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Brainstorming - 20 Ideas to Make The Ideas Rain Down

At some point everyone has a need to come up with a new idea. Whether it’s for a new fund-raiser, or a better process at the job site, or to solve an unexpected problem, brainstorming is one of the best ways

The Ice Master - Jennifer Niven

What happens when the leader abandons the people he’s supposed to be leading?  With The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk, I thought I was just reading another tale of epic survival in the arctic.  But as

How to Plan the Annual Plan: 6 Steps for Success

How do you get 30 very different people to agree on something?  How do you engage all those minds to come up with an annual plan?  It doesn’t need to be as challenging as interpreting the Mayan calendar. Every year

Adaptive Leadership - How to Match Your Style to the Circumstances

OK, so you have a sense of where your power to influence others comes from.  But how do you use this power to get others to do things? Different leadership approaches use these powers in different ways.  A quick search

How to Win Friends - Dale Carnegie

As a leader, I enjoyed reading How to Win Friends & Influence People and you will too. Part of what made it fun was that it is absolutely crammed with short, interesting stories and examples of the concepts and ideas that

PowerPoint death march

Ever been on a PowerPoint Death March?  The lights are dim, the presenter drones on and on.  You’ve lost all sense of time and place.  You are long past the point of caring.  You eye the door furtively but you

How to Plan

Got a good idea you want to make a reality?  Have a team you want to organize to get something done?  Great!  Sometimes coming up with a good idea is the hardest part.  But now it’s time to turn that

Leaders Eat Last - Simon Sinek

The book title caught my eye because it’s something the Army has been doing for a long time.  One evening, while observing Marines eating dinner in the field, author Simon Sinek noticed that as a matter of routine, the most

Death by powerpoint - the Machine Gun Slide

Death by PowerPoint can take many forms.  The smart people at Microsoft have done a great job of adding infinite ways to make things on your slides bounce, jiggle, fly, sparkle, and make an astonishing variety of noises.  You can

The Shotgun Slide - Death by PowerPoint

I’ve survived many life threatening encounters with PowerPoint.  In the early days you might have even charged me for irresponsible use of this powerful but dangerous tool.  I apologize now for any damage I may have caused.  To atone for

pretty good hooks

 “The next three minutes will determine whether you succeed or fail on your next presentation.” Every presentation has three main parts – the beginning, the middle, and the end.  And among these, the beginning is easily the most important.  You

The One Minute Manager - Blanchard and Johnson

I first picked up the original edition of this little book in December of 1985 and loved it immediately.  Don’t be deceived by its small size, it’s packed with very practical leadership tools that you can put to use immediately.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey

This is an all-time favorite of mine, and another one I find myself returning to reference time and time again.  Author Stephen R. Covey’s work outlines seven key habits that make people masters of themselves. Taking the approach that our

The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara

The first and best historical fiction book I have ever read, and an excellent look into the challenges of leadership, The Killer Angels reads like a novel.  But author Michael Shaara combines historical accuracy with a captivating story-telling ability to

The Journals of Lewis and Clark

It’s 1803, and President Thomas Jefferson has just completed the Louisiana Purchase.  Now he needs to learn about this new land and open up trade routes to the west. The story of how Meriwether Lewis and William Clark crossed the

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