What should the Collection Manager read?
Question: As a Collection Manager, what books should you read... to help you be the very best at what you do for a living? Answer: Books to help you manage the collection function... not books to help you collect.
Collection expertise develops with experience. Pages such as these merely establish bases, as Collectors ultimately veer and swerve and modify... and discover and use their own unique approaches.
For your career, read "Think and Grow Rich," by Napoleon Hill. For your management style, read "The Effective Executive," by Peter Drucker.
For negotiation (what else is collecting:), read "The Art of Negotiating," by Gerard Nierenberg. For managing time, read "How To Get Control Of Your Time And Your Life," by Alan Lakein.
For managing stress (and yours is indeed a pressure job), read "Stress And The Manager," by Karl Albrecht. For management skills (this next will surprise you), read Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays on "Self Reliance," "Friendship," and "Compensation."
For mastery of the language, when reading the foregoing... look up (have that dictionary by your side) every word you do not fully understand.
Beyond those proposed books, make deliberate attempts to (A) identify skills you already have, and (B) find the books to strengthen your strengths.
Success is fun when it involves improving what you already know, or "It's what you learn after you know it all that makes the difference."
