What if you wanted to study more about leadership, marketing, sales and strategy? What if you wanted to do an MBA but didn't have the time, money or opportunity? Below are 25 handpicked books that I think are an excellent crash course in business. No, they don't cover every area, in particular finance has been omitted. But they do teach a lot of valuable lessons and have been of huge value to me personally.
Read More"One of the best paradoxes of leadership is a leader's need to be both stubborn and open-minded. A leader must insist on sticking to the vision and stay on course to the destination. But he must be open-minded during the process." Simon Sinek
Read MoreKevin Kelly, a writer and editor from the US penned a wonderful blog called 1000 True Fans. Check it out here if you haven't read it before. Although I'm sure that many of you may have read it before, it's such an important piece that it's worth reviewing again here.
Read More"That was my car and that's where I was sitting", he said as he pointed to a photo showing a massive hole in the front of a three-door hatchback where the driver's seat should be. 8 years later and still undergoing surgery, he has been through a lot. I was surprised by how frank this young man was and impressed with his light-hearted way of talking about the moment his life changed forever. Any problem I had seemed totally trivial in comparison.
Read MoreWriting is a tough gig for many reasons:
There are usually only two options for a career. Work for someone else or start a business, right? Nobody ever tells you about the third option - I was surprised that I didn't know until recently, even though I spent four years studying business in college.
Read MoreOur world is changing so quickly, I believe it's imperative that we develop the ability to learn quickly in order to keep up. Our employers or our clients often require us to consume and understand large amounts of information in a short space of time. This is very challenging without practice.
Read MoreDo you really need to work in the office every day? Technology has allowed us so much freedom and flexibility in our working styles, but do we really take advantage of it? Here are 10 reasons why you should ask your employer to work from home (or a coworking space) one day per week.
Read More‘Can I have more money?' is one way to start the conversation, although not a very elegant one. Perhaps a more structured conversation would work better?
In my experience, employers are often open to giving their staff more money or a promotion, but not without good reason. For example, asking for a salary raise for doing the same work probably won’t yield you much success, however, offering to help the organisation 1. Solve a significant problem or 2. Make more money, will provide you with much more leverage. Also, keep in mind that the more you necessary you are to the business, the more inclined they will be to keep you happy at work compared to if you can be replaced easily by someone else who has similar skills.
Read MoreIt’s better you hear it now than in ten years, or realistically speaking - five years. Many people have already been forced out of a job because they’re too expensive to employ and slower than a machine. It’s happening now more than ever but this isn’t a new phenomenon. Since the 70’s robots have been widespread, with the earliest known standardised industrial robot created in 1937. Nowadays robots are becoming household items, helping with everything from cleaning, lighting and heating to monitoring the garage door and making coffee. The changes are gradual and sometimes unnoticeable, but very real.
“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.” Warren G. Bennis, University of Southern California, Professor of Business Administration
Read MoreIf you get a chance, there's a top podcast by the Harvard Business Review on the 4 Behaviours of Top-Performing CEOs. You would be forgiven for thinking that CEOs are the most well educated, business-savvy, mistake-free people in the corporate world, but you'd be wrong.
[There's] almost an equal amount of CEOs who graduated from Ivy League school undergraduate (degrees) as there were who didn't actually graduate from college at all.
- Elena Botelho, co-author of the article “What Sets Successful CEOs Apart”.
Read MoreStarting a business is a great idea - IF you know what you're doing. But it's not a good idea to work for yourself just because you've decided that you hate your job. Sounds obvious I'm sure, but many people still do it. If you do decide that you're going to take the leap, please keep these points in mind:
Read MoreAre you familiar with the daily bombardment of email, text, instant chat and social media while trying to get real work done? Don’t worry, Jason Fried, the CEO of base camp, has some tips for us all, especially those who work in small team environments and want to find better ways to concentrate. I picked up these lessons from the Harvard Business Review podcast, which I highly recommend for anyone interested in business or organisational psychology.
Read MoreHopefully, you don't struggle with this yourself, and you believe taking action towards your goals will yield good results. But not everyone feels like that. Recently, I met a young man (19) who was fully convinced that he would be poor, and a slave his whole life - that there was no alternative. This was a very sad thing to hear. Imagine if you thought that nothing you did would make any difference, that you would always be poor and that you'll always have to work 12 hour days for minimum wage. You might find it hard to keep hope.
Read MoreIf you have the opportunity, a useful experiment is to ask some high performers a couple of questions.
This is a warning. It happens to many smart people that are diligent and well qualified. They get seduced. There, I said it.
Read More'Motivation' is a tricky topic, mostly because we are all motivated differently. For example, we know that money isn't the only way to improve employee engagement and that giving people extra money can actually harm morale. The reason for this is that by giving someone money in direct response for work done suggests that there is a clear monetary value to be placed on their efforts and that you have rewarded them accurately. Obviously, this leaves more than a little room for disagreement.
On top of that, the next time you aim to financially reimburse someone for their hard work, they will ask themselves, 'how much do I get this time'? Or maybe even worse 'is this extra work really worth the money?'.
Read MoreHere is a piece that I wrote this week in an answer to a blog I wrote before called This is your career. I wanted to show the two perspectives between passion and satisfaction. I hope you like it!
Read MoreJargon is everywhere - job descriptions, management meetings, LinkedIn and business literature (especially Harvard Business Review) to name a few. But what does any of it actually mean? And is it useful?
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