2 Stars: Somewhat Recommend

Now Discover Your Strengths is a follow-up to First Break all the Rules, and it builds on the ideas of how to engage your employees at work and capitalize on their talent. The book provides an interesting insight into talents and strengths and provides an actual assessment tool that allows you to determine your own strengths. The book also lists and discusses many different “strength” categories. Though the self-assessment test was very interesting, I found the overall content to not be nearly as valuable as First Break all the Rules nor quite as entertaining. I would recommend the book to those who are interested in learning more about their own strengths and others, but I give the book 2 out of 4 stars, as I had much higher expectations for the book.

In Search of Excellence, Lesson From America's Best-Run Companies by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr. was insightful and provided some very good points that I believe if practiced, can help each business, organization, or person find excellence in life. A Bias for Action, Staying Close to the Customer, and Productivity through People are a few of the useful points made throughout the book that excellent companies seemed to possess while others did not. In fact, based on the research from the authors they identified 8 specific things that set excellent companies apart from others and I believe most if not all of them are very valid and true. I did find however the book to be drawn out, poorly written in spots, and somewhat uninteresting because of the repetitive nature of some of the material. I also believe the book’s content was not organized well for maximum learning and clarity so though many of the points and stories I enjoyed, I only can give it 2 stars.

The Tipping Point is an interesting book about how little things can cause something to become an epidemic in our society. From crime in New York City, to drugs in Baltimore, this book explores what really happens that cause normal events to “tip” and change so dramatically, seemingly overnight. Overall, the book is interesting, but it lacks a true message or core teaching other than little things can make a huge difference. Discovering what these little things are is the hard part. Though the content is very interesting at times, I give this book a 2 star rating out of 4.

It's Your Ship is a leadership book written by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff and is based on his experiences in the navy with a focus on his leadership practices as the captain of the USS Benfold. The Captain shares many interesting experiences including some about his time spent in the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm and applies them to leadership and business. Some of his main points include simplicity, empowerment, and praise as effective leadership skills and tools. I did find the book to be somewhat simplistic without a lot of new insights or depth to the ideas being shared however many of the stories were interesting. Thus I give the book 2 stars.

Through stories of his experiences as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks, Pat Riley teaches us some of life’s most important lessons on how to be successful--regardless of our position in life in his book The Winner Within. Three of the most important lessons for me highlighted in the book are the importance of teamwork, resiliency and belief. Pat Riley’s experiences as a basketball coach are perfect for elaborating on these important lessons. Although it is a good read, there are some things I did not enjoy about the book. For me, I felt the book was not written extremely well, and many of the stories are now outdated or are somewhat irrelevant to the points he was trying to make. Overall, I give the book 2 stars.
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I had high expectations, but I was very disappointed by How to Become an Employer of Choice by authors Herman and Gioia. I was hoping for innovative, creative, and proven solutions based on experience, testing, extensive research, and results, but I did not find that in this book. What I found was a very basic overview of how to create a good organizational culture based on simple ideas and common thoughts. Along with these were unique ideas from specific companies, however most often they were not very practical or applicable across business lines. The overall message of the importance and positive impact of creating a great organizational culture is good, and I did appreciate the end of the book that focused on measurement, application, and success, however, in the end I can only somewhat recommend this book with a weak 2 stars.