Leadership for Project and Executive

Every project manager is in sales. PMs are always trying to convince someone to give people, money, time, expertise, knowledge, etc. They are always in sales mode... they just don't think of it that way.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. Every day more than fifteen million people earn their keep by persuading someone else to make a purchase.

But dig deeper and a startling truth emerges:

True North shows how anyone who follows their internal compass can become an authentic leader. This leadership tour de force is based on research and first-person interviews with 125 of today ’s top leaders —with some surprising results. In this important book, acclaimed former Medtronic CEO Bill George and coauthor Peter Sims share the wisdom of these outstanding leaders and describe how you can develop as an authentic leader. True North presents a concrete and comprehensive program for leadership success and shows how to create your own Personal Leadership Development Plan centered on five key areas:

• Knowing your authentic self
• Defining your values and leadership principles
• Understanding your motivations
• Building your support team
• Staying grounded by integrating all aspects of your life

This book is currently under review, more details will be added when available

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

Buy it now!

Okay, maybe I am a little sentimental here, but this book takes prejudice and self perception head on. It is a mantra that any project manager that is facing huge odds should read.

The classic tale of persevering against the odds!

The Little Engine That Could comes to life all over again in this gorgeous oversized picture book with foil on the cover and the beautiful art from the 1950s. A train of toys desperately need an engine to take them over the mountain so that they can deliver toys and food to children. But none of the big, important engines will help them. Luckily, the Little Blue Engine comes along. She is small, but she has confidence that she can do it, and she does!

Still confused on how projects and change management fit together? If so, read this book. It gives a great history of both and outlines a process that may work for your company. If nothing else, the process described will help you understand how your company can fold the two disciplines together. The only detractor is the author's contniual reference to "his" methodology. However, this does give you a good example of its implementation.

Just about every project professional agrees that "success" today is not just about being "on time, within budget, and according to scope" but one in which there is successful organizational change and the broad organizational adoption of project outputs and deliverables. However, because the project management and organizational/behavioral change management disciplines are often practiced as separate entities, the road to success often becomes divided, leading to poor outcomes for both the project manager and stakeholders throughout the organization.

In Lean In, Sandberg digs deeper into these issues, combining personal anecdotes, hard data, and compelling research to cut through the layers of ambiguity and bias surrounding the lives and choices of working women. She recounts her own decisions, mistakes, and daily struggles to make the right choices for herself, her career, and her family. She provides practical advice on negotiation techniques, mentorship, and building a satisfying career, urging women to set boundaries and to abandon the myth of “having it all. ” She describes specific steps women can take to combine professional achievement with personal fulfillment and demonstrates how men can benefit by supporting women in the workplace and at home.

Project Management is one to the few disciplines where the glass ceiling seems to be non-existent. Daily our multicultural, multigenerational, multigender teams build great products for our businesses. We need to understand ourselves and others better. Lean In is a great book for either gender to read to learn more about how to avoid gender issues on your projects.

Thirty years after women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in government and industry. This means that women ’s voices are still not heard equally in the decisions that most affect our lives. In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg examines why women ’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes, and offers compelling, commonsense solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential.

Sandberg is the chief operating officer of Facebook and is ranked on Fortune ’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and as one of Time ’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2010, she gave an electrifying TEDTalk in which she described how women unintentionally hold themselves back in their careers. Her talk, which became a phenomenon and has been viewed more than two million times, encouraged women to “sit at the table, ” seek challenges, take risks, and pursue their goals with gusto.

Without a team there is no project, there is no success. One of your primary jobs is to build a team from people you mostly likely do not have authority over. The five key attributes: results, accountability, commitment, conflict, and trust, will help you build a better team quicker.

If you are managing projects in a manufacturing setting, this book is critical. If you are managing a project in a company using the theory of constraints, this book is essential. It is the foundation of a pervasive methodology and the precursor to critical chain project management. he is recommended reading before reading any of the other books on critical chain.

The title says it all. What project manager does not need to improve their effectiveness? This is a bible that you should always keep in close reach. A true "Must Read."