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Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll – Leadership Lessons from the Academy of Rock
Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll cuts through the jargon of leadership and personal development. It offers a real world source of inspiration and provocation in areas such as: creativity, innovation, relationships, motivation, leadership, high performance, learning and reinvention. A unique mix of leading edge concepts with the streetwise wisdom of the music. Served up in a quirky, challenging but intelligent way. Tom Peters said of it: "Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll is a marvellous book, which closes the door on the tidy, hierarchical, know-your-place 'Orchestral Age' and ushers in a new, creative era of challenge and change. Hooray!" The Guardian agreed: "This book rocks harder than early period Sabbath. I gulped it down quicker than Ozzy Osbourne used to down a bottle of bourbon"
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Punk Rock People Management – A no-nonsense guide to hiring, inspiring and firing staff
Punk Rock People Management strips down HR to the bare essentials for busy people and those who are sick of HR jargon getting in the way of running a business. In the spirit of punk, each chapter is just one page long, which means that you can read a chapter in less time than it takes to pogo to a Sex Pistols or Linkin Park song! Punk Rock PM is organised using the classic Life, Sex and Death HR cycle, in other words Hiring, Inspiring and Firing. If you have to get things done with people and can't get no satisfaction from an HR textbook, try "Punk Rock PM" for a refreshing difference.
Independent Heath Consultant Colin Jervis summarised the whole book thus: Peter Cook distils HR into 13 concise chapters. I read it on the train this morning and immediately used my 'instant wisdom' in a meeting with a client. Here's a quick summary of some of them :
- Selection: hire for attitude and top up skills and experience
- Engagement: everyone talks about it, but how do you get it?
- Training: is not a panacea
- Promotion: hire people that are better than you
- Innovation: shiny, happy people do not always innovate
- Conflict: addressing the turf wars between organisational silos
- Redundancy: the good and bad news
Most problems are human problems, so safety pin this gem to your leather jacket (OK, carry on your smartphone, if you must) for easy reference.
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Best Practice Creativity
Creativity starts with a question, an itch to be scratched, some sand in your joints etc. This book started with twenty questions. I would like to share some of these with you:
- How does creativity link with innovation?
- Where are the opportunities in my company for increased performance and how can more creative approaches help?
- Can creativity be contrived or does one have to wait for it to pounce?
- How does culture, leadership style and values support or limit creativity and innovation?
- How can I get people in my company to let go of the habits of a lifetime?
- What techniques and processes can help develop ideas such that they become successful innovations?
- If I could have 202 ideas about making my company more creative, what would they be?
Sean D'Arcy of Shell reviewed the book in The Independent newspaper: "I enjoyed this practical guide to creativity. I also enjoyed the author's sense of humour, light touch, use of rock'n'roll metaphors and the concept of mixing the disciplines of business, art and music to enhance creativity. This book is a stylish, valuable guide to creativity and a useful reference tool for anyone working inside organisations and trying to make new things happen.
Ian Thornton added "I have read your book cover to cover. It is only the third management book I have ever done that to. You are in good company as the other two are 'Witchdoctors' (Wooldridge and someone) and 'Circle of Innovation' (Tom Peters)"
