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I love to read.  If I’m not reading, I feel as if I’m not learning.  If I’m not learning, I feel as if I’m not growing.

Here is a quick recap of some books I read in 2008.

The Best of ‘08

Tribes // Seth Godin

Axiom // Bill Hybels

Crazy Love // Francis Chan

Revolution of Character // Dallas Willard & Don Simpson

Wild Goose Chase // Mark Batterson

The Screwtape Letters // C.S. Lewis

Great Books of ‘08

One Month to Live // Kerry & Chris Shook

Walking With God // John Eldredge

ID: The True You // Mark Batterson

Mavericks at Work // William C. Taylor & Polly Labarre

Talent Is Never Enough // John Maxwell

Simplicity // Bill Jensen

Also Learned From in ‘08

200 Pomegranates & An Audience of One // Shawn Wood

The Truth About You // Marcus Buckingham

Integrity // Dr. Henry Cloud

Churched //  Matthew Paul Turner

The Faith of Barack Obama // Stephen Mansfield

Lead Like Jesus // Ken Blanchard & Phil Hodges

Which books did you learn & grow from in 2008?

Mavericks at Work has 4 parts

1) Rethinking Competition

2) Reinventing Innovation

3) Reconnecting With Customers

4) Redesigning Work

I am reading through part 4 now and I think its the most important. Parts 1, 2, and 3 all depend on 4.

Everyone always says, “People are our most important asset.” It might be an over used phrase, but it remains true. Rethinking Competition, Reinventing Innovation, and Reconnecting With Customers can only happen with great people.

Mavericks at Work authors William C. Taylor and Polly Labarre often ask CEOs the following question…

Why would great people want to work here? (The answer can’t be about salaries, bonuses, or stock options)

It is a good question to think about……..for employers and employees.

Employers want great people to work for them.

Employees want great people to work with them.

Still working my way through Mavericks at Work by William C. Taylor & Polly Labarre

Here are a few of the lines that are now highlighted in my copy of the book….

• If everybody is selling the same thing, what’s the tie-breaker? It’s purpose.

• How you talk about your company speaks volumes about how you think about your business. And ultimately, how you think about your business determines how well it performs.

• If you do things the way everybody else does, why do you think you’re going to do any better?

• Companies that compete on a disruptive point of view are defined as much by the opportunities they choose not to pursue as by the businesses they do enter.

• Stop pussfooting around with “softball” issues such as corporate governance and stakeholder management and focus on what matters most in business – using every legitimate resource and strategy available to gain advantage over competitors.

• Even in the face of massive competition, don’t think about the competition……..Just think about the customer.

• At the heart of every great company is a clear sense of purpose.

• We believe that a new wave of strategic innovation is being built around disruptive points of view.

• The companies that get in trouble are the ones that are mushy about who they are.

• The open-source movement clearly demonstrates that the more smart people you can persuade to work on a problem, the more likely it is to get solved.

• You cannot motivate the best people with money. The best people in any field are motivated by passion. People do their best work when they are passionately engaged in what they’re doing.

• Companies that successfully attract outside brainpower will absolutely eat the lunch of companies that don’t.

• It’s amazing to think there are people inside big companies spending millions of dollars to rediscover knowledge that already exists.

• You can think big without having to think of everything yourself.

• Whatever day it is, something in the world changed overnight, and you better figure out what it is and what it means. You have to forget what you just did and what you just learned. You have to walk in stupid every day.