Recommended Reading: November 2020

In keeping with our commitment to providing resources to leaders in our business community, our November reading list has this book:

Love is Free. Guac is Extra.: How Vulnerability, Empowerment, and Curiosity Built an Unstoppable Team - Monty Moran

In this book, former Co-CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill Monty Moran explores how vulnerability, love, curiosity, and a unique understanding of empowerment builds an extraordinary and effective culture. Moran discusses the shaping experiences he had that led him to scaling Chipotle from a regional chain to a Fortune 500 Business, including befriending the homeless as a teenager, navigating the ever-challenging Co-CEO relationship, and personally interviewing 20,000 employees to understand their experiences. This is a book that showcases Monty’s humility as a a leader, and it helps us better understand servant leadership in a business context. Further, Moran also shows us how we can both be loving leaders and have a culture of excellence. At PFD, we can’t recommend this book enough for its insight to leadership development as a catalyst in creating amazing companies.

Recommended Reading: October 2020

As a part of our continued commitment to providing the best resources for leaders to better themselves and thrive, for our October Reading List, we recommend these three books: The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni, Titan by Ron Chernow, and How I Built This by Guy Raz. These books provide diverse perspectives about entrepreneurship and self-improvement through the lens of effective narrative structures.

THE IDEAL TEAM PLAYER - HOW TO RECOGNIZE AND CULTIVATE THREE ESSENTIAL VIRTUES - PATRICK LENCIONI

In his book The Ideal Team Player, Patrick Lencioni provides actionable tools on how you should invest in your current team and hire going forward. At PFD, we share Patrick Lencoini’s passion for having healthy work environments. Since becoming CAPA Pro members, we have been able to share Lencioni’s foundational tools with our clients, and we have found that the ideal team player exercise has been worked well during this time of continued uncertainty. The ideal team player is a compelling framework for identifying, hiring, and developing ideal team players, talking about that these people are happy, humble, and aware of their impact on other people. The applications of this framework span all areas of life, from how we better ourselves, how we hire and develop our current team, how we parent, etc. It is an insightful and useful book, and we can’t recommend it enough.

TITAN: THE LIFE OF JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, SR. - RON CHERNOW

Ron Chernow’s Titan creates a captivating portrait of an entrepreneurial giant - John Rockefeller. The biography details two sides of this imperfect but brilliant figure in history: one side being the businessman whose aggressive practices created an empire, and the other of a philanthropist who donated bountiful amounts of money and was committed to educating marginalized populations. We recommend this book during this time because we find that it is important to tell stories of really strong leaders of different times and draw from the lessons that they have to share. This book is relevant today, because it shows how one leader navigated a time of political uncertainty in US. Further, by reflecting on Rockefeller’s life, we can critically think about the legacy that we are leaving behind, incorporating Rockefeller’s brilliance and commitment to philanthropy into our legacy, but also taking heed to not repeat the more infamous parts of his history.

HOW I BUILT THIS: UNEXPECTED PATHS TO SUCCESS FROM THE WORLD’S MOST INSPIRING ENTREPRENEURS - GUY RAZ

This book from Guy Raz tells stories of entrepreneurial brilliance. Raz is the mind behind and the host of NPR’s podcast by the same name, and it tells stories of innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the movements they built. This book is based off of that podcast, which is the top business podcast on iTunes, with over 200 million downloads to date. By telling these stories, this book offers insight to entrepreneurs on wisdom on how to overcome every problem, and it inspires us to strive for the same level of determination. We at PFD recommend this to our readers to broaden their perspectives and learn lessons from professionals who spent years learning these lessons themselves.

Recommended Reading: September 2020

At PFD, we believe that continuing to grow and learn is paramount to being able to thrive as a leader. Continuing with our commitment to our business community to provide resources with best practices, for our September Reading List, we recommend these three books: Right Away & All at Once by Greg Brenneman, Personality Isn't Permanent by Benjamin Hardy PhD, and Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden. These books vary in subject matter, but they all have insights on how you can create the best version of yourself, which will liberate you to more effectively and meaningfully lead your business. 

Right Away & All at Once: Five Steps to Transform Your Business and Enrich Your Life - Greg Brenneman

At PFD, we believe that our businesses should support the lives that we want to live and the impact that we want to make on the world.

Greg Brenneman couldn’t agree more.

In this book, Brenneman writes on techniques that you can do to BOTH grow your business, AND live a rich, purposeful life. He takes his learnings from turning around growing many successful businesses, including Burger King and Continental airlines, to provide a clear roadmap on how to achieve business and personal success. Those steps include:

• Preparing a succinct “Go Forward” plan

• Building a fortress balance sheet

• Growing your sales and profits

• Choosing all-star servant leaders

• Empowering your team
   

  We found Brenneman’s holistic, proven approach to be a practical guide for any leader that has a higher calling for their business and life.

Personality Isn't Permanent: Break Free from Self-Limiting Beliefs and Rewrite Your Story - Benjamin Hardy

In this book, Dr. Benjamin Hardy uses his psychological expertise and research to completely redefine how we think about personality. He dismantles the idea that we have one “true” personality waiting to be discovered, and instead offers a more empowering, action-oriented approach. Personality, as offered by Hardy, is a result of how we can intentionally create our desired selves and achieve amazing goals

He offers science-based advice to for personal reflection, like how to design your current identity based on your desired future self, and how to become confident enough to define your own lives purpose.

At PFD, we believe that as leaders, when we are clear about the future we want to create for ourselves and others, we are then able to take the steps to live into that future. When we define what we want to create, who we want around us, and how we can be resilient in the face of uncertainty, we grow into the person we desire to be. We are actors in our own lives, and we think this book is an empowering and practical look at how we can strategically create the future we want for ourselves.
     

Procrastinate on Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time - Rory Vaden

We all have the same 168 hours in the week, Great leaders are able to use that time more effectively. In this book, Rory Vaden has shared his wisdom and actionable tips to multiply the time we have available.

Vaden creates a simple guide to set us free to do our best work, and overcome stalled productivity. This approach takes into account the emotional aspect of productivity and it gives us a clear path forward. Vaden’s model gives us five simple permissions so we can stop wasting time and energy and engage in our most worthwhile work:

   •  Eliminate
   •  Automate
   •  Delegate
   •  Consolidate
   •  Procrastinate (yes, you heard that right)

We at PFD recommend this to our readers to multiply our time so we can focus on doing meaningful work.

Recommended Reading: June 2020

At PFD, we genuinely believe that continuing to grow and learn is paramount to being able to thrive as a leader. Continuing with our commitment to our business community to provide resources with best practices, we have another book that we highly recommend:

Oversubscribed: How to Get People Lining Up to Do Business with You by Daniel Priestley.

Daniel Priestly’s Oversubscribed provides amazing insight into how to build a customer base that will line up to do business with you - even in a crowded marketplace. This book begins with detailed principles on how to become oversubscribed, and then it transitions into a campaign schedule that your team can follow to engage customers and build predictability. Next, it gives great tips on how to better your team in executing the campaigns - describing who needs to be on your team and the materials they need to be able to thrive. Finally, it closes by advocating that we use our campaigns and resources to better the world and fulfill a higher calling. There is incredible need in the world and our communities, and we need leaders to be able to execute specific plans of action to create tangible change. We at PFD have found this book to be immensely useful, and we will definitely be incorporating its best practices in how we operate our business.

Recommended Reading List: May 2020

Great leaders are capable of leading their teams through both the good and the bad times. These three recommended books below share best practices regarding how to make the most of the current challenges and opportunities, all while being a servant leader.

1.) The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

The Splendid and the Vile is a captivating read that we found nearly impossible to put down. Erik Larson tells the story of Churchill’s family life and leadership. Churchill’s story during his prime is a great example of how an individual can effectively inspire teams. This narrative shows how important great leadership is at all levels of an organization.

2.) Shackelton’s Way by Margot Morrell

By including anecdotes from Shackleton’s journey in the Antarctic, Margot Morrell shows the incredible leadership style of Shackleton and addresses how it can be used today. This novel demonstrates how to build a diverse and highly functioning team in any circumstance while navigating through uncertainty.

3.) Right Away and All at Once by Greg Brenneman

Written by one of the top turnaround leaders in the world, Right Away and All at Once provides a framework for what is important to keep in mind during uncertain times. Greg Brenneman is able to show how creating an effective life plan can translate into a successful business. This book gives a 5 step roadmap to help create their own plan that will better both their business and themselves.