Set Sail For Success, Eric Holmes, Set Sail Productions, 2004

Set Sail for Success outlines a process for achieving success as told through famous quotations. The process helps you find your dream, plan for success and motivates you for action. Its principles align with the founding principles of V-O-E™, leading to corporate prosperity.

Michaelson takes the principles of Sun Tzu and wraps around them the basic drivers of success: planning, persistence, discipline, etc. Basically, the book simplifies what many have often made too complicated: the process of uncovering the steps to success. Why are some people far and away more successful than others? Is it who they know or is it what they do (the argument of the ages)? Actually, it's both - surrounding oneself with the right people (a network, according to Michaelson) is just as important as creating a plan, sticking to it, and moving on it immediately.
Procrastinators will surely benefit from the principles outlined in this wonderful book because procrastination is simply not acceptable, according to Sun Tzu.

This book has helped many firms make amazing changes. Things like better communication, more effective meetings, comprehensive planning, routine systems all seem like the things we would be doing without being told. This book has helped firms build a foundation for moving to the next level and realize increased prosperity.

Harnish's book is extremely clear about the importance of core values, mission, alignment and rhythm. All concepts that most of us know, but don't know how to really implement. The difference between this book and others I've read, is that it gives you well thought out tools which you can implement with confidence. It's obvious that these tools have been honed through Mr. Harnish's work with many entrepreneurs and CEOs. Pay special attention to the planning pyramid; it's helped me share the big vision and get the organization into alignment. By putting stakes in the ground, it also quickly helps to identify any holes there may be in the overall strategy. This book does an excellent job of distilling the elements Verne's introduced to hundreds of fast growth companies into a recipe for success. It provides a clear methodology for annual and quarterly planning, aligning a management team around a Big Hairy Audacious Goal and creating rhythm and clear, open communication within an organization.

Here are the five team dysfunctions that Lencioni uses in this leadership fable:
1. Absence of trust
2. Fear of conflict
3. Lack of commitment
4. Avoidance of accountability
5. Inattention to detail

During my 35 years participating in teams in various companies, I have experienced all of these issues. This easy to read book reveals the attributes of each dysfunction and actions to take to alleviate them.

Jeffrey Fox provided me with the knowledge of what it takes to rise to the top of an organization and how to think like a successful CEO. The book explains what drives the actions of successful CEOs and any leader at any level for that matter. It teaches how to perceive the fundamental leadership issues that influence business decisions and the habits of mind needed to achieve success in business.

This book teaches you to be sensitive to the wants and desires of people around you and not to treat them like objects in YOUR master plan. Simple techniques are laid out to avoid the 'Blame game' and to start finding productive ways to work together to accomplish things on the job and at home. You'll want to read this again and again

In this book, Tracy Goss succeeds in doing what no one thought could be done.....she has taken the MOST useful and exciting teaching from the Landmark Forum and made it accessible to everyone in this fine, fine, book. Her book shows you EXACTLY how to reinvent yourself, anywhere, any time, no matter what your past history was. She shows you how to gracefully step outside of all past influences on your current life and reinvent yourself anew. Most self-help books cheer you on, but don't tell you exactly what to do. Tracy Goss does it all. Read carefully, read slowly, read as if you had a life-threatening disease and THIS was the cure.

The book categorizes all successful businesses as one of three types: product leaders, those specializing in customer intimacy, or those concentrating on operational excellence. Any business that falls short of excelling in one of these three areas, and achieving reasonable satisfaction levels in the other two areas, is doomed to failure, reports the book. The book supports its arguments with numerous case studies.

The strategy that the book addresses is partly business strategy, partly marketing strategy, and hence both general strategists and marketers will find it interesting. But it should be a must-read for any businessperson.

The message of The Discipline of Market Leaders is that no company can succeed today by trying to be all things to all people. It must instead find the unique value that it alone can deliver to a chosen market. Why and how this is done are the two key questions the book addresses.

This concise, practical book shares reasons why small businesses don't work and what to do about it. As a small business owner I found this 268 page book to be very readable, and provides an opportunity to learn from those who have made mistakes and learned from them.