Sunday 31 May 2009

Consulting - recommended reading

There are two particular books that standout to me as having had the most influence over my approach in business consulting, both containing excellent practical advice on how to engage with clients and how to handle often challenging situations effectively.

Neither of these books teach techniques that are for use in specific situations (e.g. specific facilitation exercises or workshop scenarios); instead, they deal with the consulting lifecycle, with a focus on engagement with people.

If you are a consultant and have never read these books, buy them now - essential reading!

1. Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used, by Peter Block.



I was fortunate enough to read this early in my career as a consultant and even now when I look back at it, I can find points that are relevant and useful to apply in every role I take on - whether it be consultancy or otherwise.


2. The Trusted Advisor



This book deals with building productive, personal business relationships based on respect and trust. Also a very highly recommended read.

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For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

The book that inspired action: The 4-Hour Work Week

I've read various personal development and self-help books over the years, but the one that I read most recently (I read it from cover-to-cover in two days and finished it yesterday), was "The 4-hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich" by Timothy Ferriss.


The messages are similar to those seen in many self-help books, but I was seriously impressed by both some of the big ideas in this book and some of the little tips sprinkled throughout.

The fact that I've been motivated to setup this blog and write this post so soon after reading it is a testament to how good it was.

The four main sections of the book are:

  1. D is for Definition
  2. E is for Elimination
  3. A is for Automation
  4. L is for Liberation

"D is for Definition" is all about mindset and goals. The principles are the same as with many other self-help books, except it has a slightly different "less is more" spin and the goal-setting takes the form of a "Dreamline", which I was surprised to find has already led to more action than many of the other structures I've used in the past.

More info and templates can be found on Tim Ferriss's site:

"E is for Elimination" is focussed on the minimisation of low value activities and compressing the highest value activities in your life into tighter timescales to both make more effective use of time and maximise the effectiveness of your actions.

It covers time management from a slightly different angle and the use of Pareto's 80/20 "rule" to various parts of your life. As with all other parts of the book, there are various sprinklings of examples, case studies and tips, including things like a boxout on speed reading (which I had a go at and it actually does help - assuming you have the discipline to stick with it). Even if you don't believe some of the quasi-science and hype, it provides a few new perspectives that I've already been able to apply.

"A is for Automation" was the most interesting part of the book for me. It describes how to setup a low-maintenance, high-yeild income stream. It really is step-by-step and there are some great boxouts, such as how to create the perception of expertise for PR purposes (which I am going to put into action at work even if I don't follow all of the other ideas in the book).

It's clear that achieving the utopian fully-automated business (or "muse") that provides a steady income stream to cover your lifestyle needs is simple in concept but not as easy as it sounds - but there is plenty of advice here on how to do it, and much of the ideas are applicable to any business scenario, so are useful even if you don't intend on setting up a new business.

"L is for Liberation" is all about what to do with your newly recovered free time. Whilst the specifics covered in this section may not be everyone's cup of tea, they are certainly interesting and provide some good ideas. The key message is about ensuring you have purpose in life and that it is based on your real interests: the 4-hour week is not something you should necessarily be aspiring to, just as world travel isn't - but each of these and many more things are possible and it's up to you to find your own interests and pursue them.

In summary, a well recommended read! Below is a link to it on Amazon.co.uk.

For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:


Personal Development Tools and Templates

Nearly every personal development and self-help book out there has one key message: take action now.

Even if the action that is being recommended is to do less rather than more, the effectiveness of the recommendations is based on how much you follow them, and the quicker you get started the quicker you will see results.

The trouble is, as long as you are reading about it, you are not taking action!

So, my aim here is to create and share a set of tools that you can use straight away to start taking action now. Most will be based on tools that are explained in various books I have read, many are very straight-forward (obvious, even) - but by by providing them in a format that is easy to pick up, I hope this will help people to actually use them to start taking action and seeing positive change in their lives.

Context and background are still useful and important, so there are also book and website recommendations here to read around the subject and get inspiration - but the aim of these tools is that you can dip in and immediately see the results of using them.

Success in life and in business is all about taking action - and I hope that the content in this site will help you in doing exactly that.

About this Blog

The main purpose of this blog is to provide three things:
  1. Personal development tools and templates
  2. Book recommendations (focus on personal development / self-help and business excellence)
  3. Notes and thoughts on my own personal, personal development journey

It is also an experiment in the use of a blog for different types of content. Depending on how things go, the pages may need to spin off into a website to make it easier to find things - especially for the personal development tools. The reason for choosing to use a Blog for this is that it's really quick and easy to setup and publish content so I can focus on getting stuff out there rather than fiddling about with designs (which, if people find the content useful, I can do later).

I'm very keen to hear what people think so please do post comments if you find anything useful (or otherwise).