Welcome to the PMI-OC Book Club! On this page, you will find a wealth of information. First, you will find takeaways (provided by Book Club participants) from books that the Book Club has already read and discussed. Second, you will find rankings of those books. Books are ranked from "1" to "5" where "1" is the worst and "5" is the best. For each book, the initial ranking is a survey of initial thoughts about the book. The final ranking is a post-discussion ranking to discern opinions after discussion in case the opinions have changed. Finally, you will find information for the book to read for the next Book Club meeting.

Books Read

Book Information and Takeaways	Initial Rank	Final Rank
Click on the title line to hide/unhide takeaway information.
"Dare to Lead" by Brene Brown Vulnerability is an asset and not a weakness. The most successful and courageous leaders are risk takers who are not afraid of failing. In fact, failures often lead to creativity and great opportunities. Perfectionism can be unhealthy due to the constant need for approval and fear of criticism and failure. This leads to missed opportunities and mental paralysis, which hinders creativity. Be clear as to what you value and live those values. Be curious about what you don't know. Walk in other persons' shoes before judging. Think empathy in place of shame, even if you fail; don't fear failure. Embrace it as a learning opportunity.	4.45	4.32
"The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni Most people are conflict averse, but conflict is healthy for teams to perform at a higher level. The greatest dysfunction of a team is a lack of trust ‐ without it, the other dysfunctions cannot be managed/corrected and nothing can get accomplished.	4.63	4.71
"Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman EQ (Emotional Intelligence) can be improved. Our emotional health not only affects our interactions with others, but has just as much power over our individual successes and growth potential. With emotions being such a driving force, it behooves us to understand how emotions function physiologically, socially, and directly in our professional lives.	3.8	4
"Atomic Habits" by James Clear Does a thorough job in explaining the tools of engineering desired habits and eliminating unrewarding ones. For discussing the book in a professional business environment, I wish that there were more relevant examples from commerce and enterprise settings. The author's anecdotal examples were rather simple (e.g. losing weight, waking up early and improving athletic performance). The book focuses on one's habits, but, in the context of business, it's about developing and orchestrating the habits of your customers, employees, and other stakeholders.	3.83	3.18

Current Book to Read:

"The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace" by Gary Chapman and Paul White

Synopsis from Amazon

Dramatically improve workplace relationships simply by learning your coworkers’ language of appreciation.

This book will give you the tools to improve staff morale, create a more positive workplace, and increase employee engagement. How? By teaching you to effectively communicate authentic appreciation and encouragement to employees, co-workers, and leaders. Most relational problems in organizations flow from this question: do people feel appreciated? This book will help you answer "Yes!"

When supervisors and colleagues understand their coworkers's primary and secondary languages, as well as the specific actions they desire, they can effectively communicate authentic appreciation, thus creating healthy work relationships and raising the level of performance across an entire team or organization.

Editorial Reviews

The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace has helped change the way managers around the world think about appreciation in the workplace. New research on the positive benefits to organizations when employees feel valued and appreciated for their contributions, generational differences, the special needs of remote employees, and peer-to-peer appreciation, are welcomed additions to a book that has already become a management classic. This book will be equally valuable to those who are at the start of their burgeoning management careers as it will be to seasoned managers by providing practical tips on how to engage the increasingly diverse workforce with relevant and relatable solutions.

--- PETER HART, President & CEO, Rideau, Inc.; Director, Advisory Board, Wharton Center for Human Resources, University of Pennsylvania

As a longtime user of the 5 Languages approach, I was excited to see the new material that has been added to highlight the proven financial benefits of appreciation, working with remote and virtual teams, appreciation across generations, and making a strong case for the overall increase in employee engagement. We continue to offer training on The 5 Languages ofAppreciation in the Workplace as a valuable tool to our member companies. We have found that when team members learn what others actually value in regards to showing appreciation to each other, areas like team morale, cohesiveness, unity, and especially productivity increase, and drama decreases.

--- DAVE TIPPETT, Director, On Site Learning and Consulting, The Employers’ Association