This book should be one the essential books for all businesses with employees. The authors make a very convincing argument that truly effective and high performance companies only do so through what they call the idea revolution.

The idea revolution is about taking the many small ideas that employees generate and evaluate, test and implement them quickly and efficiently – rather than searching for the one big or grand idea which is more likely to be discovered and copied by your competition.

Small ideas are much less likely to be copied by your competition. Yet the shear volume of small ideas with their small incremental changes adds up to a truly transformational organization.

In the high performance organizations that the authors studied employees averaged over 100 ideas every year. No manager could possibly hope to manage this; the solution was to push decision making authority for most of them back down closer to the employees and their supervisors.

The authors also make the proposition that employee ideas – handled properly – are a virtually unlimited, free and perpetually renewable source of competitive advantage.

This would be especially true for those small businesses that can understand the concepts they put forth and harness the power of their employees.

At the end of each chapter the authors give “Guerrilla Tactics” for actions that can promote ideas that any business owner and managers can take and require little or no resources.

This is a compelling and quick read. Get the book today!
 

Learning to See - Mike Rother & John Shook
 

Another Lean Manufacturing book. This worthy workbook walks the reader through the process of Value Stream Mapping. VSM is one the foundation blocks of Lean.

By identifying the value stream of any product or product line, the reader will be able to map the current state of the value stream and design the future state they would desire to get to (perfection).

The authors show how the path from current state to future state involves removing bottlenecks and waste and how to go about eliminating them.

An excellent interactive workbook for understanding and applying Value Stream Mapping.
 

Lean Thinking - James Womack & Daniel Jones

If you have decided to explore Lean Manufacturing further, “Lean Thinking” is the seminal tract to read. “Lean Thinking” and its predecessor “The Machine That Changed the World” are the books that made Lean concepts known worldwide.

Womack and Jones explore the various ideas and theory that make up Lean thought. Lean thinking to help managers clearly specify value, to line up all the value-creating activities for a specific product along a value stream and to make value flow smoothly at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.

They further make the argument for the next stage – the Lean Enterprise. Where lean techniques can be applied to all areas of the enterprise, not just production.
 

Small Manufacturer’s Tool Kit - Steve Novak

This is the first book a manufacturing small business decision maker should get, read and understand. Novak has written a well documented guide to selecting the techniques and systems to help the small manufacturer succeed.

This book reviews and discusses all the current thought on manufacturing excellence. From the basics like inventory management, Scheduling and MRP to Lean, Theory of Constraints, Six Sigma and ERP and everything in between.

By doing such a thorough job of laying out the advantages and disadvantages of each technique and system and how they interrelate (and more importantly never displaying any bias towards any of them), Novak enables the owner make informed decisions.
 

Lean Administration - B. Wiegand & P. Frank

Interest in lean has spread beyond the manufacturing to administration processes and to all kind of service businesses. The authors have shown how to introduce lean thinking into non-manufacturing areas including very complex enterprise wide processes.

In volume one they show how to understand the different workflows, map them, identify work elements and how it is possible to build and spread lean administrative processes throughout the enterprise.
 

Getting the Right Things Done - Pascal Dennis

When trying to implement a strategy (or more properly, a strategic plan), theory often fails. The practical application of most theoretical processes is next to impossible. Dennis shows how strategy deployment will focus and align your activities and allow you to quickly respond to threats and opportunities.

Strategy Deployment has been used by World Class companies for over 25 years to engaage people at all levels and, in doing so dominate markets.
 

Think Inside the Box - David Deutsch

David Deutsch takes a different view of problem solving, Thinking Inside the Box. Deutsch has designed a series of boxes (potential solutions) to create laser like focus and creativity to help you uncover hidden possibilities to all kinds of problems.
 

Get Clients Now - C.J. Hayden

For those of you who need an ultra focused, short term marketing action plan, this the book for you. Although it’s says it is a marketing book, I think of it more as short term revenue generating book.

In most businesses that need this type of help – especially if the business is a start up or early stage business – the critical issue is to obtain enough clients (revenue) to survive (fund its self) to be able to implement the rest of their program(s). Well, this is the preeminent source for accomplishing that goal.

Ms. Hayden sets out a very specific formula for success, that in my opinion, if you follow it you will increase your proficiency in the areas of revenue generation that you chose.

Ms. Hayden does an admirable job breaking down the Revenue Generation Cycle down into very straight forward components; that every decision maker can comprehend and IMPLEMENT. She also provides very effective templates to develop, implement and review your plan.
 

One Page Business Plan - James Horan

Most small business owners cringe at the thought of a “business plan”, the proverbial 50+ page bible. Who has the time for this? Who has the fortitude for this? Who has the desire for this? Certainly not me and I am fairly certain not you. And unless you are going to external sources for financing or support of some kind it’s not necessary.

There are many resources out there to assist you in doing a short and sweet business plan. One I recommend is the One Page Business Plan by Jim Horan. When I reconfigured my business this is what I used to do my business plan.

This book will walk you through the five simple steps in developing a workable plan. Planning is nothing more than setting your Vision and Mission, identifying and preparing your Goals and Objectives based on your Vision, determining your Strategies to support your Goals and Objectives and then prioritizing them into your Action Plan.

This book makes Planning simple, straight forward and affordable.
 

Guerrilla Marketing (Series) - Jay Conrad Levinson
This series is based on the premise that all businesses are not created equal and traditional marketing theory and concepts are focused on larger companies, with larger budgets for marketing.

The small business owner does not have the resources (Time, Money and Skills) that large enterprises have and therefore must husband their resources accordingly. This is where Guerrilla Marketing excels.

The Guerrilla Marketing series was devised and written by Jay Conrad Levinson and in my opinion is not only brilliant but will fit almost any small business.

Guerrilla Marketing strips away all the big company / big budget “stuff” from traditional marketing and leaves the small business owner with a well thought out and conceptually sound Marketing Plan process that in Levinson’s words “will deliver low cost and high impact” marketing to the small business owner.

This methodology is infinitely scalable and easily replicated (more of my favorite tenets for small businesses).

A Guerrilla Marketing Plan will be seven to ten pages long – this may seem like a lot but when you consider this includes the Marketing Plan Budget and the Marketing Plan Implementation Schedule it is really quite short.

If you need assistance in marketing (and who doesn’t) then get a Guerrilla Marketing book, I personally recommend The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook.