Books on
Personal Strategic Planning
In the fall of 2002, I will be teaching a course on
Personal Strategic Planning for the Eastern University Campolo School for Social
Change. Here is a list of books related to the subject which might be of
interest to you. All books are linked to Amazon.com if you would like to
learn more about them or purchase a copy for yourself.
Creating Your Future by David Ellis
"Most people spend more time planning their next vacation
than they do planning the rest of their lives," says Dave Ellis in Creating Your
Future. Yet one of the most powerful paths to creating the future you want is
choosing it. You achieve this by setting long-term goals based on a long-range
vision. This book shows you the process, with activities that prompt you to
write your goals, then follow these five steps:
Commit to creating your future.
Create a vision of your future.
Construct a plan to fulfill your vision.
Carry out your plan.
Celebrate what you've done and continue creating your future.
Each step has its own chapter with many, varied exercises--mental, written, and
active--to help you achieve that step. For example, the "Carry Out Your Plan"
chapter describes 22 strategies that help you become the person you want to be
and turn your goals into reality. This book won't be a quick skim--there's work
to do as you read each chapter, in order to get the most from Ellis's process.
You'll emerge much more knowledgeable about yourself and your goals, with a good
start along the path to the future you want. (from Amazon.com review).
The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal
Life by
Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander
The lure of this book's promise starts with the
assumption in its title. Possibility--that big, all-encompassing, wide-open-door
concept--is an art? Well, who doesn't want to be a skilled artist, whether in
the director's chair, the boardroom, on the factory floor, or even just in
dealing with life's everyday situations? Becoming an artist, however, requires
discipline, and what the authors of The Art of Possibility offer is a set of
practices designed to "initiate a new approach to current conditions, based on
uncommon assumptions about the nature of the world."
If that sounds a little too airy-fairy for you, don't be put off; this is no
mere self-improvement book, with a wimpy mandate to transform its readers into
"nicer" people. Instead, it's a collection of illustrations and advice that
suggests a way to change your entire outlook on life and, in the process, open
up a new realm of possibility. Consider, for example, the practice of "Giving an
A," whether to yourself or to others. Not intended as a way to measure someone's
performance against standards, this practice instead recognizes that "the player
who looks least engaged may be the most committed member of the group," and
speaks to their passion rather than their cynicism. It creates possibility in an
interaction and does away with power disparities to unite a team in its efforts. (from Amazon.com review).
The
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
by Stephen R.
Covey
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
was a groundbreaker when it was first published in 1990, and it continues to be
a business bestseller with more than 10 million copies sold. Stephen Covey, an
internationally respected leadership authority, realizes that true success
encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness, so this book
is a manual for performing better in both arenas. His anecdotes are as
frequently from family situations as from business challenges.
Before you can adopt the seven habits, you'll
need to accomplish what Covey calls a "paradigm shift"--a change in perception
and interpretation of how the world works. Covey takes you through this change,
which affects how you perceive and act regarding productivity, time management,
positive thinking, developing your "proactive muscles" (acting with initiative
rather than reacting), and much more. (from Amazon.com
review).
Crossing the Unknown Sea : Work As a Pilgrimage of Identity
and
The
Heart Aroused : Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America
by David Whyte
From Publishers Weekly
Readers who accept poet and Fortune 500 consultant Whyte's invitation to enter
into "an imaginative conversation about life and work" are likely to be
challenged as well as delighted by the beauty of his writing and the
expansiveness of his views. Gracefully using the metaphor of a sea voyage to
depict the journey through the world of work, Whyte views work not only as a
means of support, but as a means for interacting with the world and developing
self-expression and identity. While he draws on the philosophical underpinnings
of the self-help movement aimed at finding one's "inner compass," Whyte doesn't
offer the step-by-step pragmatism of other books. Instead, his approach is
subtler and more organic, presenting an abundance of provocative ideas,
especially on one's relationship with time and daily ritual, on the importance
of dignity and ethics and on honoring the labor of one's ancestors.
From Amazon.com
The call for increased creativity in the workplace brings with it a concomitant
challenge: how will the world of cool professionalism stand up to the inevitable
heat and volatility that accompanies people's emotional and spiritual lives? It
is problematic to assume, poet David Whyte explains, that you can ask people to
create and also to behave. The Heart Aroused explores these and related issues
in an inspiring, grounded, thought-provoking way, and is the best non-verse
book by a poet since Robert Bly's Iron John. Interwoven with carefully selected
poems to illustrate Whyte's points, The Heart Aroused is necessary reading for
any professional who secretly harbors a poet's soul.
The
Power of Focus
by Jack
Canfield, Les Hewitt, Mark Victor Hansen
From Booklist
Canfield and coauthors Mark Hansen and Les Hewitt recommend that we concentrate
on our strengths, set goals, and focus on them. Canfield and Hansen created the
Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which now has 27 titles and has sold 47.5
million copies. They have added new ingredients to their pot; their mix now
includes a weekly television show, electronic games, and even refrigerator
magnets. All the while, though, their basic stock has remained the same:
inspirational, heartwarming, and homey stories that make people feel good. Now
they detail 10 "focusing strategies" they say they used to get their first books
published and to build on their success.
Making a Life, Making a Living : Reclaiming Your Purpose and Passion in Business
and in Life
by Mark Albion
Albion takes us from "passion" to "purpose" to "doing" to
"freeing the spirit."
The Will of God as a Way of
Life
by
Gerald Lawson Sittser
From the Back Cover
Many of us believe that walking in God’s will means doing nothing unless he
tells us to. From careers to marriage partners to all the other choices life
offers, we won’t make a move without direct guidance from heaven. But this
approach can immobilize us, and it was not modeled by the apostles and early
believers. They didn’t fret over discovering God’s will—they just lived it
daily.
Spiritual
Journey Press
