5 Holiday Gifts for Your Mentees

By Elizabeth Harrin (London)

It’s the holiday season, and while it’s not compulsory, many mentors and managers like to find small gifts for their mentees and team members. The Glass Hammer has gathered the top business books that will grace any Christmas stocking this year. Enjoy!

1. Get-It-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More by Stever Robbins

This excellent book by time management expert Stever Robbins covers everything you need to know to be more productive at work. “The best way to work less,” he writes, “is to make sure you only do work that helps you reach your goals.” It’s a witty, entertaining book with advice on managing emails and other technology, handling meetings, structuring your working week and getting things done. “I’ve seen people spend an entire weekend formatting a presentation to get the perfect fonts, with perfect animated sparkles at perfect junctures… ‘It has to be perfect for the board of directors.’ Get real. The board of directors cares about the substance. They know how to add sparkles, they don’t know how the division is doing. Perfectionism is sucking up time.”

2. Fast Track Networking: Turning Conversations into Contacts by Lucy Rosen

Yes, another book on networking. But this one’s different. It’s a very practical guide that shows you what works. For networking newbies it’s a great gift that will tell you where to stand at events so that you don’t feel like an idiot, and how to manage the food and drink. “Many people believe that because alcohol is available, it’s perfectly fine to partake,” Rosen writes. “Remember, while it looks and feels like a party, it’s not. You are at a business function and want to be at the top of your game at all times…I’ve seen a CEO dance on a table (which was the topic of conversation for months).” Your mentee will certainly feel well prepared for next year’s networking events with this one.

3. The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun

Scott Berkun made into our business book round up last year, too. This year he has a new edition of The Myths of Innovation out. It’s a fascinating read. Leaders throw around the term ‘innovation’ all the time, and here Berkun unpacks what it actually means and how some of the things we have been led to believe about innovation – like the fact it’s always a good thing – are actually untrue. “There is no innovation superhero,” he writes. “Simply saying something is great doesn’t make it so, yet as the success of marketing and advertising demonstrates, this doesn’t stop people from trying.” This would be a great gift for any team member or mentee working on process improvement or business change.

4. The Accidental Leader: What to do when you’re suddenly in charge by Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley

If you are mentoring a new team leader or a junior manager, or someone taking on a new management challenge, this will be perfect. It’s quick to read, which is what you need when you suddenly find yourself in charge of a team. The book covers managing yourself in this position, the technicalities of getting a team focused on its goals, and then a big section on managing people, which is especially useful if you are picking up new responsibilities following the previous manager leaving the company. “To some extent, every leader needs to let the previous incumbent swim away,” the authors write. “Bad things happen when a prior boss hangs around, whether in person or in memory.” Each short chapter ends with a targeted list of things you can do now to make being a leader a little easier.

5. Getting to the Top: Strategies for Career Success by Kathryn Ullrich

This book, by recruitment consultant and leader of the Alumni Career Services for UCLA Anderson School of Management Kathryn Ullrich, addresses the gap in career planning. Ullrich points out that today’s companies are no longer investing time in grooming employees for senior positions – career development is now up to you. In the first part of the book, Ullrich describes the career trajectories of many senior executives. She describes how they got there, what career moves they made and how they made their decisions. The book also discusses the key skills used by top executives, before finishing with guidance on how you can produce your own career action plan. It’s heavy on interviews, so you have to look to find similarities between how others have done it and how you can, but there’s a lot in here any aspiring C-suite executive should know.

Books make excellent gifts: they aren’t expensive, they last a long time and they are easy to share. If you have more than one mentee, or a small team, why not buy a selection and have them pass the books on around the group?

Editor’s Note: Elizabeth Harrin is author of Social Media for Project Managers, which is also a great read and a suitable gift for any project, program, and portfolio managers in your team!