Literature
The following titles are excellent reading for people seeking to increase their degree of control in the world. They are part of the required reading for all membership candidates. These are very powerful tools, please use them wisely.
Synchronicity
Joe's father, Leon Jaworski, was the Special Prosecutor in the Watergate scandal. During this time Joe was his father's sole confidant outside the case. The insight into the realities of the case disillusioned him with our country's leadership and shaped the rest of his career.
Joe began his professional career as an attorney with the Houston-based firm of Bracewell & Patterson, and in 1975 was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. In 1980, Joe resigned from the firm to found the American Leadership Forum, a non-government agency responsible for developing collaborative leadership to deal with urban and regional problems in the United States. Ten years later, he was invited to join The Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies in London to lead a multi-national team of experts in creating global scenarios for the next thirty years. After his four-year assignment with Royal Dutch/Shell, Joe joined the MIT Center for Organizational Learning, where he continued to work with a consortium of leading corporations to build learning organizations. Joe Jaworski is one of the most brilliant business minds of the 20th century. Synchronicity is the story of his enlightenment. This book is life changing.
The Singularity Is Near
Ray Kurzweil is one of the world's leading inventors, thinkers, and futurists, with a twenty year track record of accurate preditions. Called "the restless genius" by The Wall Street Journal and "the ultimate thinking machine" by Forbes magazine, Kurzweil was selected as one of the top entrepreneurs by Inc. magazine, which described him as the rightful heir to "Thomas Edison." PBS selected him as "one of sixteen revolutionaries who made America," along with other inventors of the past two centuries. He is an inductee into National Inventor's Hall of Fame and recipient of the National Medal of Technology, the Lemelson-MIT prize, thirteen honorary doctorates, and awards from three U.S. presidents. One of the basic premises in the book that applies to business is the law of accelerating returns (exponential growth). Understanding this concept will be vital for businesses to keep up with the rapid change that will occur in the 21st century.
Leverage: How to Get It And How to Keep It in Any Negotiation
Leverage is a percieved advantage. It is an idea. Whoever has leverge is the winner. Period. Roger Volkema has created a well-written, straightforward guide to winning psychological warfare.
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
People who have truely brilliant ideas are sadly few. People who know how to effectively communicate those ideas to others are even fewer. The Society of Enlightened Capitalist Elite is an amazing machine that operates by the generation and rapid mass comprehension of brilliant ideas. We refuse to tolerate loss of efficiency resulting from avoidable miscommunications and misunderstandings. Only those who prove to be proficient with these skills will have a realistic chance at membership.
Think and Grow Rich
If you haven't read this book already, then you shouldn't read another thing until you do.