Pick to Click
Life’s pace is fast and information flies by us in email alerts, rss feeds, blogs, TV headlines and can even sit waiting for us in the pages of the soggy newspaper at the end of the driveway. It’s hard to know when to stop and really focus in on high quality ideas that can help us improve our personal and business lives. Because we feel there is such a need for literary guidance in this world, we’ve dedicated ourselves at McGurer & Associates to reading both the latest and greatest as well as the tried and true of business literature. In our Pick to Click section, we highlight our top recommendations so you can maximize your reading time and not lose precious hours on fluff or old fads. We even provide you with convenient links to Amazon.com for easy purchasing!

The Current Pick is:
Lately, and by lately we mean over the course of the last two years, the “Associates” have been pouring over thousands of pages of research on the topic of Influence (besides a somewhat geeky obsession with social psychology, you’ll see the business reason listed in the left hand menu). Just as we had highlighted the last article from Ron Burt, the University Of Chicago Graduate School Of Business, returned the last book to the library, and paid off our last Amazon.com bill, Ori and Rom Brafman released their book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. Had this book been available two years ago, it would’ve saved us a tremendous amount of time and eye-strain. Sway delivers the results of some of the more prominent human behavior and social psychology research studies in a brilliantly conversational tone. Vital ideas for understanding how we are influenced and how we can become more influential are transformed from dry academia into a collection of exciting, interesting, and practical anecdotes that will keep you riveted as if you were reading the latest spy novel. Please don’t get us wrong, this book does not oversimplify the concepts. On the contrary, the Brafmans serve up on a colorful platter all of the meat and meaning of today’s cutting-edge research. Sway is a page-turner that you’ll finish quickly and think about for a long time after.

More on Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior from Amazon.com

The Last Pick was:
Both Denny McGurer, President of McGurer & Associates, and “The Associates” have spent decades consulting and training in sales organizations. Just when we were all sighing in agreement that there didn’t seem to be any fresh ideas around improving sales performance, Richard Hodge and Lou Schachter recently released The Mind of the Customer. This book offers an in-depth analysis of today’s customers’ wants, needs, and problems, and reveals groundbreaking insights into the new expectations of today’s top sales executives. Interviews with 96 high-level executives at corporations such as Lexus, Nokia, and UPS validate the concepts with real-world perspectives. Hodge and Schachter demonstrate what it takes to win the deal in today’s marketplace. It’s one of those books you can’t put down once you start…board the plane with concerns about revenue and market share, read the whole way there; walk off the flight feeling like you have an edge on the competition!

More on The Mind of the Customer from Amazon.com

Recommended Reading List:
Click on a book to purchase it from Amazon.com
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath
Read more...
Trust Rules: How to Tell the Good Guys from the Bad Guys in Work and Life by Linda K. Stroh
Read more...
Managing With Power: Politics and Influence in Organizations by Jeffrey Pfeffer
Read more...
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) by Robert B. Cialdini
Read more...
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson
Read more...
It's All Politics: Winning in a World Where Hard Work and Talent Aren't Enough by Craig Hickman
Read more...
It's All Politics: Winning in a World Where Hard Work and Talent Aren't Enough by Kathleen Kelly Phd Reardon
Read more...
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim
Read more...
Influence Without Authority by Allan R. Cohen
Read more...
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
Read more...
The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything by Stephen M.R. Covey
Read more...
The Seven Secrets of Influence by Elaina Zuker
Read more...
A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder - How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and on-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place by Eric Abrahamson
Read more...
The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking by Roger L. Martin
Read more...