Rock Solutions Training, Yorkshire UK

Resources

Growth can come from a variety of ways - case studies and new research, a kind word, a great book, an inspirational quote. Our Resources page is updated regularly - as we find things that inspire us, we'll pass them onto you! Keep checking back to see what's new.

Books

Here's just a small example of books we've personally found useful, challenging, surprising and inspiring.

On Leadership.....

The Naked Leader – David Taylor

From the beginning the book focuses the reader on choice; you're even given the choice of how you read the book. Wise choices make wise people and wise leaders. (ISBN: 1841124230)

The Leadership Challenge – James Kouzes and Barry Posner

Concentrating on the 5 areas that make a real and sustained difference every time in the leadership of people – modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act and encouraging the heart. (ISBN: 0787902691)

The Rules of Management – Richard Templar

Rocket Science? No. Just a light, entertaining, easy-to-read style that is accessible and informative. This is a practical book with lots of good advice, common sense, examples, workable tips and hints to make your managerial life smooth and effective. (ISBN: 0273695169)

Getting it Done – Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp

Packed with useful advice, techniques and plans for collaborative working and altering the way your colleagues and organisation works. (ISBN: 0887309585)

A Manager’s Guide to Leadership – Mike Pedlar, et al

Everybody faces leadership challenges whatever level they are within their organization. This book is filled with insights, diagnostics and tools to help you analyse where you’re at, and what you need to do to move forward. (ISBN: 0077104234)

Primal Leadership – Daniel Goleman

Goleman’s theories on EQ and what “smart” really means have radically altered our way of thinking. In Primal Leadership, he and his coauthors present the case for cultivating emotionally intelligent leaders. Business leaders who maintain that emotions are best kept out of the work environment do so at their organisation's peril…..(ISBN: 157851486X)

The Leadership Mystique – Manfred Kets De Vries

Leadership now requires leaders who speak to the collective imagination of their people, co-opting them to join in the business journey; leaders who are able to motivate people to full commitment and have them make that extra effort. De Vries explores this in an insightful way. (ISBN: 0273656201)

Living Leadership – George Binney et al

Living Leadership explodes the myth of the charismatic, transformational leader, to show that real progress comes from the dramatically ordinary stuff of leadership. From building relationships - not starting revolutions, by working with the grain of your organisation - not against it, and in knowing your limitations as much as pushing every boundary. (ISBN: 1405822120)

On Business.....

Good to Great – Jim Collins

Jim Collins asks the question, "Can a good company become a great company, and if so, how?" Here, Collins concludes that it is possible, but finds that there are no silver bullets to greatness. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not-so-great, Collins lays a well-reasoned roadmap to excellence that any organisation would do well to consider. (ISBN: 0712676090)

Leading Change – John Kotter

The world's foremost expert on business leadership distills twenty-five years of experience and wisdom based on lessons he has learned from scores of organisations and businesses to write this visionary guide. The result is a very personal book that is at once inspiring, clear-headed, and filled with important implications for the future. (ISBN: 0875847471)

The Rules of Work – Richard Templar

Some people seem to be just great at their job. They glide effortlessly onwards and upwards through all the politics, the back stabbing, the system, the nonsense that goes on. Attempting to demystify success, this book is a complete rulebook for those wanting to achieve more, be more and do more. (ISBN: 0273662716)

The Solutions Focus – Paul Z. Jackson and Mark McKergow

The SIMPLE, Solutions Focused way to positive change. Simple and profound. (ISBN: 1857882709)

Good Business – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"Leaders must make it possible for employees to work with joy to their heart's content, while responding to the needs of society". So says Mihaly, and in a very compelling way. (ISBN: 034073972X)

The Trust Effect – Larry Reynolds

High-trust organizations are successful organizations. They attract the most effective staff and the most loyal customers. This book is backed up with case studies and practical tips that can be applied straight away. (ISBN: 1857881869)

The Inner Game of Work – W. Timothy Gallwey

Learning from the inside out, instead of the outside in? It’ll never catch on. Will it? (ISBN: 1587990474)

Authentic – Neil Crofts

Be authentic. Be true to yourself, your business, your organisation. Great read. (ISBN: 1841125199)

On Personal Development ....

The Rules of Life – Richard Templar

Some people seem naturally good at it. Life that is. They seem to sail through, being successful and happy and everything always seems to fall into place. How on earth do they do it? They know the Rules of Life. (ISBN: 027370625X)

My Voodoo – David Firth and René Carayol

This is a book for carrying with you - not simply for reading but for working with and on. It is a place to dream, a place to reflect, a place to let your imagination fly, a place to learn, a place to have fun, a place to face up to and remove the barriers that hold you or your organisation back. (ISBN: 1841120103)

Leverage your Best, Ditch the Rest – Scott Blanchard and Madeleine Homan

Finally, here is a powerful tool that will show you how to take full advantage of your strengths and most positive qualities, while at the same time discarding or getting around whatever gets in your way. Easy read, highly practical. (ISBN: 1841126438)

Thinking for a Change – John C. Maxwell

Good thinking. It's the one thing all successful people have in common. People who achieve their dreams understand the critical relationship between their level of thinking and their level of progress - and know that when thinking is limited, so is potential. (ISBN: 0446691380)

You Can If You Think You Can – Norman Vincent Peale

Everyone has problems at some point in their lives. This book gives hope - and practical strategies - to face the future with confidence. It shows how to forget fear and build calmness and how to recognize problems as challenges in order to live life to the full. (ISBN: 0749310774)

Wake Your Mind Up – The MindGym

In much of our lives our minds operate in autopilot. Rather like the tourist who repeats the same words louder each time the local doesn't understand, we tend to continue thinking and behaving in similar ways, even if it isn't getting us what we want. A “dip in and out” book. (ISBN: 0316729922)

Mind Games – Jeff Grout and Sarah Perrin

So what is about our top athletes and sports people that makes them so? Talent? Certainly. Right place, right time? Possibly. But so much more of it is down to their attitude and frame of mind when tackling situations. Anecdotes from a whole rafter of UK and world athletes to inspire you into action! (ISBN: 1841126136)

Quotes

Here's a selection of quotations that have particularly resonated with us, for a variety of reasons:

"The people who succeed are the few who have the ambition and the willpower to develop themselves." ~ Herbert Casson

"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant." ~ Max Du Pree

"Obstacles will look large or small to you, according to whether you are large or small." ~ Orison Swett Marden

"Do not be concerned that you might set a target too high and fail. Be concerned that you will set it too low and succeed." ~ Michelangelo

"Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of you succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture." ~ Norman Vincent Peale

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in making new landscapes but in having new eyes." ~ Marcel Proust

"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at this rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before." ~ Jacob Riis

"For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change." ~ Ingrid Bengis

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." ~ Vince Lombardi

"The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind." ~ Dr. Wayne W. Dwyer

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited." ~ Plutarch

"Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow." ~ Anthony D'Angelo

"The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage." ~ Arie de Geus

"Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is." ~ Unknown

"Experience is not what happens to you, it's what you do with what happens to you." ~ Aldous Huxley

"Techniques don't produce quality products or pick up the garbage on time; people do, people who care, people who are treated as creatively contributing adults." ~ Tom Peters

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

"The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do." ~ John Holt

"A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes." ~ Unknown

"Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A word of optimism and hope. A "you can do it" when things are tough" ~ Richard M. Devos

"I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions." ~ Dorothy Day

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

"We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

"Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

"We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." ~ Read by Nelson Mandela at his inauguration (written by Marianne Williamson)