800-CEO-READ Blog

Re-Imagine Excerpt in Full Color

I was poking around on the Tom Peters website today and found you can download Chapter Two of Re-Imagine. It is a pdf file, so you can enjoy the color and experience of the book.

DisneyWar Creating Fireworks

James Stewart's new book DisneyWar is stirring up a lot of buzz. The book is being billed as the unflattering story of Michael Eisner's 21 years at Disney. There is still five weeks until the book shipping and there is already alot of "He said" and "No, I didn't".

There have been pieces in the LA Times, NY Post and The NY Times.

Blue Ocean Strategy in NYT

I like Blue Ocean Strategy. It is going to be a Febuary Jack Covert Selects.

In yesterday's New York Times, the Armchair M.B.A. column has a Q&A with authors W. Chan Kim and Reneé Mauborgne.

Jack Covert Selects--Tell Me How I'm Doing

Tell Me How I'm Doing: a Fable about the Importance of Giving Feedback by Richard L. Williams, AMACOM, 126 Pages, $19.95, Hardcover, November 2004, ISBN 081440832X

If you have been reading my reviews for some time, you have probably noticed that I have a soft spot for business fables. Many critics say these “story” books are too light and fluffy and don't contribute much to the realm of business books; I would disagree. Firstly, I find them a wonderful way to communicate a message within an organization because they resonate with every level of employee, and they are normally short and can be read quickly – not every employee is going to be committed to spending their free evenings with a mandatory reading assignment.

Enter: "Tell Me How I'm Doing" by Richard Williams. The subtitle tells it all - "A Fable about the Importance of Giving Feedback". Readers will follow the story of Scott, a mid-level manager, as he learns the importance of feedback at work (and at home). The story is told through a series of training sessions held by a trainer we only know as "the coach".

For instance in the first session, Scott is asked to get a package for his boss. While he has stepped away, “the coach” encourages everyone to ignore Scott. When he returns he is ignored by everyone, and they keep up this behavior during the entire meeting, not acknowledging his presence as he tries to get into discussions and not talking to him at all during the break. Only when the class reconvenes is Scott let in on the experiment. Scott responds with how awful he felt, but that he couldn't figure out what was wrong. This is a very simple but effective example of how important feedback is.

This book focuses on how to get good at giving feedback effectively. It's a book that applies to any employee in any company and you'll be amazed how a little feedback can change a relationship and a company.

BTW, IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN GETTING THE FREE MONTHLY REVIEWS I DO, JUST EMAIL ME AT JACK AT 800CEOREAD DOT COM AND I'LL PUT YOU ON THE LIST.

This Week - 1/31/05

As we roll into February this week, here are some of the things we have planned.

We liked a book called Tell Me How I'm Doing. Jack is going to post the review this morning and we'll be running the first chapter on the Excerpt Blog.

It looks like we will be have a guest host on Thursday. Still working out the details...

We will be putting up an excerpt up on the Podcasts Blog.

As always, we will be posting things as we find them.

Have a great week!

Getting Great Ink

People have been saying a lot of nice things about us and we just wanted to thank them. Robert Scoble told me he uses us for market research as he develops his new book (he also blogged it here.), Hello World gushed about a little gift package Aaron sent them, and Brendon at Slacker Manager yesterday listed us as a great place to go to find out about business books.

We have also being getting real physical ink. Jack had a letter to the editor published in Fast Company about their Was "Built To Last" Built To Last? article (he sided with the book). Jack was also recently quoted in a Crain's New York article about business scandal books [sub. needed]. Here is the opening from the piece that has Jack's blurb:

Back in December 2002, the future looked bright for publishers eager to bring out nonfiction books about greedy executives intent on corporate deceit. Wall Street Journal reporter Charles Gasparino had no trouble inking a deal in the middle six figures with the Free Press for a book on how prominent analysts cheated investors out of millions of dollars.

"The stars aligned very well for me," says Mr. Gasparino, whose book Blood on the Street has just hit bookstores. "We had a tremendous number of bidders.

Mr. Gasparino might face a different set of stars today. Following a parade of money-losing Enron titles, the business scandal category stands close to collapse, a victim of the exhaustive coverage found in newspapers, on cable television and on the Internet. Sales for Blood on the Street and the upcoming Conspiracy of Fools--the last of the big Enron books--may decide if the stars ever line up again for major books on financial villains.

"This will be a test," says Jack Covert, president of 800-CEO-READ, an Internet supplier of business books to corporate clients. A fan of Conspiracy of Fools author Kurt Eichenwald, Mr. Covert is betting that title will succeed when it comes out in March. "If it doesn't, maybe the genre is beyond resuscitation," he says.

The category goes back to the financial scandals of the 1980s and the books that dissected them, Barbarians at the Gate and Den of Thieves. Both titles came out in the early 1990s, and each sold more than 300,000 copies nationwide in hardcover.

The rub is that it has been pretty much downhill from there. In recent years, the merger of America Online and Time Warner inspired three high-profile books that were commercial failures, while the Enron scandal led to about half a dozen hardcover titles that made rapid progress to the remainder table.

Even The Smartest Guys in the Room, a book which sold an estimated 70,000 copies, was a money-loser for the Penguin business imprint Portfolio, which paid $1.4 million for the publishing rights. Some of the other major Enron titles sold as few as 25,000 hardback copies.

"There is still a market for these books when they're done well, but whether it's a best-seller market is the question," says Publisher David Rosenthal of Simon & Schuster, which is releasing 200,000 copies of James B. Stewart's Disney War in March. "You may not be willing to spend a million dollars."

Lowering their sights may be all that publishers can do, as they gradually run out of blockbuster categories.

Our last mention just hit newsstands in the current issue of Business 2.0 (Feb. 2005). I was quoted in a short piece about the podcasting phenomenon. And I quote (myself):

"Audio on the Internet is not interesting, " says Todd Sattersten, who runs 800-CEO-READ's podcasts. "What is interesting is getting it on your audio player so you can listen whenever you want."

It been a good month for us. Again thanks for all the support. I think you will be excited by some of the things we have planned to roll out over the next three months.

Stay Tuned...

Rick Barrera at Entreprenuer.com Radio

One of our Jack Covert Selects author Rick Barrera (Overpromise and Overdeliver) was at Entrepreneur.com Radio today. The broadcast is over, but you can check out the show in the archives after 5pmET today.

More Malcolm to Make Your Own Decision

My Gladwell post generated some conversation yesterday.

Here are some other mentions and reviews I saw for the book today:

• Nerve.com - Interview with Galdwell and the Speed-Dating Excerpt
• USA Today - Reading between the line of 'Blink' and another excerpt entitled The Theory of Thin Slices: How a Little Bit of Knowledge Goes a Long Way.
• Galdwell.com - There are three excerpt from the book
• The Second Mind
• Why Do We Love Tall Men?
• The Mysteries of Mind Reading
• MSNBC.com - A shorter version of the USA Today excerpt, but you will find a link to the Jan. 14th Today interview with Malcolm Galdwell.

Armand V. Feigenbaum & Donald S. Feigenbaum's Thoughts on "What Quality Means Today"

In my twenty one years of working in publishing and specifically business books, I have seen many trends come along. The one that really connected with me was the Quality movement. It made the most sense because it really was about the customer experience. Leaders in the quality field have either died, Deming, or retired. The brother team of Armand V. Feigenbaum, who wrote the Total Quality Control fifty years ago, and Donald S. Feigenbaum published a McGraw Hill title last year called The Power of Management Capital and in the Winter issue of MIT Sloan Management Review have written a short article about the current status of quality.

"The continuous product and service innovation that is required to meet such heightened customer value expectations must stem from a culture of systematic management innovation, which in turn requires systematic leadership innovation. The pursuit of total quality engenders such leadership in a number of ways."

Read more here

Please No More Gladwell

I have a confession to make.

I am not a fan of Malcolm Gladwell. I didn't like Tipping Point and don't really like Blink.

Now, I understand many are singing his praises. Seth was the first. Then Halley. Now Robert and Johnnie. And could anyone have missed the Lovefest at Brand Autopsy. What sent me over the edge was his getting the front cover of Fast Company. PLEASE!? STOP THE MADNESS!!!

Gladwell is a storyteller and he is really good at it. He gathers great stories and weave a tale. That is why everyone likes him. I like good writing too.

I would prefer to read the source material. If you are going to read Blink, might I also recommend the work of Gary Klein? His stuff on intuition is outstanding. And its OK, Gladwell references his work. I liked Intuition at Work and others have said Sources of Power was just as good. Might I also recommend Dan Hill's book Body of Truth? It talks extensively about facial coding, a subject that Galdwell leads his book with.

I am ready for the comments that tell me I am insane.

Let me also say that the Wall Street Journal (So what is the moral of "Blink's" many stories? It's hard to say. First impressions are valuable except when they're wrong. Then they are useless or dangerous. This conclusion is surely true, but it is also frustratingly ambivalent.) and BusinessWeek (The book is concise and provocative, although you may find it tough to glean lessons on how to improve your own hasty judgments.) were lukewarm on Blink too.

Brand Autopsy examines Category Killers

Brand Autopsy is hosting the Category Killers on Business Blog Book Tour today. Robert Spector is answering questions and Paul and John are doing their normal job of doing a really good job with their stop.

The tour will be at Brand Experience Lab tomorrow and Learned on Women on Friday.

Back from Seattle

I am back from the Business Blog Summit and have been busy catching up today. I liked the conference and thought they had some good content.

I got a chance to page through a book by Biz Stone called Who Let the Blogs Out? I think it is a great primer and history for those who want to get caught up on the blogging craze.

A blog is a collection of digital content that when examined over a period of time exposes the intellectual soul of its author or authors.

That quote explains why it was so easy to talk with people at BBS you have never met in person. You already knew them through their blogs.

Business Blog Book Tour - Category Killers

800-CEO-READ is today's stop on the Business Blog Book Tour. The book on this month's tour is Category Killers by Robert Spector. Here is a taste of what Robert gets into in the book:

Today’s shoppers are—depending on your point of view—either blessed or cursed by an overabundance of merchandise, amassed under one roof, in a retail concept that has had a profound impact on the consumer culture: category killers. Over the past two decades, category killers have dramatically altered our buying experience, becoming the most disruptive concept in retailing—and in everything that retailing touches.

Also known as “big-box” stores because of their mammoth footprint—twenty thousand square feet to more than one hundred thousand square feet—these retailers specialize in a distinct classification of merchandise such as toys, office supplies, home improvement—while offering everyday low prices and wide and deep inventories. They earned the sobriquet “category killer” because their goal is to dominate the category and kill the competition—whether it be mom-and-pop stores, smaller regional chains, or general merchandise stores that cannot compete on price and/or selection.

Category killers and Wal-Mart, the general merchandise retailer, have helped expand and upscale the “mass market” by aggressively driving down the prices of goods and services, and making affordable what were once upscale products such as laptop computers, big-screen TVs, or designer apparel. Today, virtually every one of us—regardless of income—is part of the ever-expanding mass market, where the differences among stores—Dollar Stores to Kmart to Bon-Macy’s—are measured in slight gradations. Consequently, loyalty to a particular store has become a casualty of our changing consumer culture. At one time, shoppers used to identify with a store, just as they identified with the make of the car they drove. Today, many of us simply want more and better goods, and we will shop the retailer that provides those goods at a price that we consider “affordable.”

'Toys ‘R’ Us created the template for category killers. The company presented to consumers bigbox stores with an emphasis on selfservice, big selection, low prices, and lots of parking. It conditioned baby boomers to a different kind of retail experience. The kid whose parents were buying toys at Toys "R" Us in the 1950s and 1960s eventually grew up to buy books at Barnes & Noble, power saws at Home Depot, printers at Staples, and pet food at Petco, and the shopping experience felt perfectly natural. Although the product categories were different, the approach was very much the same.

What we are going to do today is run an series of excerpts from the book over on the Excerpts Blog. They are all on the topic of bookselling. This is something near and dear to our hearts. I found some of Robert's stories about how big-box has changed publishing really interesting. I thought you might too.

Jack Covert Selects--Overpromise and Overdeliver

Overpromise and Overdeliver: The Secrets of Unshakable Customer Loyalty by Rick Barrera, Portfolio, 256 Pages, $25.95 Hardcover, December 2004, ISBN 1591840619

In this book, Rick Barrera explores how companies like TiVo, BestBuy and Washington Mutual became industry leaders simply by following one simple rule: overpromising and overdelivering. Not by increasing marketing and advertising costs, but by attracting customers with ambitious promises and then actually keeping them. The author explains:

Hard times create amazing success. Despite all the talk today of an oversupply of goods and services, industry consolidations, menacing imports, and shrinking markets, a few remarkable businesses have discover how to make their brands irresistible to customers? After studying these thriving businesses, I've identified their key strength: a new approach to branding that beats the competition because it's infinitely faster and less expensive than any of the traditional methods.

After explaining the basics of making and keeping a brand promise, he elaborates on what makes the real winners different: the effective use of TouchPoints. These three are:

Product TouchPoints: Where the customers interact with the products. This includes not only buying, but handling and using as well.
Human TouchPoints: When the customers interact with the company's people.
System TouchPoints: When the customer deals with systems or processes like websites, ATM's, invoices etc.

This book explains how to use the TouchPoint branding system to build your brand more efficiently and cost-effectively than can be done with traditional advertising models. For example: Google overpromises by offering anything you want to find on the web, and then overdelivers with an average search time of 0.2 seconds. Barrera's principles can be applied to any individual or company who wants to create unshakable customer loyalty.

BTW, IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN GETTING THE FREE MONTHLY REVIEWS I DO, JUST EMAIL ME AT JACK AT 800CEOREAD DOT COM AND I'LL PUT YOU ON THE LIST.

Jack Covert Selects--Blue Ocean Strategy

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Harvard Business School Press, 256 Pages, $27.95, Hardcover, February 2005, ISBN 1591396190

Blue Ocean Strategy is another book in the sea of business strategy books. Sorry, bad pun. There are plenty of books that deal with developing strategy for competing in your existing markets, but what caught my attention with this book was Blue Ocean Strategy's focus on developing strategy in new, nonexistent markets.

The book starts with a descriptive approach and details a series of cases. Many of these companies found seams between markets to create new ones. Some examples include NetJets, NABI (Hungry), QB House (Japan), and Curves. For Curves, it was finding room between the do-it-yourself exercise market of books and videos and traditional health and fitness clubs:

"Since franchising began in 1995, Curves has grown like wildfire, acquiring more than two million customers, in more than six thousand locations, with total revenues exceeding the $1 billion mark...Curves built its blue ocean strategy by drawing on the distinctive strengths of these two strategic groups, eliminating and reducing everything else. Curves has eliminated all the aspects of the traditional health club that are of little interest to the broad mass of women. Gone are the profusion of special machines, food, spa, pool and even locker rooms, which have been replaced by a few curtained-off changing rooms."

You will find an equal amount of prescriptive how-to advice in the latter half of the book. Kim and Maubornge are big fans of the strategy canvas tool (a graphical tool for comparing customer-defined attributes among companies). You'll find out how to leverage the six types of buyer utility and understand the price corridor of the mass. They also spend time telling you how to talk to your employees, your shareholders, and your customers about blue ocean changes.

I don't recommend very many hard-core strategy titles, so that should give you some idea of what I think about the book. If you want to read an excerpt from Blue Ocean Strategy, visit http://www.800ceoread.com/excerpts. (Coming Soon)

BTW, IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN GETTING THE FREE MONTHLY REVIEWS I DO, JUST EMAIL ME AT JACK AT 800CEOREAD DOT COM AND I'LL PUT YOU ON THE LIST.

NY Times Reviews Blink

Wanted to make sure you got this in case it disappears:

David Brooks of the New York Times reviews Blink by Malcolm Galdwell.

What Blogs are Talking About - 1/21/05

• Just a Gwai Lo - Best Book of 2004
• Best Book - Wisdom of the Crowds
• Honorable Mention - Free Culture, Gay Marriage, and The Corporation
• Radio Marketing Nexus interviews John Zagula of The Marketing Playbook
• Listen to Moria Gunn interview our friend Frans Johansson of The Medici Effect at IT Conversations
• Om Malik interviews Carl Haacke of Frenzy: Bubble, Bust, and How to Come Out Ahead
Posted by Todd S. at 9:29 AM | Comments (0)

Management of the Absurd

Since I’m on a real book kick today, let me tell you about one of my favorites on organizational change, leadership, and human behavior: Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson. My copy is yellowed from age, and the pages are dog-eared from repeated use. Farson’s paradoxes in leadership take the wind out of slick management fads and slogan-based leadership.

His prose is refreshing, useful, and timeless. Here are ten chapter titles from the book, which give you a sense of how Farson thinks.

 Nothing is as invisible as the obvious
 Once you find a management technique that works, give it up
 The opposite of a profound truth is also true
 Effective managers are not in control
 We think we want creativity or change, but we really don’t
 The more we communicate, the less we communicate
 The better things are, the worse they feel
 Planning is an ineffective way to bring about change
 Morale is unrelated to productivity
 My advice is don’t take my advice

If you haven’t had a chance to look at this small, but powerful, work, pick it up. You’ll be glad you did.

Thanks again to Jack and Todd for this chance to host their blog. Feel free to contact me at Michael@GuerrillaConsulting.com.

Standing Out in the Crowd

In side-by-side comparisons, most consultants look pretty much the same. Differentiating yourself from others, even slightly, can mean the difference between feast and famine.

Too often, professional service providers attempt to distinguish themselves in ways that have little or no influence on why clients hire consultants. As a result, clients have come to view professional services as commodities.

In his book, The Marketing Imagination, Theodore Levitt reminds us, “There is no such thing as a commodity. All goods and services can be differentiated and usually are.” No matter what service you provide, you must convince clients that you have more to offer than the norm or you will just fade into the crowd.

Too many consultants cast a wide marketing net to snare any and all potential clients. In some cases, their marketing pitches reach a level of abstraction that makes it virtually impossible for clients to understand what the consultants actually do.

In a recent blog, Tom Peters urges us to “examine-challenge-evaluate your Value-added Proposition. Is it...Compelling? Does it represent...Dramatic Difference?”

A clear statement of your firm’s uniqueness simplifies your marketing challenge by informing prospective clients exactly who you are. It also saves you the time, energy, and expense of educating prospective clients who may not understand--or need--your services.

Make It an Even Ten

I agree with the comments made about the Nine Books Every Consultant Must Read, so let’s add a tenth book to the list: Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting. Block’s perspectives on the business of consulting remain as relevant today as they were when he published the first edition of Flawless Consulting in 1981.

In an interview I did with Block for Management Consulting News, I asked him to elaborate on the traits of an authentic consultant, one of the key concepts in his book. Block replied that, “Authentic behavior is simply the willingness to be who you are and to tell the truth. This is the consultant’s most powerful tool for building client trust and commitment. Many consultants try to be too clever in communicating with their clients, seeking to convince clients to their point of view.”

Thanks for the feedback. Block’s book is a classic.

Should You Fire a Client?

In the early 1900s, Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist, concluded that 20% of the people controlled 80% of the wealth. Since then, his now-famous 80:20 rule has been applied to everything from advertising and time management to identifying product defects.

One application of Pareto’s Principle is that 20% of your customers or clients will generate 80% of your headaches. It stands to reason that you’ll boost the vibrancy of your business by pruning that disruptive 20% every year or so. Few things damage the long-term health of a business more than client saboteurs—and there are more than a few out there.

Consider Firing a Client if…
• It takes days or weeks to get on your client’s calendar.
• Your client wants to approve or attend all your meetings with decision makers.
• You have stopped developing new skills.
• Invoices are nitpicked to death or payments are consistently late.
• The client fails to review critical documents in a timely manner.
• Your profit margin is eroding with no end in sight.
• Your work no longer seems to have a substantive impact on the client’s business.

It may sound crazy to fire your clients, but doing so is one of the best strategic actions you can take. Clients define the culture of your business, and serving tiresome ones erodes that culture and poisons the environment. Problem clients create more work and needless stress. They kill your profits and your productivity, and that negativity can seep into your personal life.

It takes courage to walk away from a paying client, no matter what the circumstances. But don’t worry; if you excel at what you do, more desirable clients will find their way to your doorstep.

What’s the Brain Got to Do with Business?

Well, everything.

To say that the pace of business is fast is like saying Michael Jordan can play basketball. In our “got to have it now” world, I sometimes find it challenging to tap my own creative abilities and those of my colleagues. Often, the pressure of the moment just overtakes you.

Here are five books I’ve used to train myself to hatch creative ideas no matter what constraints I was working under.

Yoram Wind, Colin Crook: The Power of Impossible Thinking
Barry Nalebuf, Ian Ayres: Why Not?
Jordan Ayan: AHA!
Michael Michalko: Cracking Creativity
Julia Cameron: The Artist’s Way

When I had an opportunity to ask Jordan Ayan, the creativity whiz, what he did when he faced a tough problem that had no apparent answer, he said, “I take a shower…I have my best ideas in the shower. Matter of fact, I had a second water heater installed in my house so I could take longer showers.”

Has Your Paradigm Shifted Today?

If you’ve ever caught yourself uttering phrases like “I’ll keep you in the loop”, or “Let’s run it up the flagpole and see who salutes,” you need to put your use of buzzwords on a low-carb diet.

In a poll of senior executives from the nation’s 1,000 largest companies, executives were asked, “What is the most annoying or overused phrase or buzzword in the workplace today?” Here are their responses.

• “At the end of the day”
•“Solution”
•“Thinking outside the box”
•“Synergy”
•“Paradigm”
•“Metrics”
•“Take it offline”
•“Redeployed people”
•“On the runway”
•“Win-win”
•“Value-added”
•“Get on the same page”
•“Customer centric”
•“Generation X”
•“Accountability management”
•“Core competency”
•“Alignment”
•“Incremental”

Here are a few more that make me run for the exit:

•“Best-in-class”
•“Best of Breed”
•“Offload”
•“Seamless”
•“Ramp up”
•“Mission-critical”
•“Scalable”
•“Bleeding edge”
•“Frictionless”
•“World Class” (fill in the blank)

If you need a dictionary to decipher the jargon in your life, click over to John Walston’s site, BuzzWhack. Walston’s site uses good-natured humor to skewer the “companies and individuals who use buzzwords to "impress" and befuddle the rest of us.

The complete article on the poll results can be found at http://www.accountemps.com/PressRoom?inTrack=pressRoom.

Nine Books Every Consultant Must Read

When I had an opportunity to interview Tom Peters for my zine, Management Consulting News, he made a comment that resonated with me. He said “If I read a book that cost me $20 and I get one good idea, I’ve gotten one of the greatest bargains of all time.”

You’ll get more than a bargain from these classics. If you’re in any professional services business, make sure these books are in your library.

George Leonard: Mastery
David Maister, Charles Green, Robert Galford: The Trusted Advisor
Mick Cope: The Seven Cs of Consulting
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen: Difficult Conversations
Andrew Weil, M.D.: Eight Weeks to Optimum Health
Barbara Minto: The Minto Pyramid Principle
Philip Kotler Ph.D.: Marketing Professional Services
William Zinsser: On Writing Well
Nick Morgan: Working the Room

A Tip of the Hat

Many thanks to Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten for welcoming me into their corner of the blogosphere.

My name is Michael McLaughlin, and I’m the coauthor (with Jay Conrad Levinson) of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants. I’m also the editor of a blog and two zines, Management Consulting News and The Guerrilla Consultant. My day job is with Deloitte Consulting LLP, where I’ve been a management consultant for more than 20 years. I often wonder where the time goes--especially given that the longer I work as a consultant, the less I seem to know.

One of my favorite quotes about consulting is by veteran consultant, Jerry Weinberg. In his 1985 book, The Secrets of Consulting, he reminds consultants, “You’ll never accomplish anything if you care who gets the credit.” Every time I forgot this simple rule, something unpleasant happened.

I’ll use my temporary soap box to talk with you about topics such as how to tap your creative potential, why professional services marketing is so bad, and I’ll give you my short list of books every consultant must read. For those of you who aren’t consultants, I’ll have something for you too.

Gunther in local magazine

Our recent guest Marc Gunther is quoted in this month's Milwaukee Magazine. This doesn't quite match up to Fortune (where he is a senior writer) or Washington Post, but for us it was nice local connection. Here is his part from MM's Best Places to Work article:

One person who's had a chance to see the transformation of modern workplaces up close is Marc Gunther, a senior writers at Fortune magazine and author of the book Faith and Fortune: The Quiet Revolution to Reform American Business. Writing recently in the Washington Post, Gunther praised major corporations for becoming more open with information, signing on to tough codes of conduct for worker health and safety in the Third World and embracing environmentalism and even gay rights in the form of domestic partner benefits for employees.

"These are companies that really view their role as serving - not only serving their customers but serving their employees, serving their communities and serving some sense of the greater good," Gunther said by telephone from his home office in suburban Washington D.C. "During the dot-com era, having a great place to work was about perks - bringing your per to the office or having a concierge to take take your laundry. Now that's a radically different climate. The collapse of the stock market , the corporate scandals and September 11 have all changed the world of work. Now having a great place to work means creating a company where you can have a sense of purpose. It's a company where you can bring your whole self to work, be engaged by the mission the company is pursuing and be passionate about what you do."

Leaders of such companies "are practical utopians - yes," says Gunther. "They are running their companies based on ideas of trust and respect and partnership. In a climate that is so cynical about business, that takes some courage of its own."

Here is the link to the Washington Post article Marc wrote.

Fortune runs excerpt of Your'e In Charge - Now What?

In the January 24th issue, Fortune is running an excerpt from You're In Charge - Now What?: The 8 Point Plan by Thomas Neff and James Citrin.

The 8 Rules for the first 100 days include:

1. Listen
2. Resist the savior syndrome
3. Keep it simple
4. Hit pause
5. Look for quick wins
6. Spell it out
7. Don't dis your predecessor
8. Give feedback

It looks like a good book for someone taking on a new role. I think it is stuff everyone know, but it is goood to think about them in the context of being a new position.

Another reason to read Good to Great

Joe Kraus at Bnoopy admits he finally read Good to Great.

He says you it is worth the retail price for page 85.

Jack Covert Selects--Marketing Playbook

The Marketing Playbook: The Battle-Tested System For Capturing And Keeping The Lead In Any Market by John Zagula and Richard Tong, Portfolio, $22.95, Hardcover, 288 Pages, October 2004, ISBN 1591840384

There are two basic types of business books - descriptive and prescriptive. I gravitate toward the prescriptive. I like books that give 10 ways to solve a problem. Many business book readers are the same. They want a "how to" book to get them started. The Marketing Playbook by John Zagula and Richard Tong fits into this category perfectly.

While at Microsoft, the authors noticed patterns in the marketing plans the company was implementing. The main thing was there weren't many variations to the plans. In the book, they describe five "marketing plays" that will works for any situation. They have given them easy to remember names (Drag Race, Stealth, Best of Both, High-Low, and Platform). They describe in detail how to run each play, how to identify which play to run, and what play to run if the current one starts to fail. As venture capitalists with Ignition Partners, they now use this technique with every company that comes through their doors looking for funding.

The authors of this book, Zagula and Tong, wrote it because they were told repeatedly by colleagues that there is a need for:

" a helpful, straightforward marketing guide rather than the hype, buzzwords, or academic theory they typically see. They told us that they would like to read a book that not only shows them how to gain and hold on to their rightful leadership position but also helps them repeat the process over and over, a book they could believe, a book whose methods and suggestions have been proven in the heat of battle, a book written by people who knew from experience how to attain and retain the lead in a market but who also knew how to make the process easy to follow and implement."

So if you want to play like the big dogs, here is your Playbook. It's obviously not only a great first read, but also a book that you will return to again and again.

What's in a name?

How did our company come to be named "800-CEO-READ"?

This is a question I get asked often. Well, I was talking with Todd and Tom Ehrenfeld and they had never heard the story of how we became 800-CEO-READ. Upon hearing the tale, they suggested I share it with all of you.

Twenty-one years ago, I was hired by David Schwartz, owner of Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop, to buy, sell, and maintain the business, technical, medical and computer books for his store. For over ten years, we grew with some successes and many failures. My real focus was to sell to the businesses in the area; so we started calling ourselves Schwartz Business Books to differentiate ourselves from the Schwartz retail bookstores but retain some local name recognition. In the early nineties, I obtained a statewide 800# and asked for the numerical equivalent to either "READ" or "BOOK". The local company gave me 800-236-7323 (READ) per my request. When we expanded the coverage to a national number, we were able to keep the number.

It was a happy coincidence when, a year or so later, one of my employees pointed out that the prefix numbers, 236, were CEO. I thought at the time that it was interesting but not terribly significant. That changed, however, when in January 1995, David Schwartz and the Schwartz Bookshops were featured on the cover of Inc. magazine. As a result of that coverage, I connected with CNN and they asked me to be on CNN Sunday Morning in June of that year. As I watched a tape of my appearance, I saw that they listed me as Jack Covert of Schwartz Business Books. At that moment, I realized that a national audience wouldn�t know who that heck I was since Schwartz was a powerful local brand but didn't have much national significance at that time. It came to me in an instant: our phone number! The next day 800-CEO-READ was born.

That is our name creation story, and I certainly hope you don't think less of us now that you have learned that the CEO in our name came from the numbers 236, and not some think-tank geared to engineering the perfect name for our national coming out party.

George Stalk on front cover of Fast Company

You should have your February issue of Fast Company now.

It seems we can't stop talking about George Stalk (Hardball, Competing Against Time). The article details the last couple years of Stalk's life which include his three months spent in a coma.

Here is a paragraph on the book that I thought was interesting:

Some people have interpreted Hardball as a business version of America's "go it alone" political strategy in the world, or as a total rejection of the idea that a company's culture and people are an important part of its edge. Although neither is true, BCG, fearing a political storm, altered some of Hardball's chapter titles to make them sound less aggressive. But the changes didn't do much to soothe those who think business should be a kinder, gentler pursuit and that Stalk's testosterone-fueled emphasis on crushing your competitor is a Stone Age throwback. "[Stalk and Lachenauer] are on a brutal, macho trip," wrote one reviewer for the Financial Times.

New Releases - 1/17/05

I am a little delayed on new releases. Here is what has hit the shelves in the last couple of weeks.

• Category Killers: The Retail Revolution and Its Impact on Consumer Culture by Robert Spector (HBSP, 1/7/05)
• Deep Smarts: How to Cultivate and Transfer Enduring Businesss Wisdom by Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap (HBSP, 1/11/05)
• You're In Charge--Now What? by Thomas Neff and James Citrin (Crown Business, 1/11/05)
• Winning with People by John C. Maxwell (Nelson Books, 1/14/05)
• Time Traps by Todd Duncan (Nelson Books, 1/14/05)
• May I Have Your Attention, Please?: Build a Better Business by Telling Your True Story by Chris Hilicki and Andy Andrews (Wiley, 1/14/05)
• How to Get Your Competition Fired (without Saying Anything Bad about Them) by Randy Schwantz (Wiley, 1/14/05)
• Balls!: 6 Rules for Winning Today's Business Game by Alexi Venneri (Wiley, 1/14/05)

This Week - 1/17/05

Happy Monday to everyone! It is a cold one here in Milwaukee with the high being forecast at 1degF.

You can start this morning with a new excerpt we start from Contagious Success. I'll remember Susan Annunzio was here last week for an author visit.

We have eluded to it, but we are currently underway with a redesign of the 800-CEO-READ websites. Better searching. Blog content integrated with the product pages. A new look. Along with the new look, we are going to redesign our logo. We hope to share some of that process with you this week.

As we have been talking the new logo, the story of the 800-CEO-READ name came up. After hearing it, I told Jack he had to share it with everyone. You'll see that story today.

We also have Michael McLaughlin joining us on Thursday to talk about his book Guerilla Marketing for Consultants. He is going to talk about how "the book" playing into your overall strategy.

Tom Ehrenfeld should be chiming in this week.

So, lots going on.

Have a great week!

More Transparency Needed in Book Reviews

"The case against anonymity is a relatively simple one. There are many occasions on which a reader is entitled to ask on what authority a judgment or opinion is being advanced. There are even occasions when the whole import of a review depends on knowing the identity of the reviewer. Above all, critics should be prepared to be held directly responsible for what they write....I feel that the principle of accountability comes first."

-John Gross, editor of the Times Literary Supplement of London, 1974

Since we started the blogs, we have had the same feelings. You won't find anonymous reviews here. You will find the reviewer's name and a link to their online presence (if they have one).

I pulled this quote from today's WSJ. In an editorial entitled "Oh Yeah? Says Who?" [sub. needed], James Bowman takes on the common practice of anonymous reviews in both Kirkus Review and Publishers Weekly.

80 Books Every Manager Should Read - 1990-1999

1990-99

1990 Kenichi Ohmae: The Borderless World
1990 Michael Porter: The Competitive Advantage of Nations
1990 Peter Senge: The Fifth Discipline
1990 Richard Pascale: Managing on the Edge
1992 Tom Peters: Liberation Management
1993 Fons Trompenaars: Riding the Waves of Culture
1993 James Champy and Michael Hammer: Reengineering the Corporation
1993 Ricardo Semler: Maverick!
1994 Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad: Competing for the Future
1994 Henry Mintzberg: The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning
1994 James Collins and Jerry Porras: Built to Last
1994 Michael Goold, Andrew Campbell and Marcus Alexander: Corporate-Level Strategy
1995 Daniel Goleman: Emotional Intelligence
1995 David Packard: The H-P Way
1996 Frederick Reichheld: The Loyalty Effect
1996 John Kotter: Leading Change
1996 Robert Kaplan and David Norton: The Balanced Scorecard
1997 Arie de Geus: The Living Company
1997 Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer: Blur
1997 Thomas Stewart: Intellectual Capital
1998 Patricia Seybold: Customers.com

This is from Financial Times Handbook of Management 3rd Edition.

Cage Match - Galdwell vs. Surowiecki

I have decided that my headlines need more flair. This one might have been a little over the top.

Anyway, I wanted to point you to the storyteller showdown between Malcolm Galdwell (Blink, The Tipping Point) and James Surowiecki (The Wisdom of Crowds). Slate is hosting the email exchange as the two authors debate decision making. They posted Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
It's worth checking out.

[via Crossroads Dispatches]

What To Watch For in a Publishing Contract

For those authors and soon-to-be authors in our audience, I wanted to point you to a post I pulled out of Robert Scoble's Linkblog. Dave Taylor of Ask Dave Taylor! goes through a publishing contract for a friend of his and comments on various clauses. Dave is not a lawyer, so don't consider it legal advice. Nevertheless, I think there is some good practical advice there.

Eight Steps

A few weeks ago I was doing executive development work for a major pharmaceutical company. The head of international business started the session by laying out the serious challenges the company faced in the marketplace. Since my session was going to include nearly 50 of the company’s top leaders from around the world, I decided to work on the most serious challenge, using a collaboration model that has been very successful in the past.

The steps are: vent; reverse negative assumptions; generate ideas; identify what’s smart about each idea, watch for the recurring themes, and make sure all the themes are included when you blend the ideas into a solution; pinpoint the dangers; and develop an action plan.

Afterwards, they told me that they were amazed at the quality of the solutions they had developed. It is extremely rare for them to come together and apply their brainpower to address common challenges. Consequently they have little opportunity to spread their secrets for high performance within the company.

Success is contagious, but it can’t be spread without contact.

Getting In the Way

I am often asked whether I believe business leaders deliberately get in the way of high performance. The answer to that is an emphatic “no.” Sometimes people are just not good managers—they don’t have the rights skills to foster environments in which people can do their best work. However, a much larger problem is the effect of short-term focus on performance.

Because of market forces such as globalization and commoditization, companies feel they need to focus on the short term. Public companies have the added pressure of keeping shareholders happy. Reducing expenses, cutting staff and living quarter to quarter may drive short-term profits, but it’s killing high performance.

While it’s understandable that companies cut costs to increase profits, our research indicates that they way they are cutting—and how deep they are cutting— is harming their ability to grow profitably. Instead of discussing how to solve the problem with workers, they unilaterally mandate cuts. This often demoralizes high performers and takes away the resources they need to do their best work.

Confront and Move On

In Contagious Success, I point out that before a company can improve its performance, it needs to bring taboo subjects into the light. I suggest inviting representatives of your high-performing workgroups to a tell-all meeting with the CEO and other members of the senior leadership team. At this meeting, leaders offer amnesty for telling the truth. People air their frustration so they can get past their emotions and have room to think. This meeting paves the way for the company to confront the issues and move forward.

That’s exactly what happened at IBM, as described in the December 2004 issue of Harvard Business Review in an interview with CEO Samuel Palmisano conducted by Tom Stewart and Paul Hemp. In the interview, Palmisano described a 72-hour “ValuesJam” via the corporate intranet that drew about 50,000 employees and generated nearly 10,000 comments about the company’s values. This was a tell-all meeting on a major scale.

For the first 24 hours, people vented. One who was quoted anonymously in the HBR article said, “The only value in IBM today is the stock price.” Eventually, the tone of the comments changed: the criticism became more constructive and the postings began to focus on the parts of the culture worth preserving.

Palmisano told HBR that “the electronic argument was hot and contentious and messy…We had done three or four big online jams before this…Even so, none of those could have prepared us for the emotions unleashed by this topic. You had to put your ego aside—not easy for a CEO to do—and realize that this was the best thing that could have happened.”

Amen.

Protection

One of the most interesting findings of our research is that in high-performing groups, the leader protects the group from the larger company, either in a positive way such as lobbying for more resources, or by shielding the group from company interference. Sometimes protecting the group means bending corporate rules when they are getting in the way of performance. Good leaders don’t ever break the law or act unethically, but they know which rules they can break and which they can’t.

One plant manager, the leader of a high-performing workgroup, tried for two years to get the company to change its compensation plan to reward the workers in her plant more fairly. When nothing happened, she informed executives in her monthly report as well as in an email that unless she was instructed otherwise, she was going to change the policy. She counted on the fact that no one would pay close attention, and she was right: she got no response. In this case,