[wayspooled]

The most important business book I ever read was "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt. Argh.. business book! <spit> heh.. No really. It was an 80's business book written in the form of a novel, about the life of a plant manager and an old college professor of his. It sounds horrible but I trusted someones review and it ... changed the way I viewed every business process which is to say, everything in a business. And quite a few processes outside business, including relationships. Business wise, for example - it taught me to view bottlenecks as tools, not adversaries to be overcome - instead, it taught me to "place/move" them to the part of a process which was the easiest to increase or decrease the throughput. It's just a book that everyone should read that is involved with any kind of business or educational environment. There are even lessons to be learned for charities, but .. modified..

Oh, and there is nothing dated about it.. it's as valid today as the day it was written.

There's another great book I read that has to do with how to motivate people, in the situation for which I read it, people I was supervising - via a reward system rather than the ingrained punishment system of .. well, forever's business practice... Not some stupid cheerleader, positive thinking book though... In a nutshell, it taught that you manage via reward by never rewarding poor behavior.. and taught about all the types of reward there were other than just money. For example, not everyone works for the biggest buck, most people (bearing in mind "adequate" pay) have one of the following things that is "most" important to them - job security, a comfortable work environment, performance recognition to their peers, availability of flex time, some freedom to come and go as they need, other things. And you don't have to treat everyone exactly the same, they are all different - you have to treat everyone fairly. Beyond their basic living, they all have different needs and motivations. And you motivate performance by rewarding those - and it only works, and it works great... if you never, ever, reward poor performance. You never let bad performance go unremarked.

Unfortunately I don't remember the name of it and hopefully I can find this thread when I run across it. It's a thin little book, only about 70 pages, but it sure was packed with interesting thoughts.