Recommended Reading

First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
People join companies but they leave managers. A research and evidence based approach that demonstrates what great managers do.

Now, Discover Your Strengths: How to Develop Your Talents and Those of the People You Manage by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton
The follow on from First Break All The Rules. We have lots of words for weaknesses and very few for strengths. This book includes a password to the strengthsfinder website where you can carry out an online questionnaire that identifies your top five strengths

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels by Michael Watkins
A very useful guide to handling the challenges of the manager/leader taking on a new role.

Getting Things Done by David Allen
Probably the most practical guide to becoming more organised and productive – very useful for MBTI ‘ perceiving ‘ types

Leadership and the One Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, and Drea Zigarmi
An essential read for any people manager, a good introduction to this essential leadership model.

Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis, Annie McKee et al
Situational leadership from an emotional intelligence perspective – as always with Goleman, backed up by research

The Tao of Coaching by Max Landsberg
Max’s books are all short, engaging and really easy to read. They use the story of his character Alex to illustrate the lessons to be learnt in each are, interleaving story and theory to keep your interest.

Coaching for Performance by John Whitmore
The quickest, easiest and simplest book on coaching I’ve come across by one of Europe ‘ s leading coaches. The challenge is putting it into action.

The Inner Game of Work by Timothy Gallwey
Ostensibly the person who taught John Whitmore, this is Gallwey’s interpretation of his Inner Game techniques for business and build on his ‘ sport ‘ books (I ‘ d recommend all of them – the Inner Game of Tennis, Golf, skiing and Music.

Bringing Out the Best in People by Aubrey Daniels
Whilst I don ‘ t agree with his ‘ this is the only way ‘ attitude behavioural based motivation, this is an absolute must read for anybody interested in motivating and influencing.

Radical Change Radical Results by Kate Ludeman and Eddie Erlandson.
Fantastic book that I recommend to everyone I coach. I like the way that it’s broken down into seven areas, with lots of practical hints, tips and exercises that you can keep going back to time and time again.

NLP at Work by Sue Knight. Brilliantly written, making it easy to understand the concepts on first read. Sue Knight has written a very practical book, highlighting the major NLP models in a simple and easy to use way.

Work it Out (clues for solving people problems at work) by Sandra Krebs Hirsh.
Great introductory book to working with MBTI in the workplace. Great illustrations and case studies to help explain what can sometimes be a difficult concept to grasp.

Change your life in 7 days by Paul McKenna.
I was really surprised by how useful this book was. I bought it wondering what Paul McKenna’s style would be like as I have heard of his NLP training and was again pleasantly surprised at how he has transformed ‘NLP jargon’ into easy to understand and use language. And as a bonus there is also a meditation CD in the back. Well worth the money in my opinion.

Living your best life by Laura Berman Fortang.
Great self help coaching book with some very useful examples and exercise.

Manage Yourself Manage Your Life by Ian McDermott and Ian Shircore.
Another great book to help get the grey cells thinking and taking action.

Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.
Quite a hard concept to grasp but written in plain English. Useful if you want to really understand what makes ‘great leaders’ and those that are ‘good or average leaders.’

Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins.
A must read! Nearly everyone who’s into self help or personal development will have at least heard of if not read a book by Anthony Robbins. He has formed his own NLP speak and called it ‘neuro associated conditioning’ (it’s pure NLP through and through)

Beliefs by Robert Dilts, Tim Halbom & Suzy Smith.
NLP offers a radically new approach to health problems, whether they are life-threatening (such as cancer, AIDS, leukaemia) or traumatic (such as allergies, phobias, learning difficulties) or health-diminishing habits (such as smoking and obesity). The authors explain and demonstrate the effectiveness of NLP through workshop transcripts, imprinting, incongruence, integration and many other NLP techniques are explained. Helpful for the NLP practitioner and the beginner alike.

Heart of the Mind by Steve & Connirae Andreas.
This book embodies a new approach to NLP literature, centring on case presentations in areas of benefit most of us want in our lives. It shows how NLP offers solutions in a wide range of areas, including dealing with abuse, shame and guilt, resolving grief, effective decision-making and motivation, weight loss, violence, co-dependence and more. The 21 chapters also include the Andreas’ timeline developments, how to use timelines to change personality, and the self-healing method. A powerful and accessible introduction to NLP.

Using Your Brain for a Change by Richard Bandler.
The title sums up very neatly what you can do after reading this book — understanding the submodalities that your brain creates and what you can achieve when you are in control of them.

Magic of NLP Demystified by Byron A Lewis.
An excellent introductory book to NLP. Written in an informal, easy to understand and entertaining style. Well illustrated throughout to provide further understanding of this subject.

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.
This is one that all people leaders’ would benefit from reading, if not only because everyone else has read it. So get your skates on so that you know what they are talking about!

Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands by Terri Morrison, Wayne A Conaway and George A Borden.
Published by Adams Media Corporation. An invaluable reference guide on how to do business in 60 different countries and giving you information on cultural overviews, behaviour styles, negotiating techniques, protocol and business practices.

Words that Change Minds by Shelly Rose Charvet.
The’ only book worth reading on metaprogrammes. Shelly is the ‘master’ in metaprogrammes and her book was the first book ever published that explained them in any clear depth. If you want to know about these ‘deep structure’ filters that people all over the planet use to filter their experiences of the world, then this is a must read.

Working It Out At Work by Julie Hay (Transactional Analysis) TA is extremely useful for understanding the ‘games’ that people play unconsciously during interactions.