The High Achiever’s Secret Codebook

There are so many amazing books out there about careers. If I sat down and read all day, every day, I’d still never catch up on all of the ones out there. When you happen onto a book by chance, you never know what you’re going to end up with. Chance is exactly how I describe ending up with a copy of The High Achiever’s Secret Codebook: The Unwritten Rules for Success at Work by Sandra Naiman. A good friend and career coach, Miriam Salpeter, had a contest on her multiple blogs sometime earlier this year. I entered and was quite delighted a few weeks later when I received my prize in the mail.

In the first section of the book, Ms. Naiman writes a section describing the book’s target audience.

This book is not just for people who have stumbled in their careers and don’t know why—those passed over for promotions, left out of the loop, or maybe even fired. This book is for successful, talented, young professionals who appear to be rising stars. This book is for new and seasoned managers, and for valued contributors who continue to move up the ladder. This book is for ambitious people, new to the world of work, determined to make it big. This book is also a reference for human resource and organizational development professionals as well as for executive coaches.

I’ve read plenty of career books that tell you the same things, repeating what you’ve heard dozens of times before. However, this paperback was amazing in that it contained some unique advice. Instead of just including lists of thing to do or not do, the author utilized situations to make her points. In only a few paragraphs, she lays out a dilemma that many of us face in the workplace, and then she proceeds to describe the proper solution. These thought-provoking examples are interspersed with not-so-common sense messages to make a truly enjoyable book. All of the many tips in the book fall under “the seven secrets.” Some of them include tread lightly, play nice, and my favorite—listen between the lines. If you’re interested in The High Achiever’s Secret Codebook, you can learn more at Sandra Naiman’s author page.