The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving your wildly important goals

Authors: Chris McChesney, with Sean Covey and Jim Huling

Publisher: Free Press

OFTEN, the urgent things that need to be done in order for day-to-day operations to run smoothly detract us from the important goals in our lives, or in the organisation we work for. Consequently, as the years roll by, we realise that we have not planned for the future.

This book is a simple guide to help you execute your most important strategic priorities in the midst of the urgent. The four disciplines the author refers to include the importance of focusing on the wildly important, acting on ways to get to your goal, keeping a scoreboard and having accountability.

Ingenius: A crash course on creativity

Author: Tina Seelig

Publisher: Harper One

THIS Stanford University lecturer decodes creativity and writes about how creativity is generated on the inside and how it is influenced by the outside world. Creativity is a renewable and endless resource we need to tap most of the time in order to move on and be successful. The way we solve our personal and work problems, how we handle a difficult client or an exhausting relationship call for different ways to overcome obstacles.

The Strategist: Be the leader your business needs

Author: Cynthia A. Montgomery

Publisher: Harper

THE author, a professor at Harvard Business School, highlights the importance of the strategist. Whether it is leading an organisation, or a department, how successful the leader is depends on how he strategises to take his department or company forward. She illuminates what strategy is, why it is important and what it takes to lead the effort. Leaders need to develop skills and sensibilities to become strategists and she shows how this is done.

• Family upholds the spirit of adventure by scaling Mt Kinabalu
• The mind-body link in treating diseases
• There’s no one like Dad
• Retirees venture into home-based food enterprises
• Ibu Robin Lim advocates natural birth
• Travelling opens the window of learning
• Elderly woman's approach to selling kaya catches attention of PJ diners
• Monthly giveaway
• Looking for Malaysians with amazing stories
• Homemade spotty jars