Enchantment, by Guy Kawasaki

The HR expert that recommended this book to me is Christophe Lo Giudice, Chief Editor at Peoplesphere, a Belgian HR magazine and community.

Written in a humorous and informal style by the sympathetic former chief evangelist of Apple, Enchantment is an interesting “how-to book” covering various subjects related to marketing, public relations, entrepreneurship and people management.

The subjects covered are:

• How to make people like you, including how to smile, dress, accept other people's ideas and values...
• How to build trust
• How to prepare and to launch your project, your big idea
• How to overcome resistance (tips for convincing skeptical people) and how to make your influence last in the long term.
• How to use presentations, e-mails, websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Youtube
• How to manage people by enchanting them
• How to make your boss like you
• How to avoid being influenced by other people (for example, how to resist mass-media marketing).
  
  

How Is Enchantment Useful to HR Practitioners?

Many of Guy Kawasaki's tips can be really useful for HR professionals. They can help us communicate better, help us use the tools of our times to build a stronger influence.

In particular, the chapter titled "How to enchant Your employees" provides interesting leadership advice.

Book Data:

• Enchantment. The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions
• By Guy KAWASAKI
• Penguin Books, 2011
• 211 pages
• Available on Amazon.com: Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions

You can follow GuyKawasaki on Twitter, where he posts huge quantities of interesting stuff (and don't forget to follow HRbooks also!). 

The 2011 global ranking of management thinkers: what's in it for HR?

Thinkers50 has just published its 2011 global ranking of management thinkers. This year, the winner is Clayton Christensen, author of « The Innovator's Dilemma ». For sure, all these 50 gurus have plenty to teach us. 

And of course, we all should know the basics of innovation, strategy, or marketing. But which of these leading management thinkers are particularly relevant for HR professionals ? I mean, directly related to HR. Approximately half of them are, in my humble opinion. Here is my personal selection:

Rank	Author	Main field of expertise
4	Jim Collins	Management
7	Marshall Goldsmith	Leadership
8	Marcus Buckingham	Self management
10	Malcolm Gladwell	Society, career, decision-making
11	Sylvia Ann Hewlett	Talent management, women at work
12	Lynda Gratton	People in organizations, the future of work, collaborative working
13	Nitin Nohria	Motivation, leadership, sustainable performance
16	Linda Hill	Leadership, innovation, cross-organizational relationships, talent management
18	Teresa Amabile	Creativity, organizational life and its influence on people and their performance
22	Jeffrey Pfeffer	Evidence based management, human resources, power, leadership
23	David Ulrich	Leadership, talent, human resources, culture, coaching, change
25	Rosabeth Moss Kanter	Leadership, change, globalization
28	Herminia Ibarra	Leadership, women's careers, career transition
29	Daniel Pink	Career, self employment, motivation
30	Henry Mintzberg	The work of the manager, how managers are trained and developed
33	Tammy Erickson	Generations at work : workforce demographics and values
35	Amy Edmondson	Teamwork
37	Howard Gardner	Intelligence
39	Daniel Goleman	Emotional Intelligence, leadership
40	Vineet Nayar	Employees First, Customers Second
42	Fons Trompenaars	Cultural Diversity in Business
45	Stewart Friedman	Work/life integration, leadership
47	Stephen Covey	Leadership, personal effectiveness

Previous posts on this blog have featured books by Stew Friedman, Dave Ulrich and Jeffrey Pfeffer. I now have many reading opportunities for the months to come. Fellow HR pros, please send me an e-mail or leave a comment to let me know which of these thinkers have written the greatest books...