Is this one of your top ten employee relations books?
- It’s Your Ship by Michael Abrashoff – I have taught clients out of this book for years. It is an easy, entertaining read that teaches very practical ways a new leader can turn around a poor work environment. My highest recommendation.
- Flawless Consulting by Peter Block – This book is really not about consulting and Block defines consulting broadly. Any manager or supervisor who isn’t actually involved in doing the work is a consultant. The book is about how to effectively collaborate to make positive change. Block has other excellent books (Stewardship is also great) but this one is my favorite.
- Influence by Robert Cialdini – Most negative workplaces I enter do a terrible job of communicating. It is very common that these organizations do such a terrible job of communicating that they don’t even get credit for when they do something good. This book is fundamentally about how to communicate effectively. In a negative workplace there is a lot of inertia going against you, so this book’s tips on persuading people to your point of view are also important lessons.
- Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzer – This book is important not so much for its content but for its main idea, which is to directly confront issues instead of avoiding them or, even worse, reacting in a way that makes things worse. They call these crucial conversations. Great leaders are good at these conversations. They offer a lot of ideas and tools about how to be effective at these conversations (so does Peter Block’s flawless consulting book).
- The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch – These next two books are more about personal effectiveness than about creating positive workplaces, but a lot of the problems I find in organizations are not problems with knowing what to do, but instead problems with execution. The 80/20 Principle (sometimes called the Pareto Principle) finds that in most areas of life there are small factors that have the biggest impact. I’ve found this to be true in many organizations and when you start playing with the idea you’ll find all kinds of leverage points that can make you massively more effective in your organization and in your life. A big idea.
- Getting Things Done by David Allen – Another book that is more about effectiveness than about creating a positive workplace. Whatever system you use to accomplish your goals (another good one can be found in Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) the important thing is to have one. I like Allen’s a lot but the key here is to have some way to make sure the things you need to do actually get done.
- Working by Studs Terkel – A classic. Studs Terkel begins, “This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence – to the spirit as well as the body.” If you are going to be any good at all in employee relations probably the most important skill is empathy. You have to be able to listen with empathy to a lot of bad and ugly stuff that happens at work. Unlike Mr. Terkel, you will often get a chance to fix what you learn about, but there certainly times that you can’t fix it. The good news is that taking the time to really listen with empathy is often all that’s required. And there is probably no better example of someone listening with empathy to the good, bad and ugly stories of working people than Studs Terkel does in this book.
- The Next 52 Weeks by Phillip Wilson – This one is self-serving, but I do think it is a good starting place for someone interested in turning around a negative working environment. This outlines my step-by-step program for transforming a negative work environment into a positive one.
What are your favorites? Let me know in the comments.
