Best of 2016: 18 Must-Reads for Insurance CIOs
December 14, 2016 5:00 AM
The Society for Information Management (SIM) Regional Leadership Forum is a nine-month training program where future IT leaders go to grow and nurture the leadership skills needed in today's IT environment. As part of their training, participants are expected to read and discuss dozens of books that explore different aspects of leadership. Following is their 2016 book list.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
By Patrick Lencioni(Jossey-Bass; 1st edition; 2002; 229 pages)Amazon prices: $11.95 hardcover, $6.75 paperback, and $13.82 Kindle.The author uses a fictional tale to explore hard truths about critical business procedures involving a troubled Silicon Valley firm. He writes about five dysfunctions that plague the firm, including absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results.
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High
By Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler(McGraw-Hill Education; 2nd edition; 2011; 272 pages)Amazon prices: $16.54 hardcover, $11.50 paperback, $10.18 Kindle.Communication skills are among the most important in any managers toolkit, and the authors help you understand how to make them really count when it matters most. The four authors are co-founders of VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and organizational performance. More than 1,000 reviewers commented on this title on Amazon, giving it a 4.5 star rating.
Cultivate: The Power of Winning Relationships
By Morag Barrett(Greenleaf Book Group Press; 2nd edition; 2016; 216 pages)Amazon prices: $19.20 hardcover, $7.99 Kindle.Barrett stresses the importance of leaders in gathering smart and creative people around them. Leaders with a great business plan and top-shelf products will achieve little without the right people to execute on that plan. What makes leaders fail most often? The inability to cultivate relationships and develop soft skills, she argues.
Emotional Intelligence 2.0
By Travis Bradberry, Jean Greaves, and Patrick M. Lencioni(TalentSmart; 2009; 255 pages) Amazon prices: $14.54 hardcover, $13.81 Kindle.Readers can take a survey, which is based on surveys of more than 500,000 people in various emotional situations, that yields advice to help deal with emotions creatively, and to accurately measure and increase emotional intelligence.
Leadership is an Art
By Max DePree(Crown Business; reprint edition; 2004; 148 pages)Amazon prices: $10.36 paperback, $11.99 Kindle.This book has been around since 1989, but it remains one of the most popular leadership development titles, selling more than 800,000 copies. DePree, CEO of Herman Miller Inc., an office furniture manufacturer, offers a humanitarian approach to managing others.
Leadership Passages: The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader
By David Dotlich(Jossey-Bass; 1st edition; 2004; 240 pages)Amazon prices: $22.85 hardcover, $15.99 Kindle.The leadership journey includes many crossroads, which serve as opportunities for professionals to learn, grow, and advance their careers. This book helps the reader best prepare for these opportunities, recognize them when they present themselves, and set themselves on the right path to success.
Leading With Soul: An Uncommon Journey of Spirit
By Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal(Jossey-Bass; 3rd edition; 2011; 304 pages)Amazon prices: $15.48 hardcover, $13.00 Kindle.This is a quasi-religious look at leadership and spiritual growth, told through a series of dialogs between a master and student. Through their exchanges -- and the prompting of the student -- the master quickly discovers he has much to learn as well.
Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change
By William Bridges and Susan Bridges(Da Capo Lifelong Books; Third Edition; 2009; 192 pages)Amazon prices: $10.78 paperback, $11.99 Kindle.William Bridges is a globally recognized expert on the subject of the human side of change. In his earlier work, Transitions: Making Sense of Lifes Changes, he introduced the notion of transition, which he explores in depth here as it relates to organizational change.
Mans Search for Meaning
By Viktor E. Frankl, William J. Winslade and Harold S. Kushner(Beacon Press; 1st edition; 2006; 184 pages)Amazon prices: $6.98 paperback, and $7.99 Kindle.Author Viktor Frankl spent three years at the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps in World War II, where he certainly had opportunity to reflect on mankind and meaning. As a professor of neurology and psychiatry, he developed the school of logotherapy, which helps patients discover meaning in their lives. The first and largest section of this book is devoted to his experiences in the concentration camps, where his father, mother, brother, and wife all died.
The Nibble Theory and the Kernel of Power
By Kaleel Jamison(Jossey-Bass Inc.; 1984; 74 pages)Amazon prices: $20.84 hardcover, $23.70 paperbackFrom the Amazon description: The Nibble Theory leads you toward a new sense of personal power and unlimited personal growth growth that arises from values and strengths which lie at the center of every personality.
The Old Man and the Sea
By Ernest Hemingway(Scribner; reprint edition; 1995; 128 pages)Amazon prices: $7.18 paperback, $9.99 Kindle.This literary classic probably needs little introduction, and indeed, was required reading in high school English departs for many years. The book earned Hemmingway a Nobel Prize, as it captured in magnificent imagery the struggle of the old fisherman Santiago with the giant fish. As one reviewer noted, It is a true tale of great success in the midst of failure.
The Post-American World
By Fareed Zaakaria(W.W. Norton & Company; 1st edition; 2008; 304 pages)Amazon prices: $4.32 hardcover, $4.49 paperback.This is not a book about the decline of the United States, but of the rise of everyone else. It looks at a new world in which the U.S. no longer dominates the world economy, orchestrates geopolitics, or overwhelms other cultures. It looks at the impacts on other countries, governments and cultures of this dramatic change in political confidence, national pride and international problems.
The Prince
By Niccolo Machiavelli(Dover Publications; reprint edition; 1992; 80 pages)Amazon prices: $7.53 hardcover, $2.25 paperback, $0.99 Kindle.This classic was written in 1512 when the author, after 14 years of service, was suddenly fired from his job as secretary to the Second Chancery of the Signoria, and decided to set this thoughts on politics and public service to paper. The result was an unflinching look at the harsh realities of politics, and how virtue has no role to play in it. The Prince is said to remain to this day one of the most candid and realistic looks at practices of power and politics.
Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow
By Tom Rath and Barry Conchie(Gallup Press; 1st edition; 2008; 266 pages)Amazon prices: $17.85 hardcover, $19.99 Kindle.The authors identify three keys to being a more effective leader: knowing your strengths and investing in the strengths of others; getting people with the right strengths on their team; and understanding and meeting the four basic needs of those who look to them for leadership.
Theft of the Spirit: A Journey to Spiritual Healing
By Carl Hammerschlag(Touchstone; 1994; 176 pages)Amazon prices: $13.95 paperback, $8.99 Kindle.From the Amazon description: Using Native American experience as an example, the author provides advice on living wisely, well, and spiritually in an increasingly materialistic world.
Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival
By Velma Wallis(Harper Perennial; 20th anniversary edition; 2013; 160 pages)Amazon prices: $12.15 paperback, $11.99 Kindle.This novel is based on an Athabascan Indian legend which has been passed down for several generations. It concerns the suspenseful and inspiring tale of two old women who are abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine and their efforts to survive and support each other.
Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius
By Erik Wahl(Crown Business; 1st Edition; 2013; 224 pages)Amazon prices: $16.94 hardcover, $12.99 Kindle.The author follows in the tradition of A Whole New Mind and The War of Art in exploring the power of creativity and its ability to help achieve superior performance.
The Zen of Listening: Mindful Communication in the Age of Distraction
By Rebecca Z. Shafir(Quest Books; revised edition; 2003; 272 pages)Amazon prices: $12.91 paperback, $8.98 Kindle.Shafir is chief of speech pathology at the Massachusetts Lahey Clinic, and she turns her attention here to the lost art of listening. She does so from a clinical perspective, offering advice on relaxation, focus, desire to learn, strategies to improve awareness, and exercises and activities to develop listening skills. It is often said that the best leaders are better listeners than speakers.