Books to change your worklife

If you made a New Year's Resolution to be better at your job, work/life balance, or decided to scope out a new career, the summer break may be the only chance you get to do some background reading. Here we review five business, management and self-development titles available in book stores now.

Before you Quit your Job
By Robert Kiyosaki
Tech Press $35.99 RRP (Paperback)

With this, his 11th book, 'rich dad' Robert Kiyosaki, whose titles including New York Times 2003 and 2004 bestseller Rich Dad, Poor Dad, is probably about to get a whole lot richer.

The premise of Before you Quit your Job is simple: if you're going to quit, why not find out if you've got what it takes to become multi-million dollar earning entrepreneur. Kiyosaki's trademark common sense manages to morph this infomercial-like premise into a plausible career path early in the book; in Kiyosaki's view, employment delivers security, entrepreneurship freedom, and anyone can become an entrepreneur with the right self-beliefs and training.

Using personal anecdotes, humour and lots of references to the now famous 'dads', Before you Quit your Job is fun to read and food for thought. However, Kiyosaki waits until the last chapter to ask his readers to check they actually want an entrepreneurial career and way of life. If the answer is yes, congratulations, you have this useful and entertaining book to guide you; if no, well never mind; you've probably enjoyed reading it anyway. No wonder the guy is successful.

Winning
By Jack Welch
Harper Collins $49.95 RRP (Hardback)

Endorsed by Bill Gates and billionaire Warren E Buffet, Winning by former US General Electric chief executive Jack Welch is considered a must-read for managers hungry for career excellence.

If you think this will rule you out, Welch encourages you to think again. He believes passionate managers are not only found at executive or senior levels of companies, but on the front lines as well - business owners, middle managers, people running factories, line workers and graduates. What ties everyone together, argues Welch, is the desire to win.

Welch's passion for management and people is obvious and his enthusiasm infectious. After an inspiring introduction, the book heads into familiar territory for those with formal management training and comfortable territory for those without.

Three key sections - company, competition, career - deal with management topics as diverse as organisational mission and values, competitive differentiation; leadership, people management skills, how to get promoted, and yes, how to achieve a better work/life balance.

Less predictably, Welch reveals his "biggest dirty little secret in business" and pumps out sound advice on crisis management, budgeting, and competitive strategy. There's also help for managing change and dealing with mergers and acquisitions.

This could have been just another dry business tutorial and testimonial. Instead, Welch ensures Winning is energetic, interesting, and most importantly, readable.

TradeMe Success Secrets
By Michael Carney
Activity Press, $34.95 RRP (Paperback)

One for all those back-shed entrepreneurs and a first class case study of an iconic New Zealand business, this how-to guide for buying and selling on phenomenonally successful Kiwi web site Trade Me ambitiously targets a wide audience of absolute beginners, seasoned users, and those who manage to pay the mortgage through Trade Me auctions.

At times, such scope makes this book a bit of a wade, and readers of varying Trade Me experience may find it hard to know where to come in. Also rather inexplicably, author and researcher Michael Carney travels beyond the scope of the title to deliver purchasing advice not specific to the Trade Me process.

For example page 85 provides a quick run down on the kinds of houses you might want to avoid - like those backing onto a golf course - followed by a full page spread home buyers check list. Thanks for that Michael, but can we get back to Trade Me?

These grumbles aside, TradeMe Success Secrets is exhaustively researched, as compact as it can be, and boasts a superb layout. It is also useful, delivering on the promise of its sub-title and providing enough new auction information to incite a sudden call to keyboards by Trade Me stalwarts.

Values at Work
By Michael Henderson and Dougal Thompson
Harper Collins, $34.99 RRP (Paperback)

Many organisations espouse the importance of company values, but how many fully understand them? What is a value, and how is it different from an ethic or a moral? New Zealand business consultants Michael Henderson and Dougal Thompson describe the power of organisational values and explain how a properly values-driven organisation can reap the benefits of additional growth, direction, increased staff retention and profitability.

Aside from a dreary little formula in the opening pages, the authors do an excellent job of holding the reader's interest and take pains to define common and not-so-common values and management terms clearly.

National and international 'values gurus' and local business leaders are quoted throughout; resulting in a book peppered with interesting voices. Chapter 18 offers up transcripts of several interviews conducted with the CEOs of local organisations including Burger King, Onesource and Whitcoulls and early on there's an interview with Vodafone Pacific CEO Grahame Maher.

Values at Work does indeed work, thanks to clear writing, a manageable length, local content and internationally relevant business theories.

One Minute for Yourself
By Spencer Johnson
Harper Collins, $22.00 RRP (Paperback)

Parents everywhere will grasp at the title, but this is a book for anyone keen to reduce stress at work and at home and take better care of themselves.

US author and doctor Spencer Johnson is actually 'master of the minute', having written five other Minute titles including The One Minute Manager, The One Minute Salesperson and The One Minute Teacher. The best thing about this book is it's so light and little you really can grab One Minute for Yourself - grab it and read while you're eating breakfast or sitting at the traffic lights.

Johnson has fun, turning what might have been a run-of-the-mill self-help book into a story about a man, his uncle and his auntie. It's all pretty obvious and can be tedious in places, and you'll probably feel like throttling the uncle by the time you get to the end of the book, but do take a minute for yourself first. You certainly don't need the angst, and uncle's advice is sound, after all.

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It's hard to imagine anyone wanting to attend a career-improving course over the summer break, but for some people there's only so much sun you can take and Pavlova you can eat.

Short courses in business and management topics are available from business education providers from early January. Starting on January 9, the University of Auckland Business School will offer nine short courses on a range of business topics including project management.

It is also possible to engage the services of a life coach or career coach throughout the summer break. Business coaches are available through organisations such as Action International, with availability depending on individual coaches and the area you live in. Costs vary according to the provider, but Action charges around $1000 for two full sessions a month.