Traction by Gino Wickman

If you own a business, or you are part of the leadership team of a business, this is a valuable book. At the company I work for, we sit in meeting after meeting rehashing the same old issues. We never seem to resolve anything because we are never on the same page. We can never come to an unanimous decision, so we table it until the following month - or months - or year. It gets frustrating, to say the least. What is encouraging to me personally is that the owner of my company wants each member of the leadership team to read this book - and he even bought us each a copy. So, I think he means business. ;) Now that I have read the book, I see that he is already starting to implement some of the suggestions in the book - and that is encouraging to me.

This book explains how to make sure the right person is in the right seat within the company; how to structure your company; how to grow your company - because if it's stagnant, it's dying; how to determine your core value and core focus - and then making sure that everyone on the leadership team agrees so that you are all working toward the same goals; how to eliminate the people on your leadership team if they are the wrong person in the wrong seat; how to hold each other accountable by setting measurable goals and then having to report back to the team on a regular basis.

I know a lot of people who think that meetings are a waste of time - and they probably are if you don't have any goals or direction. This book explains how to set a 10 year target, a 3 year target, a 1 year target, 90-day targets and the importance of weekly meetings. It encourages an all day off-site meeting every 90 days and weekly meetings (same time, same place every week). The greatest part of each meeting is discussing and solving issues. This book explains how to actually solve them, instead of rehashing them meeting after meeting.

This book inspired me to try these techniques on the group of coordinators who report to me. It's about taking control of your business - finding the traction to move it forward. This book is very readable and I actually kept picking this one up instead of the book I was reading for book club!

Wendy's Rating for a Business Book: *****