800-CEO-READ Blog

Jack Covert Selects - The Business of America

The Business of America by John Steele Gordon, Walker & Company, 250 Pages, $26.00 Hardcover, June 2001, ISBN 0802713831

One of the real treats of this job is to pick up a book when you need something to keep yourself occupied, like while eating lunch or waiting at the doctor’s office, and finding an authentic treasure. John Steele Gordon is a frequent contributor on NPR’s Marketplace and the writer of a column in American Heritage called “The Business of America”. This book is a collection of these columns. This immensely fun book belongs next to the most important place in the house—the toilet—or, depending on what you regard as the most important place in the house, by the bed or in the briefcase for the usual waits at the airport). This book is also the perfect gift for the graduate this summer. Aren’t I helpful?

Seriously, Gordon writes about Sears before 1930 and the importance of Julius Rosenwald advice. He also illustrates how brilliant Desi Arnez was in his negotiations with CBS. He writes about how New York City wasn’t the most active port in the US until around 1830, and how the mayor of New York suggested that New York join the south when it was seceding from the Union because of the importance of cotton to New York’s economy.

Don’t get me wrong, this book won’t make you a million dollars or teach you how to turn around your dot.com, but it will make you smile and teach you stuff that is fun to know about ‘business in America’. Buy it.

Jack Covert Selects - A Passion to Win

A Passion to Win by Sumner Redstone with Peter Knobler, Simon & Schuster, 352 Pages, $26.00 Hardcover, May 2001, ISBN 0684862247

As you all know, Sumner Redstone is the Chairman and CEO of Viacom, which also happens to own Simon & Schuster. When I first heard about this book, I was afraid it was going to be one of ‘those’ books that are heavily vetted by lawyers, drained of anything potentially ‘damaging’ (read: edgy or informative). But this book is the real deal, not just an “I love everybody, we are all one big happy team book”, written by a highly visible tycoon. Mr. Redstone tells it like he lived it, actually naming names and expressing emotions.

Instead of “I was born in a little house on a….”, Passion to Win begins with a torturous account of Redstone’s survival (he survived with third degree burns over 45% of his body) of a horrible fire in 1979. After the fire, he needed five operations, totaling sixty hours in surgery, and underwent many skin, and even bone, grafts. I can not imagine the pain he must have gone though. He uses this harrowing story to illustrate us his Herculean drive to survive and how his tenacity carried the day.

Chapter 1 tells the story of how Redstone acquired Blockbuster, how important it was in his acquisition of Paramount Pictures, and ultimately, how Blockbuster, in Mr. Redstone’s words, “tanks”. He tells the story completely unvarnished. He has his opinion and he shares it, straightforward, so by that time, I was completely hooked. The book then reverts to the more traditional “How I got to be…” format, beginning with graduating first in his class from Boston Latin to his graduating from Harvard in three years to his humiliating “D” from Harvard Law. He graduated in 1947 and clerked in San Francisco with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He then went to work at the Department of Justice where he argued cases for the government in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Ultimately, he ends up at the business his father started and ran called Northeast Theater Corporation, which later became National Amusement. This journey lead to the acquisition of Viacom International and then the merger with Paramount Pictures. I think the essential, and unaswerable, question is: will the world have been better off because of people like Sumner Redstone? Time will tell, but this book has given me quite a lot insight into a fascinating man.

Jack Covert Selects - The Other 90%

The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential for Leadership & Life by Robert K. Cooper, Crown Business, 280 Pages, $24.00 Hardcover, May 2001, ISBN 0812932870

The Other 90% could be the next 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. (Did I just write that? That this book could be the next 7 Habits? Yes, I guess I did, and I’m not going to second-guess myself here. While the success of 7 Habits continues, and a great many people find the book life-changing, this book really does deserve the comparision). Robert Cooper, who is one of the bright stars in the “Lessons in Leadership” stable, which features such brilliant motivational minds as Tom Peters and Ken Blanchard, has here a very good book. His previous, Executive EQ, was a strong seller for us, but Cooper has really come into his own with The Other 90%. The main premise of The Other 90% centers on Cooper’s assertion that most people use only 10% of their potential. Now, if you are thinking what I initially thought: “Hmmmm, I thought I tapped into at least 25%!”, you’ll find The Other 90% to be quite an eye-opener.

Cooper presents 4 keystones, motivational and practical approaches, to unlocking that other 90%. These keystones are: Trust, Energy, Farsightedness, and Nerve. Each of the four keystones has it’s own section of the book. For example, in the Trust section, Cooper features a chapter called “Dare to Trust.” He begins by discussing Lincoln in the final year of the Civil War, and how Lincoln has always been perceived as being very connected to his troops. It was as if both the president and the troops suffered together during those trying days. Cooper encourages leaders to appropriate this same kind of closeness with our ‘troops’. Offering concrete ways to implement his ideas, Cooper says that a person should “slow down to show you care.” First, “breathe before you speak”, which gives you a chance to slow down, make eye contact and be there. Second, “be clear about time”. Instead of saying “I only have two minutes”, say, “I have two minutes to spend with you now.” Finally, “when possible, sit down”. Neuroscientists have found that a ‘standing’ talk is far less genuine than a ‘seated’ talk. As a guy who runs a small shop, but really wants to improve my connectedness with my staff, this information is priceless. The Other 90% makes complete sense and is instantly applicable – sound anything like the 7 Habits to you?

Jack Covert Selects - Just for Fun

Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond, HarperBusiness, 280 Pages, $26.00 Hardcover, May 2001, ISBN 0066620724

If you are looking for a book that will help you improve your ROI, this isn’t the book. If you are looking for a book that will tell you how to lead your people to “the promised land”, this book isn’t for you. But, if you are looking for a book that will entertain and enlighten you about one of the most peculiar tech guys of the past decade and one of the most fascinating movements in software—Open Source—this is the book for you.

The book is the story of Linus Torvalds, a Finnish student who created an operating system called Linux, then gave it away for free. (Not something you’ll see Bill Gates do anytime soon). Linux is one of the most popular and utilized operating systems in the world. Over twelve million machines, including many of the servers that run the World Wide Web, now run Linux. In 1990, Torvalds explains his creation: “I couldn’t afford software I liked, so I wrote my own operating system.” To give you an idea of how revolutionary Torvalds’ attitude was, as he was creating and improving Linux, he gave it to other engineers and asked them to improve it. While this was going on, Torvalds was having a difficult time just making the monthly payments on his 386 computer. A Linux fan started a fund on the web to help Torvalds pay his $3000 computer bill.

As you would expect, this book needs to explain some fairly abstract concepts like Microkernel vs Mnolithic Systems. The author does take the time to explain them, but with a huge amount of humor and patience, so that even I understood them. But for the most part, the book is really just Torvalds recalling his life story—he is all of 31 years old, but it is still a gripping read—, and the co-author’s own encounters with Torvalds. Ultimately, Torvalds appears to be the most understated, self-deprecating, humble, yet brilliant, human being I have ever read about. He refuses to get paid for the creation of Linux, and as major companies like Oracle and IBM drove the development of Linux, Torvalds still went to his job everyday and dealt with Linux issues by email at night. This is the first summer beach read for both propeller heads and other techno folks.