Creating Clarity from Chaos » Tom Rath http://businessclarity.net A Resource for Business, Career & Personal Development Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:22:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Vital Friends http://businessclarity.net/vital-friends/ http://businessclarity.net/vital-friends/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:28:57 +0000 ged http://businessclarity.net/?p=755   Title: Vital Friends   Author: Tom Rath Has worked for Gallup for over 12 years (an organization world renowned for “Gallup Polls”), he is also Co author of “How Full is Your Bucket”.   Category:
  • Business
  • Management
  • Personal Development
  What the book is about:   The book concentrates on the benefits that we receive from our closest friends.The term friend is now over used, with the advent of Facebook and other social networks, slight acquaintances are now classed as friends. Vital (True) friends are people that bring something essential to our lives. 

Here vital friends are split into eight categories Builders, Champions, Collaborators, Companions, Connectors, Mind Openers Navigators & Energizers. Each of the categories is covered in depth in regard to their benefits and how best to profit from their strengths.

Anyone purchasing the book is provided with a unique code that allows them access to a website and allows them to catalogue their own friends into the different categories.

The book observes the fact that nowadays we concentrate a lot on self development and personal growth but should spend more time in fostering one on one friendships.

We are also informed that in our search for a work life balance it isn’t that easy to have a nice clean demarcation between our work and our family life. An argument before we leave the house for work can start us in a negative spiral for the day and a negative influence at work can follow through into our home life.   Would I buy this book:

YES

    It provides different ideas not found on most self development books   What I liked about this book:   The knowledge that in several United States organisations they openly look to restrict fraternizing between co-workers (Even going as far as having confidential informant phone lines) yet research shows best friends at work can result in higher levels of worker engagement.Higher levels of engagement at work mean more productive satisfied workers.

I found it interesting the impact that friends have on our diet and other aspects of our well being. Best Friends with healthy diets and healthy lifestyles tend to foster healthy diets and lifestyles in ourselves, whilst best friends who have a predominantly unhealthy diet have an adverse affect on us.   What I thought could have been improved in this book:   I understand the reason to concentrate on the eight categories but I would rather have seen more of the book on other areas of the subject.   Formats available:  

  • Hard Back 
  • Paper Back 
  • Audio book
  • Audio Download
  • Kindle
  Where available:   http://www.fishpond.co.nz/ www.thenile.co.nz Shop at Amazon.com! ]]> http://businessclarity.net/vital-friends/feed/ 0 How Full is Your Bucket http://businessclarity.net/how-full-is-your-bucket/ http://businessclarity.net/how-full-is-your-bucket/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:59:20 +0000 ged http://businessclarity.net/?p=732   Title: How Full is Your Bucket   Author: Tom Rath has worked for Gallup for over 12 years (an organization world renowned for “Gallup Polls”) ,he co authored  this book with Donald O Clifton   Category:
  • Business
  • Management
  • Self Development
  What the book is about:   The Bucket in the title is our personal emotional bucket which can be filled with either positive or negative inputs.  Tom uses the polls of over 5 million contributors, to focus on the benefits of positive inputs to our lives.

The principles in this book can be used to enrich our individual lives or even to create a work atmosphere where the team are more engaged in the business.

Using polls from such diverse groups as school children and nuns he shows how positive feedback at the right level can help people prosper and actually live longer.

We are told that we should concentrate on what is right with people instead of what is wrong.   Would I buy this book:

YES

    A short easy to read book that provides a simple message.   What I liked about this book:   I liked the fact that false praise is seen to have more of a negative effect than a straight negative comment.  I really resonated with the idea that we are very specific when we provide criticism but pretty general when it comes to praise.I found it interesting the high percentage of people surveyed that would concentrate on their child’s lowest school grade instead of its highest.   What I thought could have been improved in this book:   As an audio book this lasts around 45 minutes and with such a great resource I wish it could have gone on a little longer.   Formats available:  
  • Hard Back 
  • Paper Back 
  • Audio book
  • Audio Download
  • Kindle
  Where available:   http://www.fishpond.co.nz/ www.thenile.co.nz Shop at Amazon.com! ]]> http://businessclarity.net/how-full-is-your-bucket/feed/ 0