Books worth reading

Here are some recommended books more or less on emotional intelligence, and/or related to the application of EI in the workplace (however inadvertently).  It’s not an exhaustive list, but at least I’ve read them all.

I will add to the list as books occur to me.  For now, a few of the most obvious

The tipping point
Malcolm Gladwell

Amongst other things, this is central on how to get a message through a group. Perfect background for networking and growing business through advocacy.

I particularly warmed to Gladwell’s concepts of connectors, mavens and influencers (well, he calls them ‘salesmen’ but I don’t like (a) the reference to sales and (b) the implied sexism). You need connectors to help build a network, and mavens and influencers from whom to draw advocates.

Emotional intelligence
Daniel Goleman

The most obvious must-read. This is the book that really popularised the subject and it is a fine overview which has stood the test of time.
Daniel Goleman writes about the book.

I was less enamoured of the followup Working with emotional intelligence: it’s too much of a breathless rush through story after story.

Breaking the mould
Peter A Hunter

Peter’s passionate belief is that the best people to identify how to make improvements in a business’s processes and performance are the people who have to deliver them.  In part, an extended story about how he developed ground breaking ways to empowering the workforce in the oil industry.

Sticky marketing
Grant Leboff

Grant is the person who has most influenced emotional intelligence at work‘s attitude to marketing both in what we say and what we do.  Starting with the principle that people do not buy benefits (they buy solutions to problems, so don’t talk about the benefits of your service or product), he goes on to dispose of USPs and many other sacred cows.

His earlier book, Sales therapy, is also essential reading.

Grant talks about emotional intelligence in the workplace.
Grant’s website

Introducing NLP
Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour

Although we believe that there is rather less to NLP than meets the eye, this is an excellent compendium of techniques to improve one’s personal performance.  (Jeremy studied with John Seymour, gaining both NLP practitioner and master practitioner certificates.)

The Richer way
Julian Richer

The founder of Richer Sounds clearly describes his people centred approach to leadership and management. Something of an embodiment of our precept, ‘Make the other person more important than you’. Whilst never able really to leave the world he knows best, hifi retail, Richer’s ideas are easily mappable to any leadership situation.

Wholeheartedness
Chuck Spezzano

Whilst this book is firmly about personal relationships and healing the problems in them, we believe that people form relationships in the same way irrespective of context.  So, the content is equally applicable to business relationships.  Read particularly pages 27-47, Understanding relationships, which is essential reading on the stages of a relationship and is easily transferable to a work context.  I have summarised this here in this website.