Cool Book Of The Day

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Executives, emerging leaders, managers, business owners, and any professional who aspires to one day lead a company or work in a management role.

Q: What is the book about?
A: In today’s turbulent economy, more managers and executives than ever need to become leaders of employees – and that requires they know how to motivate and inspire a workforce like the most forward-thinking CEO.

“Motivating like a CEO” means connecting people with purpose and passion toward a common goal. This book addresses the necessity for leaders to discover purpose; communicate it to employees in a clear and powerful way; connect them to it in a shared sense of purpose; and help them fulfill their own, individual purposes.

Motivate Like a CEO will show you how to:
• Inspire people to embrace and share your vision
• Speak with energy and confidence in tough situations
• Turn challenges into opportunities
• Get your team engaged, in the loop, and tracking real results
• Make time in your schedule for sharing your message of motivation throughout your company

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: As the founder and CEO of Bates Communications, Inc., I’ve worked with top leaders and CEOs of companies from the Fortune 500 to startups on improving their communication skills. My team helps these leaders and emerging leaders deliver powerful speeches, successful sales presentations, impactful media interviews, and develop strategic communications plans. Over the years, we’ve noticed one factor that makes successful companies stand out from the rest – their leaders’ ability to motivate and inspire employees, customers, and stakeholders in any situation.

My first book, the bestselling Speak Like a CEO (McGraw Hill 2005), addressed the qualities leaders need to speak with impact and command attention. What evolved from that book was the need to address the motivational aspect of leadership communications. The companies that are going to succeed through these turbulent times are the ones whose leaders tell a genuine story, get people connected with a purpose and a vision, and inspire employees to discover their own passion. These are the companies that will achieve their strategic goals. Now, more than ever, I think this is essential for getting our economy back on track and rejuvenating our workforce.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: There are many books out there on motivation, and quite a few more on how to speak effectively, but this book ties in the two. I also wrote the book with executives and a business audience in mind, and interviewed dozens of successful CEOs and leaders who have found the “secret” to engaging their employees to achieve strategic goals.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: For me, one of the most exciting aspects of writing the book was being able to tell these unique, wonderful stories of CEOs and leaders who really “get it” – it being how to motivate and inspire. Some of the stories featured are those of the CEOs of Raytheon, Dow Chemical, and The North Face. One of the stories featured is that of a former executive of United Health who used the power of motivation and communicating a vision to get the entire company on board and “jazzed” about changing a long-standing operating procedure.

Lastly, I’m proud to announce that the book has been endorsed by many leading business authors (Marshall Goldsmith, Charles H. Green, Ken Blanchard) and CEOs themselves. Their thoughts can be found here: http://www.bates-communications.com/motivate/endorsements.php

More about the book can be found on my website: www.bates-communications.com/motivate/ or just by checking it out on amazon.com.

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Cat owners, pet lovers, and anyone thinking of getting a cat who needs to be warned.

Q: What is the book about?
A: Lessons In Stalking is a collection of short, humorous stories that homes in on the wildly different responses a couple have to a life shared with cats. In no other cat book will you find such riveting accounts as:

• The Great Cat Butt Wiping Adventure
• Jingle Ball
• The Creature Under the Fridge
• Yoga Cat
• The Big Brown Mouse & Other Toys Our Cat Loathes

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: I’m probably not, but no one else was willing to paw through the litter to get to the top (or bottom) of the topic matter. I’m also allergic to cats, which doesn’t help my case.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: The humor comes not so much from the cats—who are just doing their cat thing—but from the humans who are mystified at how they allowed themselves to become ensnared in a never ending nightmare of regurgitation and the “all this is mine” game. Also, the book contains more than the average number of references to “poo” and “butt-licking” than is typically found in your standard thriller or romance novel.

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Suspense thriller readers and readers interested in social justice.

Q: What is the book about?
A: When Gabriel Branch, a biracial Aborigine, searches the outback for his best friend, he is stalked by a Pitjantjatjara shaman. Gabe must find the truth about his friend and about the Aboriginal heritage he lost long ago.

This suspense thriller shows an Australia beautiful and brutal, and has won two national awards. It reveals the tragedy of a government policy intended to wipe out an entire race within three generations.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: As an author, I strive to create literature that bridges divisions of nationality, race, class, religion, gender and age. Books that show readers the emotional lives of individuals from other cultures, socioeconomic levels and subcultures open a safe passage for exploration. Our global society makes this type of work more important now than ever before.

My knowledge of Australia and its diverse cultures is based in part on a sabbatical I took some years ago. For six months I drove around the outback in a twenty-year-old Ford sedan, camping and hiking with dingoes as my sole companions. My work has been supported by the Vermont Studio Center, the Jerome Foundation, the New York Mills Cultural Center, the Cornucopia Arts Center and Wildacres.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: Really, there are no other novels by American authors that show readers the trauma suffered by Australia’s so-called Stolen Generation. Although Baz Luhrmann’s recent epic Australia and documentaries like Rabbit-proof Fence touch on the issue, the films don’t delve into the psychological impact the way a book can.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: This book won the Hackney Literary Award. The committee said, “One of the best novels in ten years of running this contest. The award places Cunningham in the ranks of Pulitzer Prize winning authors like William Styron and Horton Foote.”

The book also won the James Jones Literary Society contest because it mirrors the “spirit of unblinking honesty” for which author James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity and Thin Red Line, was known.

Garrison Somers, Editor-in-Chief of The Blotter literary magazine, said, “Ms. Cunningham shows an Australia beautiful and brutal. You know it isn’t going to be a gentle ride but you’re still not expecting to be kicked out of your seat onto the desert floor, rolling to a stop in the sharp-as-glass spinifex. Don’t be surprised when you want to put it down but can’t.”

Read an excerpt from my first novel at www.LaineCunningham.

Author Interview:
Q: In Message Stick, your main characters are adult Australian Aborigines who were caught up in the government’s assimilation policy. They were removed from their families at an early age and sent to missions and adoption agencies. Why is this book important now?
A: Hundreds of thousands of people in Australia today are living with this deep sorrow. They lost their parents and siblings, and still don’t know who their families are. Sometimes they can trace the paperwork back to a specific area or tribe but they’ve still lost those ties to their culture. Our government did the same thing to Native Americans when they shipped the children off to schools hundreds or thousands of miles from their homes. The difference is that Australia did it until the early 1970s, so there are many more people alive there today who suffer that pain.

Q: If they can determine the area where they were taken from, can’t they regain their heritage by reconnecting with their tribe?
A: Not always. Since they missed out on the initiation rituals and all the teaching that still is a part of Aboriginal lifestyles, they have a hard time participating fully. And it’s very difficult to cram a lifetime of learning into a few years. This is especially true for people who were shipped off to homes in the coastal cities. They’ve been acculturated to the European lifestyle. No matter how much they learn, few of them will be able to shake the feeling of being an outsider to their own heritage.

Q: Tell me how you found out about the Stolen Generation.
A: It was quite a shock. I was tooling around Australia in a beat-up Ford sedan. Since I traveled alone for six months, I had a lot of opportunities to meet people. One day I met a fellow named Billie. He told me about his childhood, about having been forcibly removed from his family. I was horrified to think a government would do something like that. He was in his mid-forties, so the assimilation policy had happened very late in the Twentieth Century. That anyone could justify something like that in modern times was unthinkable. Yet there it was.

Q: So Billie’s story struck some cord in you.
A: Yes. He was in Alice Springs at the time, in the outback. He’d been able to track his family back through the adoption and government papers. Although he was able to meet up again with his brother, he didn’t return to the Alice until two weeks after his father had died.

Q: Are there many stories like Billie’s in Australia?
A: Too many. He was actually one of the lucky ones. Once UNESCO and the League of Nations started pressuring the Australian government to stop the assimilation, a lot of those missions and orphanages panicked. They didn’t want to be charged with wrongdoing so a lot of the paperwork was destroyed.

Q: Message Stick wraps these issues into an astonishing plotline. Why did you decide to include the spiritual aspects of Aboriginal culture in the story?
A: There really wasn’t any choice. Aboriginal lifeways are intrinsically tied to the land. The land lives with the Dreamtime tales, the ancient stories of how things came to be. If you understand the land and how it was created, you understand the proper way to live. There could be no real heart to a story about the Stolen Generation that didn’t contain Aboriginal spirituality.

Q: The antagonist is a powerful shaman. Why did you choose to have what many might consider to be a spiritual person turn out to be so evil?
A: As the bad guy himself says, there is no good or bad. There are only things that are further from the law, the spiritual law of the outback. Because of his own experiences during the early years of the assimilation policy, his anger festered. He became something bitter, unable to love anything except the power his shamanic knowledge brought. His choice to use his gifts to harm others might be different than how most of us think of spiritually powerful people but it’s also realistic. We all have power and we all make choices about how to use it.

Q: How did you research this book?
A: That was difficult. There isn’t too much out there on Aborigines that provides the kind of details an author needs to really make a book come alive. It’s important to me to be able to understand a specific cultural or spiritual system well enough that I can “translate” it for mainstream Americans. I relied on a lot of anthropological studies.

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Although the book is written for leaders and managers, Who’s in the Driver’s Seat? is a book for anyone who wants three easy steps they can apply, in any situation that will assist them to behave and communicate in ways that will always bring about a positive collaborative outcome.

Q: What is the book about?
A: Who’s in the Driver’s Seat?: Using Spirit to Lead Effectively, is a groundbreaking book that openly and honestly confronts the high operational cost of leadership ego. Dr. Gluckman provides some staggering statistics showing the degree to which leader ego is a measurable financial liability. She proposes that leadership spirit, on the other hand, is a quantifiable financial asset and competitive edge. Spirited Leaders display behavior and communication skills that build authenticity, unity, courage, collaboration and accountability.

The book is built around two leaders. George and Dave tell their stories, chapter by chapter, of how the different behaviors and language styles of the ego-driven George, and the spirited Dave, impact the performance of their respective teams. This is a practical, hands-on book that can be read quickly and applied easily.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: This practical, hands-on book is the culmination of many years of research and experience working with leaders around the globe. I have spent a large part of my life studying and working with great and not so great leaders in all industries. This has given me a deep understanding of the leadership traits and qualities that bring success and those that do not.

Originally, my expertise in leadership traits came from growing up in an apartheid South Africa led by arrogant, self-righteous, self-serving leaders. Their egos convinced them that being white made them superior and helped them to justify the shocking practice of apartheid.

When Nelson Mandela was released from prison and became president of South Africa, I worked with the leaders of the major organizations in South Africa who had to completely transform themselves and their organization to re-engage with millions of alienated employees.

Some leaders were able to reinvent themselves; others were not. This was when I discovered how the human spirit, when skillfully applied to business goals, will have a remarkable impact on the organization’s culture and economic performance.

I witnessed that the leaders who were able to energize the spirit of their employees were able to motivate them to move mountains. These leaders all possessed the same fundamental leadership traits which I describe in Who’s in the Driver’s Seat?

I am a sought after keynote speaker and talk show guest and have lectured for the Executive MBA Program at TWU and the University of Dallas, Graduate School of Management. I have published extensively in business journals and authored a chapter in Mission Possible.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: This book offers a model for significantly increasing the ROI delivered by leaders and their teams – from boardroom to backroom. The groundbreaking concept behind Who’s in the Driver’s Seat? is that every organization possesses a powerful energy and spirit but most leaders do not know how to tap into it and apply it to the business goals. This is the first and only leadership book that teaches a model of how to use corporate spirit as a quantifiable financial asset.

Who’s in the Driver’s Seat? is a practical, easy-to-read book that offers a step-by-step process for energizing and operationalizing organizational spirit. This model is known as Spirited Economics™.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: Ego is not a bad thing. We all need ego as long as we recognize how it shows up for us, when it shows up for us and how to keep it in check.

Organizations are now giving serious attention to ego as an unnecessary expense that is drastically hurting their bottom line because leadership ego de-energizes employees.

There are approximately 22 million switched-off employees in the USA today, costing the economy up to $350 billion a year (Gallup, 2007). This book provides practical tools to replace ego with leadership behavior and communication that energizes the spirit of the people and creates a sustainable organization.

Visit my website http://www.sandygluckman.com to get a free download of a white paper on Spirited Economics™, browse my blogs or to buy my book.