Is your leadership team struggling to adopt a cohesive approach? Read on for six books that promise to be total game-changers

I run a leadership development programme called Curated Leadership Conversations. I meet with leaders, put on the table a leadership topic, concept or tool, and then we talk about it in the context of their business.

The programme usually lasts six months, with hour-long sessions on a fortnightly basis. I believe it is highly effective, quality focused time and is great for leadership team development.

However, I’ve been thinking about how I can share some of the insight from the programme for next to nothing.

The idea is a bit like a business book club. You buy a copy of the six books below and give one to each team member (based on a team of six, but you can work this as best to suit you).

Each person reads the book they’ve been given, and at the end of the month you meet as a team and talk about aspects of the books that relate to the context of your business. You then swap books around and repeat for another six iterations.

After six months, you’ll all have read the six books and had some great leadership conversations.

You will have come together as a team and will be operating at a higher level and your people will be benefiting from more joined-up leadership.

So, a six-month leadership team development programme for the cost of six books.

The six books are:

1. Who Moved My Cheese? (1998), Dr Spencer Johnson – A classic book about what you want to have in life or business and how you handle change. Cheese is a metaphor for what you want to have in life or business and the maze is where you look to find it. I used to give this to everyone I coached; it reveals profound truths and only takes an hour to read.

2. Quality Without Tears – The Art of Hassle-Free Management (1984), Philip B. Crosby – For me, the bible on quality. Where ‘zero defects’ and ‘right first time’ came from. The four absolutes of quality are explained as the definition, the system, the performance standard and the measurement. Quality is a leadership matter rather than a management paperchase.
   
3. Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team (2002), Patrick Lencioni – I actually bought this book about 10 years ago and never got to read it until recently. It’s amazing how many parallels there are between the author’s work and mine, as a leadership team coach. I now intend to give every team leader I am working with a copy to read so they can gain a deeper understanding of the work we are doing together and to enable them to do more of it with their team in between our Leadership Team Focus Days.

4. Deep and Deliberate Delegation – A New Art for Unleashing Talent and Winning Back Time (2016), Dave Stitt (me!) – I was working with a top team and the leader asked me to do a workshop on delegation because “all of us think we are the only people who can do this and that is disempowering for our people”. I said no, but then realised he was onto something. Delegation is in every conversation I have with business people – a lack of it is a major frustration. I did the course for him and many since for others, and then wrote the book. If you want to win back your time – this is how to do it. ‘Time management’ doesn’t work.

5. Coach for Results – Empower your People to Achieve the Extraordinary(2022), Dave Stitt (me again!) – I argue the default conversation in industry is command and control. When you tell someone what to do and, worse, how to do it, they stop thinking for themselves. And you have to do all the thinking round here. Adopt a coaching style of management (it’s easy) and watch the empowerment and engagement take off around you. Surely, this is what you really want. This book explains just the essentials of a coaching style and how to get started. It comes with lots of recommendations from people who have made the shift, their experience, and the impact on them and those around them.

6. The Song of Significance – a New Manifesto for Teams(2023), Seth Godin – Possibly my favourite book, ever. Packed with wisdom and insight for people who want to create a resilient, human organisation that does work to be proud of. That’s you and me. Read this for inspiration and then inspire your people to embrace significance and create the future. What would happen to your company if this was the best job you and they ever had? I think this could reinvigorate your company.

Get the six books, ask your team members to read the short descriptions above and choose which they want to read first.

Then hand them the book – meet in one month, talk about the books in the context of your business, agree what needs to happen and make it happen together. Repeat.

This article was first published in CIOB People