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Message in a Book List
Posted: 08/03/2007, 10:00 AM PT
Last week, I listed
the top-selling
books at the Society for Human Resource Management annual conference in Las
Vegas. I asked, "What does this list of the top-selling books purchased at last
month's Society for Human Resource Management annual conference in Las Vegas tell
you about the HR professional in the 21st century? Let me know if you can figure
it out." Here's what some readers had to say:
- From Dr. Janice Presser, CEO of The Gabriel Institute in Philadelphia—"SHRM's
typical member is the HR person for a 100-person or fewer organization, so
this likely represents people who haven't thought *if* they should be doing
things like performance evaluations, just *how* to get people to do them with
the least amount of pain. My wish list reading list for HR professionals would
include The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) and A Whole New Mind (Dan Pink,
who spoke at the conference and I think sold fairly well)."
- From Michael Mercer, author, business psychologist, and president of Mercer
Systems in Barrington, Illinois—"Probably the main reason those books
sold best at SHRM conference is very simple: The authors of many or most of
those books delivered presentations at the SHRM conference. I am the author
of five books. I consistently find that when I speak at a conference, more
of my books are sold than when I do not speak at that conference."
- From a training and development professional in eastern Tennessee—"If
I had to derive a single message from the list, it appears to be around managing
the upcoming generations from Generation X forward. It's all about retention
and effective management."
Do you have any thoughts on this book list, or anything else I've written? I'd
love to hear from you if you do. Until we get the reader comments functioning
on this blog, send your thoughts along to me at jhollon@workforce.com.
I'll publish as many as I can.
Next Post: 6. Responding to The Talent-Shortage Myth
Responses to the "Talent Shortage" posting.
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John Hollon
Workforce Management editor John Hollon is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years' experience as a newspaper, magazine, Internet and business journal editor. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from California State University, Long Beach, and an MBA from Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management.
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