Non-Business Books For Business

Daniel at Pit Bulls and Labradors is wondering out loud about "certain books that are not at all about public relations, business, management or marketing per se [and] can offer insights into how we can do our jobs better."

I added my thoughts. Jump over and add yours.

Posted by Todd S. at 10:29 PM | Comments (1)
Categories: Lists, Misc.

BookExpo America

Each year, in late May or early June, thousands of authors, booksellers and publishers convene for the annual BookExpo America. This year BEA is in Los Angeles. It's quite a sight.

The tradeshow floor opens on Friday morning. And the races begin! Inviting in the herd of BEA goers waiting impatiently outside the door ready to snatch the best galleys (the publishing word for a bound manuscript) and loot.

This month's Fast Company depicted the history of BEA:

Posted by Kate at 1:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Publishing Industry

The Milkshake Moment - an essay from Steve Little

Thanks to our friend Steve Little, author of The 7 Irrefutable Rules of Small Business Growth and the recently published The Milkshake Moment, for offering us this essay to post on our blog. I encourage you to check out the book; the story below illustrates the great insights to be found in The Milkshake Moment. (And it'll definitely make you crave a milkshake!)

The Milkshake Moment
by Steven S. Little

The story I'm about to tell you is true.

A few years ago I traveled to Baltimore, Maryland, for a speaking engagement. Anyone who travels for business knows that it is hardly glamorous. After 9/11, however, it became even more frustrating, and it keeps getting worse. I don't think I'd be overstating it to say that business travel today is horrific: irretrievably lost luggage, annoying security searches, perpetually oversold flights, infuriating rental car policies, frazzled counter staff... I think you get the picture.

Despite all the traumas of travel, I decided a few years ago to always keep a smile on my face. The way I look at it: if the business travel industry gets the best of me, they win and I lose. I just can't allow that to happen.

I keep a smile on my face by keeping my eye on a prize. My prize at the end of every business travel day is a vanilla milkshake . . . a thick, gooey, luscious, indulgent vanilla milkshake. I'm talking a hand-dipped, old-fashioned, malt-shoppy kind of milkshake. I don't just like 'em; I love 'em. Both my career and my mental well-being literally depend on them. The image of that milkshake is the proverbial dangling carrot that gets me through even the worst travel day.

It had been a particularly difficult day of planes, trains, and automobiles. I was to arrive at the Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) Airport at 7:00 P.M . for dinner with my clients at 8:00 P.M . Unfortunately, I arrived at midnight. In other words, there was nothing out of the ordinary so far.

I grabbed my bags and stood in a long taxicab line to take the 20-minute ride to Baltimore's beautiful Inner Harbor. I was cold, wet, tired, and hungry, but smiling, because I was going to get that vanilla milkshake.

When I finally got to my room an hour later the first thing I did was call room service where I was greeted by Stuart.

"Good evening, Mr. Little, this is Stuart in room service. How may I help you?" Stuart's voice brimmed with enthusiasm.

"Stuart, I'd like a vanilla milkshake, please," I said. A seemingly simple request, right? Well, not quite.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Little, but we don't have milkshakes," Stuart replied regretfully.

I was crushed. Quickly I regrouped.

"All right, Stuart, let me ask you this: Do you have any vanilla ice cream?"

"Yes, of course!" he responded with renewed enthusiasm.

"Okay, Stuart, I'd like a full bowl of vanilla ice cream."

"Yes sir, right away, sir! Is there anything else I can do to serve you?" Stuart asked.

"Yeah . . . do you have any milk?"

"Yes, we have milk!" he replied confidently.

"All right, Stuart, here's what I would like you to do. Please send up a tray with a full bowl of vanilla ice cream, half a glass of milk, and a long spoon. Could you do that for me, please?"

"Certainly, right away, sir," Stuart responded triumphantly.

I hung up the phone and a few minutes later there was a knock. Sure enough, at my door there was a tray with a full bowl of vanilla ice cream, half a glass of milk, and a long spoon--everything needed to make a vanilla milkshake. But of course they didn't have vanilla milkshakes.

Now let me ask you an important question. Is Stuart stupid? Or is the system stupid?

Stuart's behavior is not unique. Like the vast majority of employees everywhere, Stuart wanted to do a good job. To this day, he probably still thinks he did.

Out of the 100 or so hotel rooms I stay in every year, I run this experiment approximately half the time. It's not every night, as some hotels don't offer room service, while others specifically offer milkshakes. I conduct this experiment only when a milkshake is not on the room service menu. More often than not, they do have all the ingredients to make me happy. Yet I usually end up with the same full bowl of ice cream, half a glass of milk, and a long spoon (some assembly required).

Why does this keep happening? Why can't individuals like Stuart deliver what I asked for? I've had plenty of time to ponder that question now that I've received over 200 do-it-yourself vanilla milkshakes from America's leading business hotels. Let's take a look at some of the underlying causes that lead to these systemic breakdowns.

Stuart is standing at a point-of-sale screen popping in orders with his company-issued plastic access key. If his screen doesn't say "milkshake," then a milkshake simply does not exist. The supposedly foolproof system is designed to ensure that Stuart can't make the organization appear foolish. Yet even a casual observer can see that the system has pushed the organization well beyond foolish. It is now sitting squarely in the land of lost opportunity. How's that for irony?

Think about this. I represent the mother lode for the business travel industry. I stay in over 100 hotel rooms a year and I'm not exactly price sensitive. Stuart could have charged me $25 for that milkshake and I would have been happy to pay it.

I actually feel sorry for the major business hotel chains. In an effort to standardize their systems, they've taken individual judgment out of the equation. They spend billions of dollars in marketing to get people like me through their doors and billions more in staff training to make my brand of traveler happy. Yet they continually blow it, due in some part to a stupid point-of-sale system. But that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It goes much deeper than that.

Despite my feelings to the contrary that fateful night, Stuart's inability to deliver a Milkshake Moment is not the end of the world. It is, however, symptomatic of a much broader organizational malaise.

This story is not just another example of bad customer service. It's much more than that. This is a larger tale of lost opportunity. Invariably, the root cause can be traced back to factors that are much more fundamental. Peel back the bureaucratic layers of any organization and you will find a broad range of self-imposed limitations, from antiquated hiring practices to poor workspace design to short-term financial myopia.

Consider your organization. When are you saying no when it would be much better and just as easy to say yes? Are you really putting people in the best position to grow? Do your current policies, procedures, and systems enable you to truly deliver?

So what is a Milkshake Moment? It's certainly not a full bowl of ice cream, half a glass of milk, and a long spoon. Instead, a Milkshake Moment is a brave individual action, be it big or small, that furthers the cause of growth in an organization. Milkshake Moments materialize when individuals understand the organization's true purpose, honestly believe it is their job to fulfill it, and are given the tools and the freedom to make it happen. When a would-be growth leader managing deep within the bowels of a stagnating organization has the guts to stand up and say, "This idea is contrary to everything we say we believe," that's a Milkshake Moment. When a thinking person is given the freedom to seize an opportunity afforded by change, that's a Milkshake Moment. When a small business owner consciously puts purpose before profit, that's a Milkshake Moment. When the executive director of a nonprofit foundation challenges the status quo views of her tenured board members, that's a Milkshake Moment.

Members of twenty-first-century organizations need to realize they are allowed to do the right thing--to serve the interests of others in order to grow the organization--instead of following arcane, arbitrary rules, processes, and procedures that actually hinder growth. Only when we remove our own self-imposed barriers can we seize new opportunities in structured settings. A Milkshake Moment can only be realized when growth leaders clearly communicate an organization's true purpose and grant individuals permission to do whatever can be done ethically to achieve it.

But it takes guts to do this. Growth requires persevering, creative, even courageous individuals who aren't afraid to mix it up. Are you ready?

Copyright (c) 2008 Steven S. Little

Author
Steven S. Little is a much sought-after expert on the subject of growth and the future of opportunity. A former President of three fast-growth companies, he now advises thousands of leaders of growing organizations and communities each year. To learn more about Steven, his new book The Milkshake Moment, and growth, please visit his Web site at www.stevenslittle.com.

Posted by Rebecca at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Is it still possible to build a company that lasts?

In 1994, Jim Collins co-authored the landmark title Built to Last followed by Good to Great in 2001. This month's special edition of Fortune magazine features a piece by Collins.

A technology pundit told Collins that, "'We live in an era when nothing can be built to last. Everything is in flux; nothing can sustain.'"

When looking at the Fortune 500 facts presented in the piece, that seems to be true:

* Of the 500 companies that appeared on the first list, in 1955, only 71 have a place on the list today. (The 1955 list included industrial companies only, whereas today's list also includes service companies.)

* Some of the most powerful companies on today's list--businesses like Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Dell, and Google--grew from zero to great upon entirely new technologies, bumping venerable old companies off the list. Robert Noyce invented the integrated circuit in 1958, three years after the first Fortune 500. Dozens of companies on this year's list did not even exist in 1955.

* Some of the most celebrated companies in history no longer even appear on the 500, having fallen from great to good to gone from the list--companies like Scott Paper, Zenith, Rubbermaid, Chrysler, Teledyne, Warner Lambert, and Bethlehem Steel--most often because they gave up their independence, and sometimes because they outright died.

Jim counters those points with proof of endurance: P&G, started before the American Civil War, continues to succeed; as does Johnson & Johnson whose roots were planted back in 1886 and GE which has been around for over 100 years. Then there's Nucor Steel who rose from near bankruptcy to the 151 spot on the Fortune 500 list (its story can be found in the out-of-print book, American Steel). Or Xerox which turned over profits of over $1 billion in 2007, a mere seven years after suffering losses of over $300 million.

Jim's underlying message is that the environment is not responsible for a company's success or failure. He points out that success or failure "depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you."

The full article is available here.

Posted by Kate at 3:13 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: General Management

United Nations

On one of my recent pilgrimages to New York City, I re-discovered the art of tourism and decided to visit places I have not been to in a while. One of these was the United Nations. Upon entering the perimeters after the extensive security screening, you cannot help but be in awe over the countless number of conference rooms, offices, and works of art that the many countries have donated. India's masterpiece in one the great hallways stands out in my memory, but all of the works represent not only the country involved in the U.N. but their people and culture as well. We are but one part of a great picture in more way than one, and visiting the U.N. puts it in perspective a hundred fold. The many rows upon rows of delegates that serve there are a reminder that one person can make a difference sometimes, no matter how big or massive their country is - everyone has a voice.

Upon leaving the U.N. I stumbled upon... (OK, I looked for it because I'm a book nerd) its massive bookstore. The United Nations has among part of its strengths, a great publishing company. Here are some highlights from their library that may be of interest to you.

World Statistics Pocketbook 2007

Global Environment Outlook GEO 4

Yearbook of the United Nations 60th Anniversary Ediiton

The State of the World's Children 2008 in French and Spanish too

UNEP Year Book 2008: An Overview of Our Changing Environment

Global Outlook for Ice and Snow

The Universe of the Largest Transnational Corporations

You can also visit the U.N. publishing company HERE

Posted by Roy at 2:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Global Business

Gladwell 3

Following in the wake of The Tipping Point and Blink, Little, Brown and Company has announced Malcolm Gladwell's third book. Entitled Outliers: Why Some People Succeed and Some Don't, it is set to be released in November of this year. I haven't been able to track down much information about it online, but the publisher catalog reads:

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

OUTLIERS is a book about success. It starts with a very simple question: what is the difference between those who do something special with their lives and everyone else? In OUTLIERS, we're going to visit a genius who lives on a horse farm in Northern Missouri. We're going to examine the bizarre histories of professional hockey and soccer players, and look into the peculiar childhood of Bill Gates, and spend time in a Chinese rice paddy, and investigate the world's greatest law firm, and wonder about what distinguishes pilots who crash planes from those who don't. And in examining the lives of the remarkable among us--the brilliant, the exceptional and the unusual--I want to convince you that the way we think about success is all wrong.

November can't come soon enough.

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Andrea Learned reviews "What Men Don't Tell Women About Business"

Exposed: The Alpha Businessman's Non-Feminine Ways by Andrea Learned

I'm not sure I've ever come across a guy as "alpha" as Christopher V. Flett, the author of What Men Don't Tell Women About Business. He just doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd be capable of casually enjoying a happy hour beer. Still, his book definitely shed some light toward my better understanding of male-female interactions in the business world.

What caught my attention first was Flett's discussion of how men measure other men in business. It was like reading an anthropological case study--I really had no idea men might seriously be thinking this way. (And, I did unscientific research with some male friends who confirmed it.) His measurements list includes three things--visibility, credibility and profitability--all of which fit right into the research of sociolinguist Deborah Tannen, who found that men communicate asymmetrically around status or positioning as opposed to the more symmetrical, common ground-finding communication style of women (see her classic book, You Just Don't Understand, for more).

This drive for apparent comparative success derives from the fact that men still, as he puts it: "are judged by society by our ability to generate wealth." Depressing as that may sound, isn't it true? Wishing men were judged by their good citizen/husband/father attributes in our culture is akin to wishing women were judged by their brains and management (household and business) savvy, first and foremost.

I could see how such a founding point of view (subconscious as it may be) might affect male-female workplace inter-personal relationships. Picture this scenario: A man's female colleague wants to chat about her kid's soccer game. Meanwhile, his thought balloon reads like this: "No time for this! Must - make - money to stay visible, credible and profitable!"

Now, women are certainly plenty focused on making money in this day and age, but they have been socialized to go about it differently and often tend up settling for less. Something Flett would seem to think that a lot of men just wouldn't do. All told, he seems to believe that alpha male motivation and molding in the workplace is pretty diametrically opposed to a typically female (or even "beta" male) perspective. Given this, it is actually a bit of a wonder that so much business has been conducted successfully over the years.

Flett seems to get a teensy bit more personal (or maybe that's just my female opinion?) when he comments on how women don't support one another in down times, while men do tend to support other men when in their down times. I'm not so sure that's a fair generalization. However, when he discusses the way women tend to give up power, it seemed dead on to me. He shares the way his wife once called in sick to her boss and rather than just saying, "I'll be in at 11 am," she went into major detail about how she hadn't been feeling well all morning etc... As Flett points out--women are known to be better communicators than men, but sometimes their sharing is so process-focused that the goal gets lost. The Alpha male, on the other hand, never loses sight of that goal.

Another apparent self-sabotage mechanism for women is the way they tend to compare failures more than they compare successes (as men are so much more likely to do). Flett writes: "When one talks about how bad her life is, the rest of her support group jumps in to talk about how their experience is worse." Perhaps, just as positioning and status games can seem like obstacles to getting anything done, a woman's tendency to seek common ground in all situations may also get in the way.

At one point, Flett discusses men's discomfort with, or fear of, women in the workplace. A litigious society will do that. Men realize that bawdy humor or "I can beat that" stories make some women feel uncomfortable, but men are uncomfortable with what they think are more typically "female" topics too. What to do? As he writes about men, "When we are acting weird, it is because our default switch is now set to clam up when there is a situation that could be misconstrued." Thus the sudden end of many a conversation (about anything) when a woman comes within earshot of a gathering of men. Eggshells abound.

There's a chapter in What Men Don't Tell Women About Business that very thoroughly outlines what men consider to be currency and what the various levels are, including salary ranges (freshmen level - <$50,00/year, to graduate level- $100,000/month), watches and cars. I really just skimmed over those details, and then, a few weeks later happened to be in a roomful of men in a very male-dominated industry. I couldn't help but notice the "levels" of watches and smart phone gadgets displayed. Fascinating.

Later in the book, Flett offers up specific examples of questions women may have (from a database he's compiled from his years coaching them, I assume) and how he'd suggest the situations be handled. The questions vary in their seriousness (from whether or not to go drinking with the gang all the time to what to do if a male counterpart takes credit for your work) While I don't doubt that he's had women ask him about such things, I am still astounded to think that "in this day and age" they still need to be addressed. Sigh.

It is worth noting: In What Men Don't Tell Women About Business, Flett seems to be writing about an intensely and somewhat old-fashioned sounding (to me) corporate environment. Much of what he covers may not be relevant to the many of us who no longer work within such structures, or who mainly correspond with colleagues via email with only the occasional on-site meeting. There may also be cultural (Flett is Canadian) and generational differences to consider in the mix.

And, while what Flett covers may well be true in a number of corporations today, I have to believe that the younger men I've seen coming up in the business ranks will be better able to communicate with/work among female associates (and vice versa) than the Alpha male he represents. Call me Pollyanna.

There is something to be said for calling a spade a spade, and whether or not we love his approach or agree with everything he writes--Flett did that with this book. We have seen the enemy and it is actually ourselves. Men and women alike continue to perpetuate the workplace gender roles and stereotypes we've lazily gotten used to over the years.

The hope would be that What Men Don't Tell Women About Business will raise the awareness of female readers who will then decide for themselves how to use his insights and impressions, or not. If women would then also talk about this with their male colleagues, that would be the bonus--but then Flett wouldn't have needed to write it.

Andrea Learned is the co-author of Don't Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy-and How to Increase Your Share of the Market, and sole author of 9 Minds on Marketing, a free eBook in which she took on the task of reading nine marketing books, interviewing the authors, and writing an essay on each to elucidate the points that she found most provocative.

Posted by Andrea Learned at 12:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Book Reviews

Dan Kennedy's Rock On

As Roy pointed out last week, work can be a bit much sometimes, overwhelming us with unexpected demands and stress. The book he suggested offers very sound and sensible advice that will probably help get you back to a positive state of mind. The book I suggest today to alleviate that same stress, and provide fresh perspective, offers no sound advice or any real strategy at all. The only thing it offers is a large dose of humor. It is not a business book, even, but a memoir, a "power ballad to office-life."

In Rock On: An Office Power Ballad, Dan Kennedy skewers the absurdities of the corporate music industry, and the life he briefly led in it's belly. Kennedy landed what he thought was a dream job at one of the industry's major labels. Instead, he found himself quickly launched into a series of humiliating events: trying to find, and write in, the voice of women "forty to fifty-plus years of age" for a Phil Collins' ad campaign; getting caught trying to act cool in front of a young female punk band; and awkwardly navigating office politics the entire time, most hilariously the politics involved in deciding how best to speak to his boss's lap dog.

So what does this offer us? Well, first of all, a good laugh... often at his expense, but also at ourselves. Kennedy's self-deprecating humor reminds us that we're not the only ones straddling work and life, trying to balance who we are and where we work with who we once imagined we would be, and who we want to be.

I like the office I work in, and I'm lucky in that I truly love the people I work with, but honestly, looking back, did I really see myself working in an office at this point in my life? Hell no. I was going to be a great artist--or maybe a writer--and, you know, probably starting at shortstop for some major league baseball team (preferably in the National League). Dan Kennedy was going to be a rock star. Most of us were going to be something else, and most of us aren't. Most have other people's deadlines and expectations to meet. And, it's alright, especially if we can laugh at ourselves every once in a while. Dan Kennedy helped me do that a little more with this book.

"Q: How many record executives does it take to change a light bulb?"

A: Here

You can read a far more eloquent review of this book from our sister company here.

Posted by dylan at 1:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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