bobfranquiz.com

2nd Quarter Reading Highlights

There's a few books that I read over the last 3 months that I thought were really good and that I highly recommend:

The Blessed Life by Robert Morris - This book absolutely rocked my world. It is one of the best books on generosity and giving that I have ever read. It is a must read!

Leadership Gold by John Maxwell - This is John's best book since The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Great leadership principles.

Walking with God by John Eldredge - This book really challenged me to deepen my walk with God. It's classic Eldredge. If you like his other stuff, you'll love this!

The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes - If you are involved in hiring, the chapter on interviewing is worth the price of the book. It's a great read!

How to Become a Great Boss by Jeffrey Fox - I can't tell you how much I underlined in this book. Maybe it's because I'm so far from being even a mediocre boss :) I really enjoyed reading this book.

Activate by Nelson Searcy - If you want to do Small Groups in a way that gets 100% involvement, buy this book. If you want 20% involvement, but someone else's book. Nelson and Kerrick and living this stuff out! Don't do anything more with your groups until you read this book!

A Few Book Reviews

Here's a few books that I read recently that I'm not going to do a full book review for, but were helpful...

The Back of the Napkin - The 1st 70 pages of this book were great. The big idea of solving problems through pictures is worth picking up the book just for his explanation. I walked away with several ideas of how we help people take next steps and using pictures to help people in the process.

Stimulated - The chapter on changing your office environment to stimulate creativity was really good. I got a lot out of that chapter in particular and it caused me to make changes in my work spaces immediately.

The Laws of Lifetime Growth - My friend Nelson has a good review of the book here. This little book is worth your time. You should be able to put this book away in 90 minutes tops. It answers the questions, "How do you keep on growing?" Great wisdom!

The Breakthrough Company - Most of us love Good to Great. This book helps smaller organizations think through how to get better. If some of the concepts in Good to Great were too big, this book resizes them for us.

Book Review: How to Become a Great Boss

I'm a big fan of Jeffrey Fox's books and How to Become a Great Boss doesn't disappoint. This book does what all books should do: cut out the fluff, short chapters, and right the point! This book is 50 chapters of wisdom and you can read it in less than 2 hours.

In the spirit of the book, I'll make this post short and give a few highlights:

- "Whether intentional or not, the great boss shapes the organization, because the company does what the boss does."

- Don't hire because you have a deadline."

- "The great boss eliminates future problems on the first day of hiring."

- The great boss makes great people decisions."

- "Your words cary weight; speak with discretion."

- "The great boss only cares about the quality of the idea, not the source of the idea."

- Innovation and entrepreneurship go down as the number of policies go up."

- The great boss does not sacrifice someone to save himself."

Book Review: The Performance Factor

I needed a great book on building high performance teams and I got it! The Performance Factor delivers the goods on what great teams look like, how great teams are formed, and what a leader needs to do lead a great team.

Honestly, the diagrams were some of the most helpful things in this books because it gave all of the concepts he spoke of, a face and a flow. This is a great book for any leader to read.

Here are a few of the quotes that rocked me:

"A team is a group of people who choose to cooperate in order to achieve exceptional results."

"To achieve exceptional results, high performance teams creatively divide the task and thn cooperate like mad."

"Leadership is the existence of people with power to mobilize others and set constraints - is an important ingredient in making participation work."

"As a manager I can demand compliance, but commitment is volunteered."

"Communication does not take place until someone receives the message and understands it as the sender intended."

"Just in time is the best time for training."

"You don't form teams, you build them."

This is a great book and I definitely recommend it!

Out of space!

I've got 5 bookcases in my office... and they're completely packed. The bookcases at home... packed. 5 boxes in my garage... packed full of boxes.

Not sure where to go from here. I think the staff is going to have to start keeping some of my books in their offices :)

Book Review: The Ultimate Sales Machine

While the title isn't something that would draw me to the book, "The Ultimate Sales Machine" was a fantastic book! In it, the author shares 12 strategies to make your company more effective, and the parallels to church are considerable. Hands down, the best chapter of the book was the one on hiring. I really enjoyed the questions that he asks (I'll be asking them as well) and the reason behind the questions. If you're a Lead Pastor, you need to buy this book.

Here's a few great quotes to get you going:

- "Take time to sharpen your skills, your tools, and your resources, and you'll be more productive."

- "The average bad hire costs a company $60,000."

- A successful direct mail campaign absolutely depends on how regular and consistent your mailings are."

- In most companies, there's little or no training and there's rarely mandatory training."

- "The best of the best are always seeking to be better, so another area to explore with them is how dedicated they are to self-improvement."

- "The more you challenge superstars, the more you encourage them to overachieve."

Book Review: Vintage Jesus

I've always enjoyed reading Mark Driscoll's books and Vintage Jesus is no exception. It's filled with funny pop culture references and great theology (a mix that's rarely seen).

My favorite parts of the book were the Q & A sections after each chapter. That had rich information for new believers and old saints alike. I got done reading it and was thankful that there's a great book available to give to people who have questions about Jesus. It a very easy to read book. Personal favorites were the chapter on the cross and the chapter on the Jesus' divinity. I highly recommend it!

Book Review: Walking with God

First, let me say that I love John Eldredge's books. I read everything John writes and I'm always challenged by him. But Walking with God was special. Few books are written on how we as Christians can hear from God because it's nearly impossible to articulate. But in this book, John gives us the next best thing: he shows us how God speaks to him. It may be the most vulnerable of all his books because he's revealing his prayer life, frustrations, struggles, and insecurities. But I believe this is what makes the book so brilliant.

You may disagree with some things (but can't that be said of any book?), but if you're like me you'll be reminded that God wants to speak to you and is waiting for you to slow down and listen to Him.

Here's a few quotes that rocked my world:

- "It is our deepest need, as human beings, to learn to live intimately with God."

- If you've been taught that God doesn't speak to you, then you're probably not going to be listening for His voice."

- "Too many people approach scripture without an intimacy with God, and they end up either frustrated because they've gotten so little out of it or, far worse, amass an intellectual understanding quite apart from any real communion with God."

- "Start praying like elijah and maybe you'll see some results."

- "I want 2 things that are mutually exclusive: I want to live a nice little life and I want to an important role in God's kingdom."

- When life isn't good we have to be careful we don't jump to the conclusion God is withholding this from me."

- "I place all my confidence in my ability to 'get it done', 'get it right', 'stay on top of things.' No wonder I feel like I'm just 'barely walking' with God."

- "We are constantly filling in the blanks of what we think God is up to instead of asking Him."

Walking with God is more than just another book. It's a journey into how we can learn to hear God's voice. I recommend you buy a couple for yourself and someone else!

Book Review: The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey

I needed to read this book! The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey is a short little book, but it hits hard! This is a great book for leaders who love to get involved in way more than they should. This book challenges managers to get out of the way and stop being the bottleneck so their staffs can do what they're called to do.

I am guilty of taking on many a monkey in my ministry (monkeys being projects or tasks that really belong to someone else). I was really challenged by this book to keep my nose out of things that don't concern me and to let my staff handle things without me. Sometimes I give my opinion, not because it's needed, but because I want to give it. What that does is slow down the process of what needs to happen. The book as an easy read and I recommend it.

Here's a couple of great quotes:

"The best way to develop responsibility in people is to give them responsibility."

"Practice hands-off management as much as you can and hands-on management as much as necessary."

"Things not worth doing are things not worth doing well."

Book Review: The Blessed Life

Absolutely fantastic! That's my review of Robert Morris' book, "The Blessed Life". I couldn't put it down. It is one of the best books I've ever read on the subject of stewardship. I was totally challenged in reading it. I was inspired to trust God more. I was grateful for how God has blessed my life.

There are so many quotes that rocked my world. Here's a few:

"No one is a natural born giver. We are all born takers."

"The days of the blessed person are filled with divine "coincidences" and heavenly meaning."

"God doesn't need you to give - you need to be blessed."

"True tithing comes from the heart - not from a legalistic mindset."

"The only people who get offended when you preach on money are those who don't give!"

"People who have the gift of giving respond to a strong vision with clear objectives."

"God is not going to give us more money if we can't even be faithful with the money He has already given."

"Jesus is into rewarding stewardship!"

There's probably 200 more gems that I underlined. But hopefully this will be enough to cause you to pick up the book. I'm going to buy several copies of this book and give them out! You'll want to do the same! Buy it!