et al are attempting to make everything an exception, whether or not it truly is.

I have a new guideline I use. I offer it for your consideration: take exception to the exceptions.

While I think most of us are increasingly skeptical of over-the-top claims, we might forget that the hot copy or enticing wording is often nothing more than repackaged sameness. We have to work harder than ever before to do our due diligence. When something seems hyperobolic, it probably is. Let the exclamation points direct you to more closely scrutinize the claims being made.

I just read (or more acurately skimmed) a bestselling business book that was purported to be truly ground breaking. Sorry. The ground had been plowed many times before by many others and plowed better, but this author had the advantage of a huge social media network and a few hyperbolic endorsers. (I’m getting fewer requests to endorse since I actually want to see the book in question and am unwilling to say anything about a book I couldn’t defend to a purchaser.)

Taking exception to the exception challenges me not only as a consumer but as a creator. How do I balance intellectual honesty against marketplace demands? Writing a book, staging an event, giving a speech or rallying a cause are relatively easy compared to getting noticed. What claims are we willing to make in the pursuit of getting attention?

I don’t know. I’m asking more questions than I’m providing answers.

Hyperbole has always been a communication pitfall, but our networked world and interconnected social networks have leveraged the amount and audacity of hyperbole exponentially.

Everything is exclamations! Really! It’s true!

(My long time friend and colleague Eric Chester, an expert in generational differences in the workplace, has just launched a game changing new teen and young employee development program called The A Game. He’s written an interesting and insightful article I’ve posted below.)

In 1860, a lithographer by the name of Milton Bradley introduced The Checkered Game of Life to the nation. His game took players on a journey from infancy to happy old age, earning points for qualities like perseverance, honesty, ambition, and industry. Players lost points for idleness, intemperance, gambling, and a number of other vices.

Bradley wasn’t focused on making money with his invention; he had a much larger vision. He wanted to exemplify and promote the values his game espoused. And he had the right environment in which to do it: the late 1800’s were a golden age when it came to formulating America’s unparalleled, unabashed, uncompromising work ethic.
 
The old world view of labor as a distasteful practice best avoided by the upper classes had been replaced by the spanking new notion that a man could earn his place in the upper class through determination, discipline, and self-sacrifice. Parents, schools, and churches stressed the value of hard work and taught children how to live a virtuous life. Bradley’s game struck a resounding chord by perpetuating these principles.

It was not a coincidence that one hundred years later in 1960, the U.S. was one of the two international super-powers. A century of applied work ethic had seen the nation grow incredibly, and with this growth Milton Bradley became a highly profitable toy manufacturer. A hundred years after its original release, their signature product The Checkered Game of Life had been updated to reflect the prevailing mindset of the baby boom generation and was rebranded as The Game of Life.
           
The object of this revised edition was no longer to accrue points, but to accrue money. The ultimate destination of Happy Old Age was replaced with the wealthy neighborhood of Tycoon Estates. Losers didn’t gamble themselves to ruin or wind up impoverished as a result of their intemperance; they simply moved onto The Poor Farm.

The great religious and moral charges of the sixties—like the civil rights movement and the fight against communism— centered on the way individuals viewed others rather than the way they viewed themselves. Schools focused time on developing social responsibility leaving parents in charge of developing work ethic and virtues. However, the emergence of the dual-wage earning family meant less face-time for accomplishing this task at home.

The next version released in the 70’s and 80’s brought three significant ‘something-for-nothing’ changes to Life. A new “Share The Wealth” card enabled players to either steal 50% of an opponent’s cash windfall, or force them to pay half of their personal tax burden. Additionally, players were now ‘entitled’ to receive cash presents from other players for ‘life events’ like getting married or having children. “Lucky Day” spaces were also added to the game board offering players lottery-like cash prizes just for landing on them, with the option to keep the cash or risk it on a roll-of-the-dice gamble to multiply it. This was a far cry from the original version in which gambling was punished, rather than encouraged.

Revamped again in 1991, Life began to reward players for community service activities like recycling and helping the homeless, and there have been additional modifications since then. While civic-minded activities are certainly admirable, what is totally absent from the 1991 revision of The Game of Life is any reward for honesty, hard work, perseverance, and ambition. But when teaching and reinforcing these kinds of values and virtues are no longer a priority in our homes and our schools, why should they be tenets in today’s version of Life?

If you want to test this, go survey your friends and co-workers who have kids under the age of 25 and ask them what they want for their children.  Seriously, try this.  You’ll find out that the goals of Baby-Boomer/Gen X parents are to make certain their kids are safe, happy, healthy, and have a high self-esteem; not necessarily in that order.  Work ethic won’t be mentioned. 
           
It is into this environment that Generation Y has been born and nurtured.

I’ve spent the last fifteen years working with organizations of every size and kind and I’ve heard thousands of business owners, executives, and managers lament the resulting carnage that the absence of work ethic/values training has wrought. Employers demand it, and yet schools and parents don’t teach or encourage it.

Even if math and science scores improve dramatically for American students, I believe that we’ll continue to lose our global advantage if we don’t address the fundamental cause of the problem: our unwillingness, inability, or refusal to teach and reinforce the work ethic that made our nation great and our citizens strong.

Six years ago, I decided that I could either eulogize the American work ethic or take steps to restore it. Through the combined efforts of a great team, a stellar advisory board, and 18 leading educators and corporate trainers from throughout the country, what began as an idea that day has evolved into The A Game, a fully integrated work ethic training and certification program for teens and young adults.

Unlike Milton Bradley’s Checkered Game of Life, “The A Game” is not a game. It’s a comprehensive, fully integrated curriculum that can train and reinforce work ethic at home, at school, and in the workplace by promoting the seven fundamental values that are the prerequisite to success in every job and every career, in every field and industry.

Most importantly, the curriculum teaches the emerging generation to bring their very best (their “A Game”) to work, just as they would bring their very best to their recreational pursuits like sports, music, and video games.  Furthermore, The A Game is counterculture in that it destroys prevailing myths like, ‘work is a bad thing’ and  ‘do only the work you’re paid to do and nothing more’.  (Read the quotes to the right to see how legendary figures in business, medicine, politics, education, and entertainment view work.)

After a series of very successful pilot tests, The A Game is being officially launched this week, and you, the loyal readers of WhysNews, are the first to hear about it.

I encourage you to take a few minutes to tour the website and learn more about the A Game.  I’m confident that news of this revolution will spread fast as schools rediscover the importance of teaching students these indisputable values, parents recognize their role in preparing teens for success in the workplace, and employers discover how work ethic training of their front line will decrease turnover and increase performance, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

Join the movement to return work ethic as a centerpiece in the development of our nation’s youth. Hit the website, share it with two or three friends and ask them to do the same. With your help, we can show America’s youth that when they win at work, they truly do win at life.

According to an article in USA Today, a Dutch psychologist investigated the differences between chess masters and grand chess master.

He found no difference in IQ, memory or spatial reasoning.

The only difference he could identify: the grand masters simply loved chess more. He concluded that they had more passion about and commitment to the game.

I’ve observed that you don’t have to love what you do to be very good at it. I know very competent and successful individuals who have developed the skills to succeed at their work and who by their own admission see what they do as a means to an end. They don’t love their work, nor are they passionate about it. They are, however, very good at it.

But when it comes to greatness, I intuitively agree with the Dutch researcher. The inspired performers, the uber achievers and the grand masters of life seem to share a common difference. They simply love what they do a little bit more.

Love is the difference.

Today I visited my local bagel shop. Let’s call it “Smart Guys.” It is so close to my house that I could easily walk there. I used to frequent the place until they were frequently out of the bagels I wanted. I didn’t do statistical analysis on how often they didn’t have what I wanted; I just got tired of the “sorry, we’re out” and stopped going.

Today my boys wanted bagels. So I tried again. Guess what? They were out of one of the two bagel types I wanted. I mentioned this to the “assistant manager.” He was a pleasant fellow and explained how that sometimes happens.

No apology.

No “What can I do to make it right?”

No, “We value your business.”

I was mellow. I was conversational. I didn’t get excited. After all, I’ve lived a full life without their product for quite some time now. I can live long and prosper if I don’t go back again.

In a better world, the assistant manager or the manager (lurking in the background doing important things) would have been engaged and maybe a little excited. In this economy it is tough getting customers in the door. You want them to come back, not go away disappointed.

For them, it was business as usual.

Customer service mistakes are made all the time. We make them in my office despite our very best efforts. What should do you when they occur?

First, APOLOGIZE. That should be self-evident but I rarely experience it. If you aren’t genuinely sorry you disappointed a customer–for whatever reason–you need to find a different line of work.

Second, EMPATHIZE. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. How  would you feel if you wanted to give someone your hard-earned money but you didn’t get what you were willing to pay for? You don’t necessarily have to agree with the customer’s reasoning but you do need to understand why and how they feel.

Third, MAKE IT RIGHT. Think really, really hard about what you can do to prove you value the customer’s business. Here’s a kooky idea: why not give them a free bagel to make up for the fact they couldn’t buy the one they wanted? The cost is miniscule but the impact is major. Or how about a coupon for a free bagel on the next visit (there’s a nice way to get them to come back. Just make sure you’re not out of bagels again).

Finally, MAKE IT EASY TO COMPLAIN. I couldn’t find any customer feedback cards at Smart Guys Bagels but was able to track them down online. I emailed my feedback to see if, when and how they’d respond. The only thing worse than a complaint you get is a complaint you don’t get.

Like most things in life, service recovery is simple. It means knowing what to do to prove you appreciate the customer and then doing it.

It also means teaching everyone on your team these simple techniques and making sure they use them.