Chilwin's Book Recommendations for Spring 2008

Well, the new year approaches and a whole series of books beckon to be read. This time around, I am recommending skill-based management books. These are the books I think I'll be turning to in the year ahead. You'll notice that my list for the spring focuses on books on skills: management, critical thinking, negotiation, and others rather than big ideas. I'm focusing on skills that I think I'll be relying a lot on in 2008:

1. Why Not? Barry Nabeluff, et al., a fantastic book on creative thinking, asking different "out of the box" questions, and using questions to analyze and lead, definitely Fresh Thinking. So often, we think of managers and leaders as providing "The Answer" or coaching other people to find "The Answers". In this book, Nabeluff and his co-authors help all of us use Questions, not Answers, to create innovation. In a world obsessed with innovation, here is a book that gets to the necessary skill to create innovation, asking good questions.

2. Beyond Reason, Barry Fisher, from one of the founders of Interest Based Negotiation and the Harvard Negotiation Project, comes an excellent book about how to use emotions constructively during a negotiation. This is a particularly interesting read given Ury and Fisher's contribution to the rationalist school of negotiation. This book is a particularly good build on the Harvard Negotiation model, building even more on the themes expressed in Getting Past No. Fresh Thinking for anyone who negotiates for a living or in life.. meaning pretty much all of us.

3. Competitive Strategy: Michael Porter .. an MBA classic, but one I'll be turning to a lot as we approach a potential Federal and Municipal election. Porter's timeless classic for business students provide Fresh Thinking to people responsible for election and political results.

4. The Effective Executive, P. Drucker: this timeless classic seems to be overshadowed by all of the fashionable business books in print today. However, I have yet to read a business book yet that has raised a topic that has not been addressed by the Grandfather of the management and leadership discipline before. I'm going to be leading my team at work through some significant changes in 2008 (and who isn't going through some kind of change). For these major changes, I'll be looking for Fresh Thinking by re-visiting this timeless classic.


I would love to hear what books you have read or plan to read. Let me know!