In addition to enjoying the blues, the Blackhawks, and time with his family, Ron enjoys reading books, especially books about business or strategies for improving your business. Check out the below recommendations:
This book teaches you how to get more done in less time! The 12 Week Year teaches you a system that helps you accomplish more of what is important. The book by business consultants, Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington, lays out a structure for focusing your goal setting on a shorter time frame (12 weeks), and provides strategies for tracking and measuring your performance within that 12 week period. The book teaches you to plan, measure, and execute in 12 week blocks of time, rather than 12 months. The book is a quick read, and using their system is helping me be more productive.
During 2017, I have been on a bit of a quest to read more books. I particularly enjoy reading books about business and business people. A recent read that I highly recommend to any small business owner is “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It“, by Michael Gerber.
In the E-Myth, Gerber stresses the importance of any business consistently following documented systems and procedures, which of course is very important to a law firm. This led to our current project of updating and documenting our office procedures, and creating an operations manual for our firm. Very time consuming but worth the effort so far.
Whether we like it or not, working on our business can be as important as working in our business. A new book written by northwest suburban business and tax lawyer, Kerry Lavelle is, in my opinion, a valuable resource on this subject. The book is titled “The Business Guide to Law“, and is published by the ABA. Shortly after delving into this resource, it becomes clear that Kerry Lavelle is both a student of, and very passionate about, the business end of the practice of law. The book cites many current leading business books, whose teachings Mr. Lavelle has adopted to the subject of operating and growing a law practice. The book can be purchased on Amazon, or the ABA for about $75. Those of us who are also students of the business of law, I believe, will find this book to be a wealth of information. (P.S. I am sending out this info, not because of any connection between Mr. Lavelle and our law firm, but because I want to share what I consider to be a well done and helpful resource with my colleagues.)
I am on a quest to read more books this year, and have come across one you might like – Shoe Dog – from Bill Gates’ reading list last year. Shoe Dog is a memoir by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, who is worth about $25 billion at last count. Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight “offers a rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh”, illuminating his company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.
Written by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, The One Thing Book is packed with practical strategies that you can immediately apply in business and life. I found this Wall Street Journal #1 Best Seller simple and quick to read. Its message is straightforward. Gary Keller is the founder of Keller Williams Realty, which is the largest real estate brokerage in the world. Jay Papasan is a co-author of several best-selling books, and also is a leading broker at Keller Williams Realty. Now, Keller and Papasan, along with Jeff Woods, built upon their success with The One Thing book by expanding into a personal development and training company. For a full review, click here.
