C-Suite Network™

Michelle Tillis Lederman

Michelle Tillis Lederman shows how networking can be as easy, enjoyable, and fulfilling as having a conversation with friends—and still be highly beneficial to career goals.

“When networking feels like something you have to do rather than want to do, it’s hard to motivate yourself to do it at all, let alone do it well,” acknowledges Lederman. In her book, THE 11 LAWS OF LIKABILITY: Relationship Networking…Because People Do Business with People They Like she will show you just how to achieve those relationships in business that last.

Forget the conventional emphasis on business transactions, work-related topics, targeted objectives, and self-serving thoughts. Lederman encourages networkers to radically shift their thinking and place a priority on something everyone can relate to, something at the heart of honest, engaging conversations and meaningful connections: liking and being liked.

This book, featuring activities, self-assessment quizzes, and real-life anecdotes from professional and social settings, shows readers how to identify what’s likable in themselves and create honest, authentic interactions that become “wins” for all parties involved.

Readers will discover how to:

  • – Start conversations and keep them going with ease
  • – Convert acquaintances into friends
  • – Uncover people’s preferences and tweak their own personal style to enable engaging, reciprocal interactions
  • – Create follow-up and stay in others’ minds long after the initial meeting

The worst thing we can do when trying to establish a personal bond with someone is to come across as manipulative or self-serving. Authentic connections go much deeper—and feel much easier—than trying to hit self-imposed business card collection quotas. This book presents a new paradigm that shows how even the most networking-averse can network…and like it.

Phil Weinzimer

Based on interviews with more than 150 CIOs, IT/business executives, and academic thought leaders, The Strategic CIO: Changing the Dynamics of the Business Enterprise provides insight, success stories, and a step-by-step methodology to transform your IT organization into a strategic asset that drives customer value, increases revenues, and enhances shareholder wealth.

The book details how strategic CIOs from FedEx, Procter & Gamble, McKesson, and other leading companies transformed their organizations. It illustrates the methods these CIOS used to become strategic partners that collaborate effectively within their organizations to leverage information and technology for a competitive advantage.

The text will help you assess the key competencies and skills required by IT personnel to partner with your business teams to create new and enhanced products and services that create customer value, increase margin, and enhance shareholder wealth.

The book includes powerful methodologies, time-saving templates, proven best practices, and helpful assessments. It also details a four-phase methodology, along with the associated activities and tools, to help your IT organization successfully transform into a strategic IT organization.

Gain insight into the four domain competencies and twelve associated skills required to build effective strategic IT organizations. Build your roadmap to success using the transformation methodology described in the text and you will be on your way to making your organization a strategic IT organization.

Ted Rubin

In today’s digital world it’s all too easy for us as brands and individuals to let our relationship-building muscles atrophy. We get caught up in a multitasking whirlwind of emails, social updates and text messages where it’s easy to let a connection or a conversation fall through the cracks. We’re super-connected, yet somehow disconnected at the same time. This puts us at risk of losing the very relationships that help us prosper as companies and people.

In How to Look People in the Eye Digitally, Ted Rubin re-introduces us to the one-on-one communication skills we’ve forgotten in our rush to new technologies. He shows us how we’ve let social and mobile technologies hold us back, and teaches us new ways to use the people skills we already have to stay connected in an authentic, human way. Through anecdotes from his own experiences as a busy, socially connected executive and single dad, plus examples from brands that are getting it right, Ted inspires new ways to build relationships online that truly grow and prosper.

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Dan Gregory & Kieran Flanagan

Selfish, Scared & Stupid outlines the three most common human traits: selfishness, fear and a need for simplicity. To effectively increase influence and performance, whether it be in the workplace or at home, Dan Gregory & Kieran Flanagan break down these traits and provide implementable solutions and real-life examples that stem from extensive research and an impressive combined body of work.

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Alice Nagle & Luanne Tierney

In today’s competitive, global, connected, and fast-paced business environment, how do young women get career savvy quickly? Two Silicon Valley insiders, Alice Nagle & Luanne Tierney, share advice gained from their professional successes, triumphs, and disappointments. Like a trusted mentor, they offer practical tips, personal stories, and exercises for becoming career smart. This book is geared for women in their 20s to 30s starting their professional careers.

Shelly Alcorn & Willis Turner

Play predates the development of human culture and our brains are hard-wired to use play as a tool to accelerate learning, strategically explore unfamiliar environments and develop collaborative social connections. Games are human created, formalized structures and processes designed to maximize engagement and get the most out of the “play” impulse. In fact, gaming comes so naturally to us we don’t even notice it for what it is. Two examples of large scale gaming structures include our educational and political systems. Going deeper into understanding how gaming structures work, and intentionally applying those mechanics can give us an advantage when designing experiences meant to engage our members in the work of our associations.

Although games have been with us since we first learned to scratch marks on small rocks, what is new is the impact the internet and technology is having on games and players alike. What was simple activity in the past, is rapidly turning into a large scale social phenomenon. At some point the term “gamer” will lose it relevancy and we will recognize gamers for what they are – an increasingly sophisticated class of experience consumers. Games are the first mass media of the 21st century and gaming literacy is an essential skill all executives, staff and volunteers need to develop in order to attract, appeal to and invite a new generation of players to play the association game. In this book, we take a simple, practical approach to helping you and your volunteers take these ideas one step farther.

By using these 42 rules from Shelly Alcorn and Willis Turner,, you will be able to use simple gaming mechanics to increase member engagement, improve educational outcomes and build community in your industry or profession.

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Don Crawley

Now in its third edition, The Compassionate Geek by Don Crawley, was written by a tech person for tech people. There are no frills, just customer service best practices and ideas that actually work! Filled with practical customer service tips, best practices, and real-world techniques, The Compassionate Geek is a quick read with equally fast results. Each chapter includes a reflection and discussion section to help you improve your customer service skills. There are lots of personal stories and examples of mistakes made and lessons learned. This new edition adds an entire chapter on overcoming personal and professional obstacles. All of the information is presented in a straightforward style that you can understand and use right away. There’s nothing foo-foo, just down-to-earth tips and technical support best practices learned from years of working with technical staff and demanding customers and end users.

Jeff Davidson

In an era that offers too many choices and too much information, people’s lives aren’t getting simpler. In fact, just the opposite is occurring. Men and women in virtually every industry and profession today face a bewildering array of “stuff” that competes for their time and attention. Not surprisingly, increasing numbers of individuals seek to reassess how they work and live to achieve a simpler, more effective lifestyle without sacrificing what is vital to them. By revealing fundamental truths as well as little-know realities on the path to a less encumbered life, Dial it Down, Live it Up serves as a handy guide to a life and career of greater grace and ease…without sacrificing what matters to you. Be assured, simplicity is within your grasp.

William Hawfield

Game-Changing Advisory Boards offers a proven process for creating and maintaining sustainable value in your business. William Hawfield and John Zaepfel leverage their experience from serving on over 100 boards to provide step-by-step board processes for building exceptional, long-term value in privately- owned companies.

Inside are stories from 21 owners who used advisory boards to help them build the companies they wanted. Some still operate independently. The owners who sold received over $1.8 billion in combined value. Learn how to use the Value WheelTM System as the foundation for driving strategic vision and guiding an advisory board process to achieve your business goals.

Matt Heinz

The speed of innovation and change in B2B marketing has never been greater. And the need for clarity for a blueprint, for a guide to what’s really working and how to apply it specifically to increase sales pipeline growth, velocity and conversion – is what you’ll find in this book. It covers a lot of ground, but quickly. With a comprehensive view of the sales and marketing pipeline, but done in quick bursts with lots of specific, actionable ideas, strategies and tactics you can put to work right away.