The Exuberant Accountant - Scott Heintzelman

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The Seven Habits is fascinating, comprehensive, and thoroughly uplifting book. Today's complex and interdependent world is plagued by a myriad of common human challenges. These include fear, insecurity, blame, hopelessness, selfishness, conflict, personal stagnation, and a lack of life balance. Permeating all aspects of life, these challenges have a profound impact on personal and professional effectiveness.

In his renowned book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Stephen Covey proposes a principle-centered approach for addressing such challenges. The Seven Habits are not a “quick fix,” but a long-term commitment to universal principles with the potential to maximize personal and professional success and happiness.

 

Five Dysfunctions of a Team

This is a great book on team dynamics and teamwork; in fact it’s one of the best books on the subject that I’ve read. Although written as a fable, the book provides practical advice, which leaders can use in their own teams.  The story illustrates the very real challenges of building a team. In keeping with the parable style, Lencioni (The Five Temptations of a CEO) begins by telling the fable of woman who, as CEO of a struggling Silicon Valley firm, took control of a dysfunctional executive committee and helped its members succeed as a team. The author Patrick Lencioni creates a great story and teaches you the concepts of a team and dysfunctions of a team.

The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World

Are you an introvert? Only a quarter of the general population is, but more than half of accountants are. Some famous introverts include: Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Alfred Hitchcock, Bill Gates and Steve Martin. Although people associate introverts with geeks or nerds (and in the case of Bill Gates – a very wealthy nerd), introverts play an important role in advancing civilization. They are not the gregarious sales and marketing types, but tend to be the quiet analysts and designers who are happy being alone with their thoughts.

Introverts don’t “shoot from the lip.” They work more from long-term memory than from short-term. It takes them longer to find the right words to use in conversation, so they tend to be more taciturn than extroverts, choosing their words carefully and being good listeners. Because of the longer retrieval time for long-term memory, introverts tend to be the people who find that solutions to problems come to them after a good night’s sleep. The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World by Marti Olsen Laney, explores the characteristics of introverts and explains how introverts can use those characteristics to their benefit. Dr. Laney, an introvert herself, attempts to explain the sometimes puzzling behavior of introverts. Since extroverts have to deal with introverts (she is married to an extrovert), she wrote the book to be valuable to them, too. Her book includes a list of well-known personalities of both types: Katie Couric is an extrovert, for example, while Diane Sawyer is an introvert.

Book Review of Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham

 Developing your unique talents and strengths – and those of the people you manage.  Now, Discover Your Strengths  is one of the most ground-breaking and useful business books ever written. The Gallup Organization has created a program to help readers identify their natural talents and build them into strengths. Just as we maintain health by studying disease, we have tried to develop employees and managers by reducing weaknesses. Consequently, we have not developed a clear understanding of strengths and how to build them. The authors say this is key to success in careers and organizations.

Based on open-ended interviews and psychological profiles of more than two million “excellent performers,” the authors have derived thirty-four talent themes, the meat of the book.  To excel in your chosen field and to find lasting satisfaction in doing so, you will need to understand your unique patterns. You will need to become an expert at finding and describing, applying and practicing, and refining your strengths.”

Book Review of First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman

First, Break All The Rules - What the world’s greatest managers do differently.

This is a powerful book written by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman (of the Gallup Organization).  After much research of what makes great managers they wrote this book.   They concluded, that there is no one best "style" of management; therefore, there is no single style we should all adopt. The purpose of First, Break All the Rules is to help you capitalize on your own style, by showing you how to incorporate the revolutionary insights shared by great managers everywhere.

Book Review on Good to Great by Jim Collins

Good to Great - Why Some Companies Make the Leap... And Others Don't

This is an engaging and easy-to-read book that focuses on what makes organizations great. This book has factual wisdom which can help any organization from very small to Fortune 500. It sheds light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. Collins makes a rather stunning statement at the outset, “Good is the enemy of great.”

His meaning is that as long as we are satisfied with “good” we will never try to become “great."