800-CEO-READ Blog

Jack Covert Selects - The Power of Positive Thinking in Business

The Power of Positive Thinking in Business: The 10 Traits for Maximum Results by Scott W. Ventrella, The Free Press, 160 Pages, $24.00 Hardcover, May 2001, ISBN 0743212371

God, do we need this book! Scott Ventrella, adjunct professor at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business, has taken Norman Vincent Peale’s classic, The Power of Positive Thinking, updated it to the 21st Century, and applied it to the business world. What is impressive about Ventrella’s style is that the book still carries the old-fashioned, almost religious, or formal, tone of the original book.

The book begins with a nice introduction from Dr. Peale’s wife and ends with a useful application tool Ventrella calls the “Professional Challenge Worksheet”, which you can use to apply the ideas presented in the book to an actual challenge, problem or opportunity you are currently facing in your business life. In between, there are ten traits: optimism, enthusiasm, belief, integrity, courage, confidence, determination, patience, calmness, and focus.

I found the information on building calmness especially helpful. Some of the tips the author offers are fairly obvious, but are also concise and well-explained for instant understanding and application. Ventrella suggests that you “deal with problems directly and immediately, empty you mind of worry, deal with the physical symptoms of stress quickly, take advantage of your belief and focus traits, control how you talk to yourself and others, and work towards greater balance in your life.” Not bad advise. You will find in this nice “airplane read” a valuable addition to the ever-growing arsenal of books we need to read to help keep us sane.

Jack Covert Selects - Reclaiming the Fire

Reclaiming the Fire: How Successful People Overcome Burnout by Dr. Steven Berglas, Random House, 210 Pages, $25.95 Hardcover, April 2001, ISBN 0679463216

In the world of publishing, there aren’t many “master” editors, but Jonathan Karp of Random House is one, in my opinion. When I met with him in New York in early May, he handed me a book, saying he believed it to be perfect for my audience. After reading Reclaiming the Fire, I agree wholeheartedly. I usually don’t read books on a subject like this because they are often vehicles for either a quick, simplistic answer, or a psychological thesis coated heavily in jargon. However, I’d wager that Reclaiming the Fire will become a remarkable read for many JCS readers.

First, I’ll let the author speak for himself. About his objective, Berglas writes: “The book is designed to help people prevent the achievement of lifelong ambitions or dream jobs and vocations from causing debilitating psychological disorders. To this end I will examine a range of problems attributable to success and describe how to prevent or cure them.” Now, some of you may be saying to yourself: “Yeah, I wish my successes were my problem, opposed to my failures. I should be so lucky!” Berglas is careful to point out, however, that we need to be skeptical of preconceived notions of success, emphasizing that “…a precursor to being inoculated against disease-causing consequences of success is familiarity with the dangers inherent in an uncritical acceptance of the myths surrounding success. This book is written with that goal as well.”

The best way to get a handle on this book is to consider why Michael Jordan first “retired” to become a professional baseball player. Basically, Jordan had achieved everything he could in basketball, and simply needed more stimulation or excitement in his life. Most of us probably wondered why he risked his success to possibly ‘fail’ as a baseball player, when in actuality, he was simply raising the bar, having accomplished his initial goal of perhaps being the greatest basketball player in history. Berglas tells stories of Olympic athletes who have undergone bouts of severe depression after they compete in the event they have spent their lives training for, sparing no thought to the future. Sure, our individual goals – improving our typing speed, walking a 15-minute mile, taking a business course at the local community college–may seem small in comparison to an Olympic medal, but they are no less important, and it is dangerous to believe that they may be unimportant. The author tells another story about a polar bear in the Baltimore zoo that was starving himself to death. Those who analyzed his behavior deduced that the bear was bored and just giving up because all of his food was given to him without any effort on his part. The keepers started hiding his food, making him work for it, and, as a result, the bear is now thriving. Becoming apathetic about life is a true risk we each face, and yes, I would agree with Berglas that it is a disease to be prevented.

Jack Covert Selects - Practice What You Preach

Practice What You Preach: What Managers Must Do to Create a High Achievement Culture by David Maister, The Free Press, 225 Pages, $26.00 Hardcover, June 2001, ISBN 0743211871

David Maister and 800-CEO-READ have been friends since 1993 when David published his first book, Managing the Professional Service Firm. That book was extremely well-received, we sold a ton of them, and the book continues to sell. It was one of the first books specifically looking at the professional service firm, years before Tom Peters started telling people that the professional service firm is “the best model for tomorrow’s organization in any industry.” We maintained our friendship during and following the release of Maister’s Trusted Advisor, and I am thrilled to have the chance to support his newest effort. I am particularly excited about Practice What You Preach because the lessons learned in this book are fundamental to my own company’s philosophy.

In his new book, Maister surveyed more than 5500 people from 139 offices in 29 firms in 15 countries. These offices are owned by one holding company and there are 15 different autonomous businesses represented. Employees were asked to rate 74 quality issues regarding their workplace. Then, the author studied the financial performance of each office by measuring an examination of margin, profit-per-employee, two-year growth in revenues, and two-year growth in profits. This exhaustive study generated some exciting conclusions. Ultimately, Maister’s study “…reveals that financially successful businesses do better on virtually every aspect of employee attitudes, and those that do best employee attitudes are measurably more profitable. In addition, by raising employee satisfaction 20 percent a company’s financial performance increases by more than 42 percent.” Think about that.

Some of the common attitudes held by the more successful companies include: Management practices what it preaches; Management is trusted by those they manage; Each employee’s personal potential is being fulfilled and realized; Compensation systems are equitably managed; Firms hire right the first time. Can you say your company values these same attitudes?

One of the many issues I have with business books are they are way too long and they make statements that are not supported with data. This book is beautifully written and blessedly short—just over 200 pages—and Maister has all the documentation needed to support his claims. This book is loaded with “takeaways.”

Jack Covert Selects - New Sales Speak

New Sales Speak: The 9 Biggest Sales Presentation Mistakes & How to Avoid Them by Terri L. Sjodin, CSP, John Wiley & Son, Inc., 230 Pages, $18,95 Paperback, November 2000, ISBN 0471395706

As I’ve discussed in previous JCS reviews, certain publishers can be counted on to do a certain kind of book very well. High-end, scholarly, strategy books come from publishers like The Free Press or Harvard Business School Press. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has been around for almost 200 years and they publish consistently good quality books on subjects like small business, careers and personal finance with an occasionally spectacular book like last year’s best-selling Against the Gods. New Sales Speak by Terri Sjodin is a classic John Wiley title. The author was the youngest female professional speaker to ever earn the CSP, so she knows what she is talking about. I recently spoke to two people who read this book and swear to me that Sjodin is right on and that her 9 mistakes are exactly what they have experienced. These 9 mistakes are:

1. Winging it
2. Being too informative versus persuasive
3. Misusing the allotted time
4. Providing inadequate support
5. Failing to close the sale
6. Being boring, boring, boring
7. Relying too much on visual aids
8. Distracting gestures and body language
9. Wearing inappropriate clothes

Each one of these mistakes is described in depth and solutions are offered. The book has a self-evaluation test included. This book is invaluable whether you are selling to a client or making a presentation to your boss.

Jack Covert Selects - Eat That Frog!

Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy, Berrett Koehler Publishers, 120 Pages, $19.95 Hardcover, April 2001, ISBN 1583762027

I must confess that I am not a fan of those fluffy, quick-fix business books that promise to improve your worklife better simply by reading them. These fluffy books tend to be overly vague, asking you to ‘reinvision’ your processes, to optimize your time by ‘reassessing’ your priorities, to acquire a new outlook which will ‘reinvigorate’ your career. The fix-it books I do value are not those that provide you with only vague suggestions, instead, those that supply you with concrete methods that you can apply first thing Monday morning. With Eat That Frog!, Brain Tracy has written an economical book that gets straight to the point and contains real nuggets of value.

The title of the book, Eat That Frog!, refers to that rarely-admitted reality that we always have one large important task that we really don't want to do—the frog—and this book suggests ways to make that dreaded project ‘eatable’. The book has 21 chapters ranging from such counsel as “Apply the 80/20 rule to everything” to “Identify your key constraints.” A particularly useful chapter is called “Practice the ABCDE method continually.” This exercise really works to help you to prioritize the projects in a sensible logical manner. Many time management books will tell you to make lists to get a handle on your many projects, but this book actually teaches you how to take those lists and employ them during your workday. Interspersed throughout the book are useful quotes that summarize Tracy’s methods. For example, “Resist the temptation to clear up small things first.” Pacifying myself with accomplishing small things while ignoring the larger, often more dreaded and challenging projects has always been a huge issue for yours truly and that quote is a critical ‘takeaway’ for me.

This is a classic “Jack Covert Selects: Airplane Read.” Focal Point: A proven system to simplify your life, double your productivity, and achieve all your goals. This book will not provoke you to change your life’s direction, but it will give you some very good ‘where the rubber meets the road’ help in uncomplicating your life. Not bad for $20.00 and 120 pages.