How to reach your goals
Susan Ferleger Brades, director of the Hayward Gallery since 1996, joined the gallery on London's South Bank in 1980 as an exhibition organiser and worked her way up.
She was made director in 1996 and credits Ann Jackman's book How to Get Things Done: Organize Your Life and Achieve the Results You Want (Thunder Bay Press) as really helping her to make both her professional and personal life work.
"It's a very optimistic, goal-oriented book that manages to remain human and doesn't read like psychobabble," she explains. "Typically, I have an allergy to self-help books, because they seem to pander to you, but aren't actually constructive. This book, however, is written and organised in a way that consolidates a lot of common sense and helpful approaches to making life work.
"It helped me to recognise that you can't parcel up your professional and your personal life. There are patterns that are common to you on whatever endeavour you undertake.
"One can identify what one wants to achieve and then recognise, within that, where one has control. You can then devise a plan that allows you to reach your goal in manageable chunks, recognising your strengths and helping to break down your demons.
"It is not possible to be superhuman, but this book shows us where we can achieve and how we can do this comfortably."
Make work fun and flexible
Sahar Hashemi set up Coffee Republic in 1995 with her brother Bobby. Together, they built the business into a nationwide chain of coffee shops with an impressive turnover of £30m.
Ms Hashemi left the day to day management of Coffee Republic in 2001. She recommends two books in particular to people hoping to become successful entrepreneurs while still ensuring that they enjoy life to the full.
"Ricardo Semler is a guy who transformed a company and in his book Seven-Day Weekend: A Better Way to Work in the 21st Century (Century), he explains how to make your working life, fun and flexible, and I am a strong believer in doing this," she says.
"The book shows that you can be entrepreneurial at work, even if you work for a big company that you don't personally run. It's a totally different view of working and the culture of work. He shows how you can put your work and your passion together and by doing so, switch yourself on to what you do."
Ms Hashemi also recommends that budding entrepreneurs put Synchronicity - The Inner Path of Leadership, by Joe Jaworski (Berrett-Koehler) on their reading lists.
"This is an amazing book, which shows you that when you are on the right path, things just seem to happen. It's about embarking on a vision and gives an interesting view of leadership.
Ms Hashemi's experiences also inspired her to write a book with her brother, called Anyone Can Do It - Building Coffee Republic From Our Kitchen Table: 57 Real-Life Laws on Entrepreneurship (Capstone Publishing).
Few of us are satisfied with our lot. There is always something we'd like to change about ourselves, be it our career, our relationships or our looks. Driven by this national search for perfection, self-help books are becoming trusted companions rather than the kind of friend you keep hidden for fear of ridicule.
But can a book really give you the kick up the backside that you need to turn your life around for the better? One former US president believes so. The first sentence of Bill Clinton's autobiography My Life credits How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein (Signet) with helping him to list and prioritise his life goals.
The book inspired him to draw up his 'A' list: "I wanted to be a good man, have a good marriage and children, have good friends, make a successful political life, and write a great book."
Mr Clinton may be still working on some of these points, but Mr Lakein's book made some impact.
Consequently, Jobs & Money decided to find out whether other people who had reached senior positions in the workplace, and from different walks of life, credited any particular reading material with helping them to get where they are today.
Add humour to your armoury
Susan Daniels held several posts at the Royal National Institute for Deaf People before becoming chief executive of the National Deaf Children's Society 12 years ago. She is profoundly deaf.
She nominates Lord Jack Ashley of Stoke's autobiography Acts of Defiance (Penguin) as an inspiring read for anyone looking to take up campaigning as a profession.
She explains:"Lord Ashley is a consummate campaigner and has championed the rights of disadvantaged people since his entry into politics in 1966.
"He was the first profoundly deaf MP ever to sit in any parliament and his first successful campaign was winning the battle for substantial compensation for mothers whose babies had been born with disabilities as a result of thalidomide. He has also been a strong and fervent supporter of subtitling and is currently campaigning to ensure that all satellite channels carry subtitles, which is a hugely important issue for deaf people.
"The overall message from Acts of Defiance is that it is appropriate to use every tool at your disposal to press for legislative change, to remain single minded and focused, but, at the same time, never to be afraid to use humour and courtesy as part of your armoury."
Truth about marketing
Guy Farmer, general manager at Garnier-Maybelline, part of the cosmetics giant L'Oréal, is a fan of How Brands Become Icons by Douglas B Holt. (Mr Holt is L'Oréal chair in marketing at Oxford Said Business School).
"Finally," says Mr Farmer, "a marketing book that really understands the softer stuff that makes consumers tick when it comes to brands.
"For decades, the mind-share strategies ruled academic theory in this field. However, many brand owners have long known that the theory on paper does not always fully add up in practice. Douglas Holt clearly understands that iconic brands are where they are not because they just deliver distinctive rational and emotional benefits (these are givens of any major brand worth its salt), but rather because they forge a deeper connection with the consumer at a cultural level.
"Sure, this doesn't sound like rocket science, but it has eluded many a brand and marketing theorist in the same way that the 'collective unconscious' theory had done for psycho-sociologists.
"In short, it's an interesting read for practising and aspiring marketers alike - lots of amusing anecdotes, and insights gathered from people and brands of different backgrounds," he says.
Geed up by Gollum
Mark Wilkinson started designing furniture for the home in 1976; now Mark Wilkinson Furniture is an internationally renowned company.
The book Mr Wilkinson has chosen as having the biggest impact on his career and his life goals is rather an unusual choice: Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (Harper Collins).
"This may sound strange, but to me, The Lord of The Rings was, and still is, the most amazing self-help book. At the age of 18, it was what I used to teach myself to read." Mr Wilkinson has now been diagnosed with severe dyslexia, but this disorder was never picked up during his school years and he just languished at the bottom of the class.
But it's not the book's ability to help Mr Wilkinson overcome his disability that leads him to recommend it to others looking to pursue a creative career. "Mr Tolkien's story taught me what amazing things you can do with your dreams. It showed me that I wasn't the only dreamer in the world.
"Dreaming is now what I do for a living. I develop concepts and designs through dreaming. If I'm given a design problem I roll it around and around in my imagination until I've developed a creative solution.
"The Lord of The Rings illustrates that you can bring your imagination to life and make a career out of it."
Key to human behaviour
Tudor Rickards, head of the Organisation Studies group at Manchester Business School, says: "I have been reading a little book of essays entitled Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life, edited by Joseph Ciarrochi, Joseph P. Forgas, and John D. Mayer (Psychology Press).
"The book deals with the question 'is emotional intelligence an overblown fad, or a potentially valuable concept for deepening our understanding of human behaviour?' The interesting answer is 'probably both'.
"It turns out that there are two main groups of ideas about EI. The first was popularised in a best-selling book by a brilliant journalist and communicator, Daniel Goleman. That book triggered claims of EI as a new and powerful predictor of human success, leadership competence, and more besides.
"The second, more legitimate set has echoes of earlier ideas of social intelligence and practical intelligence. Reliable methods of measuring EI are being developed.
"Mr Goleman was wrong in his claims, but possibly has helped a field of enquiry to advance towards a deeper and more scientific understanding of human behaviours and accomplishments."
Following a natural leader
Kevin Stott, the owner-manager of 11 year old marketing communications agency The Yellow Submarine, says: "Between 1914 and 1916 Ernest Shackleton and his crew survived the wreck of the Endurance in the crushing Antarctic ice.
"Without means of communication or rescue they survived on the meanest of diets. When the ice began to break up, Mr Shackleton set out to save them on a heroic trip across the treacherous south Atlantic. Every man survived due to Mr Shackleton's extraordinary leadership skills.
Mr Stott, who heads an award winning crew of "25 submariners moored in Dry Dock, Epsom, Surrey", says Shackleton's Way by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell (Penguin) has been his business bible. "It's an exceptional leadership book about an exceptional man. Like Mr Shackleton, it doesn't just talk the talk but walks it too as he navigates his crew to safety through 800 miles packed with inspirational leadership strategies equally applicable to today's businessman as they are to a polar explorer.
"It has been a source of much inspiration to me over the past two years helping me to lead my small boat and crew through the ice floes of the advertising recession towards a more welcoming sea."
The power of complexity
Professor Paul Jackson of Manchester Business School, who is an occupational psychologist and professor of corporate communications, recommends a book about "complexity and how stress can be good for you".
It's called How Nature Works: the Science of Self-organized Criticality (Oxford University Press) by the physicist Per Bak.
Prof Jackson says: "What do avalanches, traffic jams and stock market crashes have in common? Per Bak seeks out the answer in a fine polemical rush through all of nature. His answers are always provocative and occasionally mind-alteringly special.
"Mr Bak writes about complexity - the new buzz. We all live with it and now we are learning how to manage it. Complexity helps me to understand how to do business in China, why empowering people works, why stress can be good for you and how science evolves. Not a bad start."
Creating a truly great company
James Burrell, senior vice president of European operations, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, recommends Good to Great by Jim Collins (Random House Business Books).
"The book is based on the results of a five-year re search project and poses the question: 'Can a good company become a great company and, if so, how?'
"It talks about the importance of leadership and defines types of leaders. It makes a compelling discovery that great leadership channels ego needs away from 'self' and into the larger goal of building the company."
What the HR bosses go for
Angie Risley
Whitbread's human resources director recommends The First 90 Days by Michael Watson (Harvard Business School Press).
She says: "Very few companies provide their new managers and leaders with a guide to surviving and succeeding during the early weeks of their new role; a fact that has never failed to surprise me.
"Michael Watkins, the Harvard associate professor and leadership transition expert, identified that this is a potentially critical business issue and set about to create a solution. The First 90 Days is the result. An excellent guide to understanding the steps to take to ensure both short and long-term success: from learning how to assess your own strengths and weaknesses and understanding the potential challenges and opportunities within your situation, to negotiating a productive working relationship with your boss and building a team."
Ms Risley likes the book so much that "not only do our top-level managers get a structured induction and access to a mentor, they also get a copy of The First 90 Days."
Stuart Crabb
The HR director at email and search engine provider Yahoo! UK and Ireland says: "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (Simon & Schuster) is a great example of a book that has inspired thought, reflection and action towards self-improvement, and it inspired me a lot as a young HR professional, when I first read it 10 years ago."
The book was first published in 1989, but Mr Crabb reckons it is still as relevant as ever. "The seven habits are universal and probably resonate well with most of us: for me the habit that matters most is to "put first things first".
Richard Lowther
The director of human resources at software firm Oracle UK prefers The Complete Idiot's Guide to MBA Basics by Tom Gorman (Alpha Books).
"Too often and perhaps unfairly, HR people can be accused of not knowing the business; my advice is, read this book to get to know the lexicon that others use to confuse.
"This simple paperback takes you through the areas of business in 26 hard-hitting and mercifully short chapters covering everything; management, economics, finance, development to sales and marketing. Its easy-to-read style gives you clear pointers and pop-ups to unveil the mystique of modern business lingo and mastery. When completing my MBA, this was my number one text."
Kevin Hogarth
The head of HR at credit card operator Capital One Bank says: "My book is The Paradox of Success: When Winning at Work Means Losing at Life - A Book of Renewal for Leaders by John R O'Neil (McGraw-Hill Publishing Co).
"This book is all about the price of success. It explores how many professionals increasingly feel that they have to make too many personal sacrifices to achieve and maintain success.
"The book sets out ways in which leaders can develop practices that can help them achieve their life goals, not just their career goals. By doing this Mr O'Neil argues that they are more likely to be able to sustain their success."
