Robert Cialdini

Author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

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Book Recommendations:

Recommended by Robert Cialdini

Glue offers a rare gift to project managers. It artfully blends specific step-by-step recommendations of how to move from project management to project leadership with the psychological rationale for taking those steps. (from Amazon)

“Glue offers a rare gift to project managers. It artfully blends specific step-by-step recommendations of how to move from project management to project leadership with the psychological rationale for taking those steps.”- Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence and Pre-Suasion An Essential Guide to Get Stuff Done How many books have you read on project management? On leadership? Too many, right? But no other book combines the practice of project management and leadership into one balanced approach with practical examples—except this book. You don’t even need Project Manager in your title to employ the lessons in this book. You can be any person on any team who has stepped up to take a leadership role on a critical initiative. You’ll learn the critical blend of management and leadership skills that will make you indispensable to any project. You’ll learn what it takes to become the binding agent—the glue—that creates cohesive, engaged, high-performing project teams. The author’s methods have been battle-tested against real technology projects. Her insight and vision reach beyond theory into application and can be used immediately regardless of the length, scope, or phase of your project—whether it’s planning a wedding, remodeling a home, or leading a team in a major website revamp or product launch or company start-up. You’ll learn— How to get started when you don’t know much—yet How to lay a solid foundation for your project How to support a project and a team that’s in flight How to communicate (yah, that’s a thing), how to reward (candy works), how to take notes (yes, please), and how to map out the project with Post-its

Recommended by Robert Cialdini

SEO is surely an art. But this book ups its value by showing that SEO is also a flat-out science that can be learned and applied to great effect. We'd be foolish not to benefit from its clear lessons. (from Amazon)

The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization book cover

by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Jessie Stricchiola·You?

Three acknowledged experts in search engine optimization share guidelines and innovative techniques that will help you plan and execute a comprehensive SEO strategy. Complete with an array of effective tactics from basic to advanced, this fourth edition prepares digital marketers for 2023 and beyond with updates on SEO tools and new search engine optimization methods that have reshaped the SEO landscape, including how generative AI can be used to support SEO and SEO-related tasks. Novices will receive a thorough SEO education, while experienced SEO practitioners get an extensive reference to support ongoing engagements. Learn about the various intricacies and complexities of internet search Explore the underlying theory and inner workings of search engines and their algorithms Understand the interplay between social media engagement and other factors Discover tools to track results and measure success Examine the effects of key Google algorithm updates Consider opportunities for visibility in mobile, local, vertical, social, and voice search Build a competent SEO team with defined roles Identify what opportunities exist for using generative AI as part of an SEO program Gain insights into the future of search and internet discoverability

Recommended by Robert Cialdini

Influence PEOPLE is a treasure trove of instructive and entertaining personal accounts, informative research results, and extraordinarily useful tips for becoming consistently more influential. It shouldn't be missed. (from Amazon)

Would understanding how people typically think and behave beforeyou engage in a difficult conversation, tough negotiation, or make a simple request be helpful? Of course. Brian Ahearn's new book, Influence PEOPLE, explores the science behind the influence process--what drives people to take the actions you want them to take, without manipulation or trickery. Throughout the book you'll learn how to influence PEOPLE, in the workplace, at home, and in social interactions. This book isn't about changing people's minds or simply convincing them what you want them to do is right. It's much more than that; it's about changing people's behavior. Positive thoughts, and even agreement from others, only go so far--and seldom lead to a change in behavior. This book will help you bridge the gap between good intentions and actions. With more than 30 years of business experience and 15 years studying the influence process, Brian Ahearn shares with you the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to moving people to action. Tired of hearing prospective clients say they need to "think it over" when you make a proposal? Ever leave a situation only to find yourself thinking, "I should have said..."? It does you little good to come up with the right word or phrase after the moment has passed. Does trying to gain consensus with your co-workers or team bear a striking resemblance to herding cats?Here's just a handful of thought-provoking things you'll learn: How a major insurance company quickly recovered from a $700,000 mistake using Post It(TM) notes.Why J.C. Penney's move to simplified pricing was a disaster despitebeing conceived by some very smart marketing executives. How Bernie Madoff "made off" with our money. The unrecognized power of saying thanks and responding properly to thanks.How persuasion can help double your response rate at half the cost. Only 20 people in the world hold the Cialdini Method Certified Trainer(R) designation and Brian Ahearn is one of the chosen few. He illustrates the practical application of the principles of influence popularized by Robert Cialdini in his bestselling books Influence: Science and Practice. After reading Influence PEOPLE, Cialdini wrote: "Influence PEOPLE is a treasure trove of instructive and entertaining personal accounts, informative research results, and extraordinarily useful tips for becoming consistently more influential. It shouldn't be missed." Dave Lakhani, author of Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want and Subliminal Persuasion said: "In Influence PEOPLE, Brian breaks persuasion down into manageable and easy to use chunks that anyone can learn and apply. He takes an idea that can be as complex as you'd like to make it and helps you learn in a fun, easy style." Don't wait any longer! Get your copy of Influence PEOPLE today. You can start applying the strategies immediately and see how seemingly small adjustments to your communications can have outsized impact. It's all about seizing those Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Lasting and Ethical.

Recommended by Robert Cialdini

This book is compelling because Barker's irreverence is so consistently on-target, relentlessly puncturing the wisdom balloons that most need bursting. (from Amazon)

Wall Street Journal Bestseller Much of the advice we’ve been told about achievement is logical, earnest…and downright wrong. In Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Eric Barker reveals the extraordinary science behind what actually determines success and most importantly, how anyone can achieve it. You’ll learn: • Why valedictorians rarely become millionaires, and how your biggest weakness might actually be your greatest strength • Whether nice guys finish last and why the best lessons about cooperation come from gang members, pirates, and serial killers • Why trying to increase confidence fails and how Buddhist philosophy holds a superior solution • The secret ingredient to “grit” that Navy SEALs and disaster survivors leverage to keep going • How to find work-life balance using the strategy of Genghis Khan, the errors of Albert Einstein, and a little lesson from Spider-Man By looking at what separates the extremely successful from the rest of us, we learn what we can do to be more like them—and find out in some cases why it’s good that we aren’t. Barking Up the Wrong Tree draws on startling statistics and surprising anecdotes to help you understand what works and what doesn’t so you can stop guessing at success and start living the life you want.

Recommended by Robert Cialdini

With great insight, Jonah Berger removes the cloak of invisibility from powerful sources of influence and resolves fascinating mysteries of human behavior. (from Amazon)

In Invisible Influence, the New York Times bestselling author of Contagious explores the subtle influences that affect the decisions we make—from what we buy, to the careers we choose, to what we eat. “Jonah Berger has done it again: written a fascinating book that brims with ideas and tools for how to think about the world.” —Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit If you’re like most people, you think your individual tastes and opinions drive your choices and behaviors. You wear a certain jacket because you liked how it looked. You picked a particular career because you found it interesting. The notion that our choices are driven by our own personal thoughts and opinions is patently obvious. Right? Wrong. Without our realizing it, other people’s behavior has a huge influence on everything we do at every moment of our lives, from the mundane to the momentous. Even strangers have an impact on our judgments and decisions: our attitudes toward a welfare policy shift if we’re told it is supported by Democrats versus Republicans (even though the policy is the same). But social influence doesn’t just lead us to do the same things as others. In some cases we imitate others around us. But in other cases we avoid particular choices or behaviors because other people are doing them. We stop listening to a band because they go mainstream. We skip buying the minivan because we don’t want to look like a soccer mom. By understanding how social influence works, we can decide when to resist and when to embrace it—and learn how we can use this knowledge to exercise more control over our own behavior. In Invisible Influence, Jonah Berger “is consistently entertaining, applying science to real life in surprising ways and explaining research through narrative. His book fascinates because it opens up the moving parts of a mysterious machine, allowing readers to watch them in action” (Publishers Weekly).

Recommended by Robert Cialdini

The Education of a Value Investor offers a remarkably cost-effective education for any type of investor. And, oh, the lessons--of the forms of self-transformation, self-transcendence, and self-understanding that lead to investing success--stand to profit any reader, non-investors included. (from Amazon)

What happens when a young hedge fund manager spends a small fortune to have lunch with Warren Buffett? He becomes a true value investor. This book traces the arc of a transformation. Author Guy Spier started his career as a Gordon Gekko wannabe -- brash, short-sighted and entirely out for himself. Then, a series of transformations and self-realizations led him from an investment banking job with a third-rate firm to managing his own fund, which has generated tremendous returns for his investors. His journey began with the discovery of Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor, then took him on a path to a life-changing meeting with the renowned investor Mohnish Pabrai, followed by his famous lunch with Warren Buffett. That $650,100 meal proved to be a bargain, teaching Spier some of the most valuable lessons of his life. Along the way, he has gained many powerful insights about investing and business, including: why the right mentors and role models are the key to long-term success as an investor; how a top-notch education can get in your way; why self-knowledge is so critical to becoming a great investor; and how Buffett taught him that the ultimate goal in life is to be true to yourself. This book is an extraordinarily candid memoir that takes the reader into some of the darkest corners of Wall Street. It's also a remarkably smart and practical guide to what it takes to become a successful investor. Most important, Guy Spier provides those who want to take a different path with the insight, guidance and inspiration they need to succeed on their own terms.

Recommended by Robert Cialdini

Turns traditional thinking about selling on its ear. Crucially, that ear needs to be open to the important insights the book delivers that demand to be heard and employed. (from Amazon)

This Wall Street Journal bestseller is captivating readers of Adam Grant, Dan Pink, and James Clear and has been called "a lifechanging book as much about life as it is about selling." What if the greatest salespeople on the planet are the opposite of who you think they are? Everyone sells, every day. It's why the most successful people are so good at selling themselves, their ideas, or their products. Yet when people hear the word "sales" they think of some version of the overly confident, manipulative, "don't-take-no-for-an-answer" stereotype. Because of these misperceptions, when they find themselves in a situation where they need to sell, they feel compelled to put on the persona of a "good salesperson." But there's a disconnect between who we think good salespeople are and who they actually are. In any room, they're not the most self-confident, they're the most self-aware. They're not the most sociable, they're the most socially aware. And they don't succeed in spite of obstacles, they succeed because of obstacles. Colin Coggins & Garrett Brown sought out some of the most successful people from all walks of life, including CEOs, entrepreneurs, doctors, trial lawyers, professional athletes, agents, military leaders, artists, engineers, and countless others in between in hopes of understanding why they're so extraordinary. They found that as different as all these incredible people were, they all had an eerily similar approach to selling. It didn't matter if they were perceived as optimists or pessimists, logical or emotional, introverted or extraverted, jovial or stoic - they were all unsold on what it meant to sell and unsold on who people expected them to be. The Unsold Mindset reveals a counterintuitive approach to not just selling, but life. This book is not about "building rapport," "objection handling," or "trial closes." It's a journey toward an entirely new mindset — because the greatest sellers on the planet aren't successful because of what they do, they're successful because of what they think. Being a good person and a good salesperson aren't mutually exclusive. The Unsold Mindset will change the way you think about selling and the way you think about yourself.

Recommended by Robert Cialdini

Plenty of books offer advice on how to overcome common personal barriers but none as clearly, engagingly, and compellingly as this. (from Amazon)

Wall Street Journal bestseller “A welcome revelation.” --The Financial Times Award-winning Wharton Professor and Choiceology podcast host Katy Milkman has devoted her career to the study of behavior change. In this ground-breaking book, Milkman reveals a proven path that can take you from where you are to where you want to be, with a foreword from psychologist Angela Duckworth, the best-selling author of Grit. Change comes most readily when you understand what's standing between you and success and tailor your solution to that roadblock. If you want to work out more but find exercise difficult and boring, downloading a goal-setting app probably won't help. But what if, instead, you transformed your workouts so they became a source of pleasure instead of a chore? Turning an uphill battle into a downhill one is the key to success. Drawing on Milkman's original research and the work of her world-renowned scientific collaborators, How to Change shares strategic methods for identifying and overcoming common barriers to change, such as impulsivity, procrastination, and forgetfulness. Through case studies and engaging stories, you’ll learn: • Why timing can be everything when it comes to making a change • How to turn temptation and inertia into assets • That giving advice, even if it's about something you're struggling with, can help you achieve more Whether you're a manager, coach, or teacher aiming to help others change for the better or are struggling to kick-start change yourself, How to Change offers an invaluable, science-based blueprint for achieving your goals, once and for all.

Recommended by Robert Cialdini

With telling examples from the bedroom to the boardroom to the war room, this book gives us something invaluable—a way both to see the perils of identity conflict in negotiation and to avoid them. (from Amazon)

** Grand Prize Winner of the 2017 Nautilus Book Award ** Are you struggling to deal with conflict in your life? In Negotiating the Nonnegotiable, Harvard negotiation expert Daniel Shapiro introduces a groundbreaking method to bridge the toughest divides—whether with family members, colleagues, or in the polarized world of politics. He reveals the hidden power of identity in fueling conflict, and presents a practical framework to reconcile even the most contentious situations.  Field-tested around the world, the results are empowering.

Recommended by Robert Cialdini

Dobelli examines our most common decision-making failings with engaging eloquence and describes how to counter them with instructive good sense. (from Amazon)

The Art of Thinking Clearly by world-class thinker and entrepreneur Rolf Dobelli is an eye-opening look at human psychology and reasoning — essential reading for anyone who wants to avoid “cognitive errors” and make better choices in all aspects of their lives. Have you ever: Invested time in something that, with hindsight, just wasn’t worth it? Or continued doing something you knew was bad for you? These are examples of cognitive biases, simple errors we all make in our day-to-day thinking. But by knowing what they are and how to spot them, we can avoid them and make better decisions. Simple, clear, and always surprising, this indispensable book will change the way you think and transform your decision-making—work, at home, every day. It reveals, in 99 short chapters, the most common errors of judgment, and how to avoid them.