Here is a great question that came in from the incredible community that thrives on this blog:

I work at a medical clinic.  like many doctors, I have not always wanted to pay attention to the business side. That obviously was a mistake.

We are coming out of a phase of replacing team members who were “legacies”. That is, they were long term employees, before I came.  However, they were not capable of filling their roles. It took too long to let them go, but we knew we made the right choice within two weeks.

Now I am feeding myself on leadership and your podcast. I want to start required reading as a part of our team building.  What is the very first book you would recommend my whole staff to read?

Thanks so much for your time,

– Jon

Wow. Great question Jon. There are a ton of books that I think every team member should read. But since you are asking for the very first book, I would have to say QBQ! The Question Behind the Question, by John G. Miller.

The reason is, it’s about personal responsibility. If you’ve ever heard people say things like:

• Why do we have to go through all this change?
• Why can’t we find good people?
• When will that department do its job right?
• Who dropped the ball?

Then you know exactly how much of a pain in the back side these people are to deal with. Why? Because they never had a good leader to begin with. Therefore, they have what I call, force-of-habit-thinking!

QBQ gets them asking questions like:

• What can I do to fix this problem?
• How can I be a solution?
• What are the steps necessary for me to…

In a new role like yours, with people who have been there with the last leader, I would focus on getting my team thinking about how we go forward, not pointing fingers about the things that are wrong.  I hope that answers your question Jon.

Question: What would you recommend as a first book for a leader in Jon’s position?