49 books like Flawless Consulting

We all make ourselves. How well we do it is our choice!

This book has had a profound impact on my approach to executive coaching and organizational change, where a key difficulty that compromises performance centers on self-limiting and misguided beliefs. Drs. Ellis and Harper focus on self-management techniques that shift the focus from “them” to “you.” We can change negative emotions and behaviors that stem from our own thinking. It’s our choice as to what we think and emote.

This book, based on clinical research, provides readers with insights and techniques to permanently shift their game.

The learnings from this book have helped us so many times to make good decisions for our coaching business. Two concepts in particular have stood out: The Hedgehog Concept and Stockdale Paradox from this book are alive in us every day.

The Hedgehog Concept is the intersection between three circles: 1) What can you be best in the world at? 2) What drives the economic engine? 3) What are you deeply passionate about?

The Stockdale Paradox is to always retain the faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of difficulties, while confronting the brutal fact of your current reality.

The insights in this groundbreaking book apply across the board, from social and family life to interacting and managing others in organizational life.

What factors are at play when people of high IQ flounder while those who are more modestly endowed succeed? Goleman argues that the difference is Emotional Intelligence, which, as he explains, comprises empathy, effective social skills/communication, self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation.

I’ve watched too many of the allegedly best and brightest, tough-minded executives flame out because they failed to rein in emotional impulse, read others’ feelings, or handle interpersonal relationships. The skills are learnable, and in today’s asymmetric, hybrid, matrixed organizations, they are essential for success.

This elegantly written book is chock-a-block with real-life examples and balances rigorous conceptual discussion with practical tips for moving organizations from mediocrity to excellence.

I especially like the author's distillation of eight practical tips that separate successful companies from the wannabes, including a bias for action, staying close to the customer, and “sticking to the knitting.” These were ahas! at the time and have since become timeless “musts” for well-run companies.

This was the book that really got me thinking about consultancy, professional services and that broad category of work that you get paid to help people because of what you know. The central topic of this book is trust. Now we all understand what trust is – or at least we think we do. But when faced with the challenge of building trust many of us stumble. This book breaks trust down into its component parts and explores how you can use this understanding to build trust. Trust building is essential whenever you offer service to someone else, especially when it is an intangible service like consultancy. Every consultant and every freelancer should read this book.

Trillion Dollar Coach is an absolutely brilliant read about a legendary coach and business executive who coached some of the best and brightest leaders in Silicon Valley.

Campbell coached, among others, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and Sundar Pichai at Google, Steve Jobs at Apple, Jeff Bezos at Amazon, and Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook.

Much like my own rather strong beliefs on this topic, Bill preached that to be a great manager, you have to be a great coach.

Success as a leader was about taking others along on the journey. The higher you climb in the corporate world, the more your success will depend on making other people successful. That is the hallmark of a good leadership coach.

The book is full of examples, life lessons, anecdotes, and practical tips on how leaders can become better coaches.

China is often represented as very different from North Atlantic countries, such as the US or the UK. 

Some have argued that China’s phenomenal economic growth over the past three decades has often been attributed to its distinctive economic and labour practices. Kimberly Chong shows how instead Chinese corporations have made extensive use of techniques introduced by Western management consultants, firms like KPMG, Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc., or McKinsey & Company. 

In so doing, she shows how local workplace norms and China’s national project of modernization have been reformed by management consulting firms. She also reveals some of the critical but unrecognized techniques that have enabled the remaking of society, such as the iPhone revolution. 

I highly recommend Poetic License for anyone who a) grew up in a patriarchy and b) had fathers who were larger than life.

Cherington’s father was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and she had to live in his shadow for much of her life, and accommodate to a world which largely revolved around him.

It was fascinating to read about the notable literary figures who came to their home but, at the same time, having grown up in a patriarchy myself, with a larger-than-life father, I could easily imagine what life was life for the author, a life she describes in beautiful, lyrical language. 

I was blessed to have met this author at a local Chamber of Commerce event that he spoke at.

His story about his book was emotionally moving to me so much so that we “hired” him to come in and speak with our leadership team for an afternoon. When we put 100% into our relationships and expect nothing in return, magic begins to happen. This works no matter how challenging the current state of your relationship is. The quality of our relationships is what really matters in our lives and this book frames this concept like no other.

This book is so many things at once. It’s a history of management education. It’s a damning indictment of the consulting world. It’s an acerbic memoir of life as a consultant that had me laughing out loud.

But what resonated most with me is that it’s also a profound and rigorous argument for why business schools are not the right place to learn about management and that the traditional liberal arts give you more skills and mental models for assuming responsibility for leading an organization.