Best Business Books of 2009?

There's already much written on the Web about the best business books of 2009, so I'll pass on putting together my own list.

I will, however, note that one title has been conspicuously missing, at least from the lists I've seen.

That book, is The Three Laws of Performance by Steve Zaffron & Dave Logan.

No, this book is NOT about greedy bankers, the failure of rational markets, or how Google, Facebook and Twitter are taking over our increasingly warmer and despoiled world.

It's about something much more fundamental (and elemental) than technology or the current economic woes that have befallen our planet.

It's about increasing the performance of individuals, and the organizations of which they are a part.

It's about becoming a much stronger leader by gaining an incisive understanding of why indviduals or companies behave the way they do, and how YOU can use the Three Laws of Performance to raise the stakes and realize massive performance gains.

At the risk of indulging in hyperbole, I have to say that this book rocked my world!

The language and message is so deceptively simple that it's easy to under appreciate it's sizable significance.

The point is not lost on Warren Bennis, the renowned leadership and business expert who helped edit the book. In his own words he said,

"I believe this book may be one of the most important written in many years. The ideas are much larger than what we normally see in business books. They aren't tips, tools or steps, but are in fact laws...The stories aren't the normal ones we read about in business; rather they are illustrations of organizations bringing out the best in people and in communities. These aren't just companies making a profit, but companies doing well in the world, by any measure. Leaders would be well served to think about these laws and find ways to apply their insights."

You can take Bennis' words as those of a self-interested editor, but I whole-heartedly agree with his estimation of this book's importance. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say that you ignore this book at your own peril.

That's how impactful I think this book can be for you.

So what are these incredibly profound laws that hold the key to transforming your personal and work life? Here they are:

The First Law: "How people perform correlate to how situations occur to them.

The Second Law: "How a situation occurs arises in language"

The Third Law: "Future-based language transforms how situations occur to people."

When I first read these I was taken aback, way back! "Is that it", I asked?

The laws were disorienting to me, in the sense that I have NEVER come across a prescription for improved performance that emphasized the importance of "occurrence" or "language" as being THE central core of ANY performance problem.

But Great ideas are almost by definition DISRUPTIVE. They force you to think in new ways--ways that are incompatible with what you thought before.

But Zaffron and Logan are on to something real, perhaps a new paradigm for real leadership in the 21st century. Leadership that revolves around the very careful use of language to create what has been dubbed the "self-led" organization.

If this economic crisis that we're facing, or the wholesale evaporation or dismantling of huge enterprises like Enron, GM, AIG and Lehman Brothers has thought us anything, it's this: strap on your set belt because the old ways of doing business are falling rapidly by the way side. What worked before won't work anymore.

In this bold new future, ruled by the technological innovations that enable more human connections, more people will want a say in their own future and in the future of your organization.

Will you allow them to have their say? Do you have a choice any longer?

By combining ideas from lingustics, brain science, sociology, psychology and more, the authors have created something that is refreshingly NEW.

It's a remarkable business book filled with real-world examples of how companies and individuals turned impossible situations into empowering ones. This book holds the secret to unlocking whatever performance problem you're facing.

...if you'll only give it a chance.