800-CEO-READ Blog

A Day Off...

It is going to be quiet today here on the blog.

Jack and I are plotting to take over the business book world...

Have a great weekend.

Autographed Winning by Jack Welch

I just would like to add to Todd's post that the limited number of copies of the book are all First Editions and are not personalized, so they will make great gifts. Now you can get what all those people who stood in line for, an autographed copy of Winning.

The World is Really Flat

This would be the yang to today's ying on The World Is Flat.

Autographed Copies of Winning

Jack and Suzy Welch were in Milwaukee last week and did a book signing at one of the Schwartz stores (our sister company). It was a great event. GE Healthcare has a huge presence in the Milwaukee area and we had a great turnout.

I thought readers here on the blog would be interested to know we have a limited number of signed copies available.

BusinessWeek Reviews Friedman

Jack liked The World Is Flat.

BusinessWeek reviewed it and gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Jack Covert Selects--Become Who You Were Born to be

Become Who You Were Born to be by Brian Souza, Paragon Holdings, 290 Pages, $19.95 Hardcover, March 2005, ISBN 0975352202

As I am sure you all know, I get lots of books and it seems more and more good books are being self published. Seth Godin published Purple Cow and sold tons before Portfolio brought out the book we all know and love. I have a built-in bias against self published books, but I expect if I continue to get books like this, my bias will evaporate over time.
This is about the best packaged self published book I have seen since Seth’s. No milk carton but it is a well written and very professionally designed book.

The subject of the book is time tested, and written about often before. But this book takes a unique perspective. Usually books like these are either motivational or spiritually driven. Souza has quite a different take on the matter. As he state:

“Just as musicians must make music, poets must write, and artists must paint, we all have a unique gift designed for a specific vocation that will bring both meaning and purpose to our lives. True joy and happiness will continue to elude us until we use that gift to become who we were born to be.”

He breaks the process to find and utilize your talent into a five part process:

1. Discover it
2. Develop it
3. Appreciate it
4. Use it
5. Give it away

The book is then broken down into those five sections with chapters relating to the specific process; each featuring people we all know. From Lance Armstrong to Mother Theresa. The author ties in these people's issues with the point he is making. The value of this book lies in the analysis and take-aways the author puts at the end of each of these chapters. This is a surprisingly well done book that has helped me tremendously, and could help you too. It will do more than motivate you; it will challenge you too.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE MONTHLY BOOK REVIEWS, PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO JACK AT 800-CEO-READ.COM.

More blog stuff

I am sure this is currently flying around the blogsphere but in case you haven't seen it. BusinessWeek is saying about blogs "catch up...or catch you later." As my children would say, "No Duh!" Check the magazine article out.

They also have started a blog

Jack Covert Selects - The Radical Leap

The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership by Steve Farber, Dearborn Trade, 183 pages, $16.95, Hardcover, April 2004, ISBN 0793185688

The Radical Leap by Steve Farber is a book that has been out since April of last year. You may find it a little odd that I would review a twelve month old book. I think it came about in a similar way to how people buy books. I remember the review copy I got and thought it had a great cover. It sat on my desk for a couple of months and then I started to see it show up on our monthly Top 25 list. In December, I met Steve in person at a Tom Peters event. When I got back from the trip, I picked up the copy, started reading, and couldn't put it down.

In this business book fable, Steve plays himself (a leadership coach) and he learns from his new friend Edg about Extreme Leadership. When you think extreme, think skiing or surfing. Part of the experience in extreme sports is taking the risk and wiping out. Steve (or Edg) says the same is the case for leadership. You have to be willing to put yourself out there to learn and get better.

Over the course of a week, Steve learns the four tenets of Extreme Leadership -- Love, Energy, Audacity, and Proof: LEAP, get it? He also has to put them into practice when he finds out his friend Janice is about to get fired from her dream job. There is a great cast of characters, an interesting plot, and a wonderful twist at the end.

Here's my favorite quote from the book:

"Relationships in the world of business...are won by paying nearly obsessive attention to the needs, desires, hopes, and aspirations of everyone who touches your business. By knowing not only when to stand firm--there is such this as tough love--but also when to sacrifice some of your own short-term needs in order for us all to be successful in the long run. And by proving through your own actions that you really love your business, your customers, your colleagues, and your employees."

Pick it up as your next airplane read. You won't be disappointed.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE MONTHLY BOOK REVIEWS, PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO JACK AT 800-CEO-READ.COM

New Audio Excerpt You'll Like

I just posted an audio excerpt from Tim Sanders' The Likeability Factor. I thought it was a nice tie-in with this month's Jack Covert Selects.

Another Way to Retain What You Have Read

John uses dog-ears. Bren uses a pen. Jack uses those little Avery sticky tabs.

I thought this was another interesting idea.

Prashanth Rai at Lets Talk is mindmapping his way through Winning by Jack Welch. He is listening to the book via audible.com and is taking notes as he goes.

Here is his mindmap of Chapter 1.

TOC: Why Some Companies Emerge Stronger and Better from A Crisis

I haven't done this in awhile, but I thought I would publish the Table of Contents from a new book. This gives you a little favor for the content and structure of a book. Some time you find out the book is about something completely different than what you thought.

The book we are doing today is Why Some Companies Emerge Stronger and Better from A Crisis: 7 Essential Lessons for Surviving Disaster by Ian Mitroff.

(click through to see the table of contents)

Preface

Chapter One

The Crisis Society: The Rise of the Abnormal

Chapter Two

Challenge 1--Right Heart (Emotional IQ):
Deny Denial; Grieve Before a Crisis Occurs

Chapter Three

Challenge 2--Right Thinking (Creative IQ):
Be A Responible Troublemaker

Challenge 3--Right Social and Poltical Skills (Social
and Political IQ): Be Patiently Impatient

Chapter Four

Challenge 4--Right Integration (Integrative IQ):
Embrace Fuzziness

Chapter Five

Challenge 5--Right Technical Skills (Technical IQ)
Think Like a Sociopath, Act Like a Saint

Chapter Six

Challenge 6--Right Transfer (Aesthetic IQ)
Down with the Old; Design and Implement New
Organization

Chapter Seven

Challenge 7--Right Soul (Spiritual IQ): Spirituality Is
The Ultimate Competitive Advantage

Chapter Eight

When A Whole Society Is in Crisis, All of the
Challenges Apply

Chapter Nine

Epilogue: A Tale of Two Companies

Appendix A

Major Crises at a Glance

Appendix B

A Brief Primer on Crisis Management

Appendix C

A Theory of Complex Problem-Formation and
Problem Solving Inquiry Systems

Index

About the Author

Jack Covert Selects - The Likeability Factor

The Likeability Factor : How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life's Dreams by Tim Sanders, Crown Business, 224 Pages, $23.00, Hardcover, April 2005, ISBN 1400080495

It can't be stated more plainly: Unlikeability doesn't work. Easy as that, folks. With that established Tim Sanders has kindly followed in the steps of his previous bestseller, Love is the Killer App, with a book that gives us the tools on how to be likeable. He didn't pull it out of thin air either. Nope, it's based on solid research; Sanders cites thousands of pages to prove it.

The author states that a morning show deejay asked him to give a lecture on how to be more likeable. After studying a particularly rude deejay, he came up with four things necessary to improve one's likeability. This of course is effective in both professional and personal environments. This is what he came up:

Friendliness: seems like a no-brainer, but many people don't think being friendly makes such a big difference. It does.
Relevance: try to matter to other people. Don't just see what you can get out of them but rather what you can do for them.
Empathy: Care for people. Try to get behind what matters to them etc. Be interested in them first.
Realness: Likeability will not work if you try to fake it. Once people realize that your friendliness, empathy and relevance is real, you will see changes.

After he discusses the four elements of likeability, he moves on to share detailed guidelines on every single element. This is a very useful part of the book, with tips and examples on how to improve one's likeability. This book will teach anyone how to bring out the best in others. Who doesn't want that win-win situation? Pick up a copy today.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE MONTHLY BOOK REVIEWS, PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO JACK AT 800-CEO-READ.COM.

Book Links from Around the Blogsphere

I have quite a list for this post:

• John Moore at Brand Autopsy says you should read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.
• This is an older post, but the 43 Folders has best summary I have seen of Getting Things Done by David Allen.
• A Thought over Coffee pulls out The Art of Powerpointing from The Art of the Start
• This is another post inspired by Seth's personal MBA. Aaron at Confessions of a Brand Evangelist lists his Top Ten Brand Books
• Lisa at Management Crafts pulls a tip from Dale Carnegie's classic How to Win Friends and Influence People
• brendonwilson.com seems to have a transcript of Guy Kawasaki giving his Art of the Start speech

Flashback: Authors Who Have Visited

We have had quite of few authors visit us over the last year. I have a list below. Clicking on their name will take you to the first entry of their visit. You can page forward through their entries using the links at the top of the page.

Seth Godin
Barry Moltz
James Surowiecki
Jeff Blackman
Lakshman Achuthan

John Putzier
John Winsor
Ann Crittenden
Marc Gunther (he hosted for a whole week)
Laurence Haughton
Rosa Say

This Week - 4/18/05

Good Morning and Happy Monday!

We don't have big events planned this week. We are still recovering from the bash on Friday (and you can still get in on the galley giveaway if your interested).

I thought I would go back into the archives this week and pull out some the gems for the newer readers. I am going to do some of that digging today and see what we find.

There will Jack Coverts Selects that are going to match up with an audiobook excerpt. So, watch for that later in the week.

Otherwise, enjoy your week!

Rossotti's Book

Yes, this book is excellent. Rossotti never claims to have saved the agency, and is fairly candid about the challenges of trying to remake the IRS. Here's a review I did of his book last week.

Tax Day Arrives

To coincide with our birthday, it is also Tax Day.

The book connection would be Many Unhappy Returns: One Man's Quest To Turn Around The Most Unpopular Organization In America by by Charles O. Rossotti.

No one believed the IRS could ever run like a twenty-first-century business. Until it did.

When Charles O. Rossotti became Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in 1997, the agency had the largest customer base-and the lowest approval rating-of any institution in America. Mired in scandal, caught in a political maelstrom, and beset by profound management and technology problems, the IRS was widely dismissed as a hopelessly flawed enterprise.

In Many Unhappy Returns, Rossotti-the first businessperson to head the IRS-recounts the remarkable story of his leadership and transformation of this much-maligned agency. In the glare of intense public scrutiny, he effected dramatic changes in the way the IRS did business-while it continued to collect $2 trillion in revenue.

Through fascinating accounts of heated Congressional hearings, encounters with Washington bigwigs, frank exchanges with taxpayers and employees, and risky turnaround strategies, Rossotti serves up a colorful story of leadership and change against daunting odds. He also underscores why every honest taxpayer should demand reform in the broader U.S. tax system.

Infused with keen wit and hard-won business wisdom, Many Unhappy Returns illuminates the perils and possibilities of leading large, complex organizations in a transparent world.

Happy Birthday to The Blog

I should have started the day with this, but the 800-CEO-READ Blog is one year ago today.

[cheering]

I personally have really enjoyed it. I hope you have too. There is much more planned for the coming year, so stay tuned.

To celebrate, we are going to do a galley giveaway. We get LOTS of books and we thought we would give you a sneak peak at some of the stuff we are seeing.

It is simple to participate:

*Send me an email (todd [at] 800ceoread [dot] com) with the subject line "Happy Birthday".
*All you need to include is your street address (we send everything by UPS) and I will send you a galley.
*If you want to specify a topic area, feel free. I will try to match up as many requests as possible.
*I'll take as many people as I have galleys (and I am betting I will still have galleys left over).
*We will do nothing with your information other than send you a book.

[playing Beatles' Birthday]

More from Friedman

I also liked this quote from The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman:

"In 1977, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping put China on the road to capitalism, declaring later that “to get rich is glorious.” When China first opened its tightly closed economy, companies in industrialized countries saw it as an incredible new market for exports. Every Western or Asian manufacturer dreamed of selling its equivalent of 1 billion pairs of underwear to a single market. Some foreign companies set up shop in China to do just that. But because China was not subject to world trade rules, it was able to restrict penetration into its market by those Western companies through various trade and investment barriers. And when it was not doing it deliberately, the sheer bureaucratic and cultural difficulties of doing business in China had the same effect. Many of the pioneer investors in China lost their shirts and pants and underwear—and with China’s Wide West legal system there was not much recourse.

Beginning in the 1980s, many investors, particularly overseas Chinese who knew how to operate in China, started to say, “Well, if we can’t sell that many things to the Chinese right now, why don’t we use China’s disciplined labor pool to make things there and sell them abroad?” This dovetailed with the interests of China’s leaders. China wanted to attract foreign manufactures and their technologies—not simply to manufacture 1 billion pairs of underwear for sale in China but to use low-wage Chinese labor to also sell 6 billion pairs of underwear to everyone else in the world, and at prices that were a fraction of what the underwear companies in Europe or America or even Mexico were charging.”

Amazon's new layout

Everyone keeps telling me about the new Amazon layout. Jack saw it early this week. Seth posted on it yesterday.

Am I the only one who hasn't seen it yet?

Links for our author (and would-be author) audience

I have a couple of links for our author audience. They both deal with self-publishing.

The first is from Forbes. The magazine featured Ellen Sabin and Water Can Publishing a few issues ago. When she shopped the book, all the publishers said it cost too much to produce ($20). She went ahead and did it herself. She has sold 12,000 copies. The big lessons from her story are she understands the power of bulk sales (she has sold to Fleet, Citigroup, and the New York Knicks) and she is leveraging every opportunity she gets.

The second is a post from Signal vs. Noise. Jason is asking readers about their perception of self-publishing. There are currently 26 comments, all outstanding I think.

Aloha Recommended Reading

It wanted to thank Rosa for coming by yesterday. In her book Managing with Aloha, she ends with a list of books she recommends you read.

So, here are some more ideas for your reading list:

• Ku Kanaka, Stand Tall, A Search for Hawaiian Values by George Hu‘eu Sanford Kanahele, University of Hawaii Press, 1986.


• Nana i ke kumu, Look to the Source, Volume I and Volume II, by Mary Kawena Pukui, E.W. Haertig, M.D. and Catherine A. Lee, Queen Lili‘uokalani Children’s Center, 1972


• Voices of Wisdom, Hawaiian Elders Speak by M.J. Harden, Aka Press 1999.


• First, Break all the Rules, What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, Simon & Schuster 1999.


• Soar with your Strengths by Donald O. Clifton and Paula Nelson, Dell Publishing, 1996.


• Love is the Killer App, How to Win Business and Influence Friends by Tim Sanders, Crown Business New York, 2002.


• Raving Fans, A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1993.


• The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Kenneth Blanchard, William Oncken, Jr. and Hal Burrows, William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1989.


• The Leadership Engine, How Winning Companies Build Leaders at Every Level by Noel M. Tichy with Eli Cohen, Harper Business Publications, 2001.


• The Little Book of Business Wisdom, Rules of Success from more than 50 Business Legends edited by Peter Krass, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2001.


• Living the 7 Habits, The Courage to Change by Stephen R. Covey, Simon & Schuster, 2000.

Brand Storytelling

I have been paging through May I Have Your Attention, Please?: Building a Better Business By Telling Your Story. Chris Hilicki is the author and founder of Dalmatian Press. She thinks that you should build your brand based on the history and experiences of the company (or the person). I think this builds on all of the books we are seeing on the importance of storytelling in brand and marketing communications. Here are Chris' Big 10 Brand Builders:

1. Recognize that you already have a brand whether you know it or not. It's time to take control of it to build an authentic powerful brand destined for great success.
2. Identify and examine your own story, experiences, and life-changing moments in your personal and professional life.
3. Attach importance to your story because it is real, unique, and the only thing that can't be copied.
4. Connect your experiences to the things that are important to you--your values and beliefs.
5. Express these values as your brand values with corresponding elements that are visual and audial, as well as those characteristics that can be felt and make people feel.
6. Share these values in a way that incorporates as many of the human senses as possible.
7. Communicate these brand values so that they relate to your audience and can be easily remembered.
8. Reveal your authentic brand in a way that involves your audience, listens, responds, and maneuvers as you anticipate your audience's changing needs and wants.
9. Write down a specific plan for your brand development and the results you will achieve.
10. In the fullness of believing you are worthy and valuable, turn the attention your brand receives back to the world to meet and exceed their wants, needs, hopes, and dreams.

I really like #3. Your story is unique. Use it. Tell it to others.

A Call to Arms: Let’s Manage with Aloha

Where to start? [Start with supporting my wonderful friends at 800-CEO-Read when you buy my book :-)]

Endear yourself to your staff the easy way, while you reap the early benefits of Managing with Aloha. Start with you.

Figure out the most natural way to start incorporating the word Aloha in your vocabulary, and allow it to become part of your language. Put it on your voicemail, and call yourself so the sound of your voice starts to embrace the word for you, and bring it into your comfort zone.

I’m a morning runner, and I used to say “Good Morning” to those I passed by. Now I say “Aloha” and more often than not the next time we cross paths they will say it back to me, or wave from across the street. All my letters and emails (and blog comments) start and end with “Aloha”; “dear” and “sincerely” have become exclusively adjectives for me, not salutations. I’ve returned to writing thank you notes as often as possible, for both small favors and the big ones, choosing sentences that will capture my aloha within the envelope in spirit and not just within the word itself.

It’ll surprise you how easy it will start to become. The possibilities will open up for you, seemingly multiplying on their own, and you will begin to cultivate your own habits of Aloha, ones that feel personal, natural, honest and right. You will find a new presence and focus in your conversations, you will be on time for appointments, you will keep your promises, and you will make decisions that seek win-win agreements versus compromise. You will find that your reach extends farther, and others seek you out.

As the saying goes, “Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the best fruit is?” The arms of Aloha will be there to catch you.

Remember, Aloha is already within you, and all you need do is make the choice to release it. You know what it is, and you can feel it. Think of it as the perfect name for your inner spirit. Perhaps the most special quality of Aloha is how it becomes so intrinsically personal for people, and so comforting. You recognize it when it bubbles to the surface for you, for it seems to fill you up and you feel a sort of draining sensation when its not there. You feel absolutely great when you share it, you just do. You can see it in their faces when someone receives it from you: it was an unexpected and very generous gift. And Aloha magically creates abundance: the more you share it, the more you have in your life.

And remember that work reinvention I mentioned in my first post? Managers matter. Managers manage through other people: technicians manage systems and processes. When you are a manager who brings Aloha to your staff, transformation happens, work reinvention happens. I guarantee it.

This is your call to arms, the arms of Aloha. Start a movement with me, and be the one to bring Aloha to business today. Your customers are waiting. Your employees, peers, and family are waiting. The very best in your life is waiting.

Just one more thing: remember I’m here to help you. www.managingwithaloha.com is your Managing with Aloha Online Resource and on Talking Story we do just that: Talk story about how we will make the work reinvention we deserve begin to happen everywhere. So share your aloha; come talk story with us too.

My aloha to you. Mahalo nui loa (thank you very much) for spending your time here with me today. Rosa Say

Managing with Aloha on 800-CEO-ReaD

‘Ike loa: the Hawaiian value of learning

Let’s choose one of the values in Managing with Aloha as a pretty representative example of what you will read in my book.

‘Ike loa is to seek knowledge. The manager who adopts this value and incorporates learning and teaching into his or her daily practice demonstrates the Aloha of good intent. By investing in the learning of his staff, he shows them how much he believes in them and in their capacity for greater things. He shows them he cares.

This is an excerpt which starts on page 135.

The value of learning

‘Ike loa is the value that my managers have told me “turns you into an absolute fanatic” and I suppose that’s true. It is one of my favorites, for it is all about learning and seeking more knowledge, something I am very passionate about. Gaining more knowledge equates to having more confidence and belief in one’s ability and capacity to learn, and having more of that self-belief empowers you, liberates you and releases a creativity you may not have even realized you possessed. You constantly give birth to new possibilities in this creative process; you create your own destiny seeking your best possible life.

You are sure to feed your body each day, aren’t you? Well, new knowledge is the food for mind, heart and soul. Without it, you are not providing nourishment for your overall well-being. We grow as we learn.

To a business, knowledge is the asset of intellectual capital. Great managers have intellectual capital in good supply, and they work at refreshing it and keeping it well-stocked.

I stand firm and unmoving in my belief that someone who calls themselves a manager of people must be a learner, and they must dedicate themselves to non-stop, sequential and consequential learning. Sequential in that it builds upon previous lessons learned, and it takes you through a process where you question instruction and do not always accept what you are taught at face value; you polish it like a gem in your mind until something about it rings true for you. Consequential in that it is worthwhile stuff; it makes a difference for you, and you aren’t simply collecting lessons on some scorecard. There’s some personal take-away in it for you. Now that you know it, you’re going to use it.

Personally ‘Ike loa will naturally come to mind for me whenever I speak with others about Kuleana and one’s personal sense of responsibility. I had once seen this quote attributed to Jan Carlzon, former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines Systems: “… an individual who is given information cannot help but take responsibility.” It was easy for me to nod in agreement with those words for I’ve experienced it so many times within my own experience, and as a manager it became an employee ownership strategy for me. The wonderful thing is that with learning you are not just passing out information: You are teaching people how to think.

The chapter continues with a few real stories on how ‘Ike loa is entered into a business plan and in daily practice, and it shares what I believe is one of the most effective learning and managing tools a manager can employ; The Daily Five Minutes.

‘Ike loa is the chapter where I share more on my own love of books, and one of the add-ins at the end of Managing with Aloha is an annotated reading guide with eleven of the books that have made a profound impact on my own learning.

Postscript: Next week Managing with Aloha will be featured on the 800-CEO-Read(er), and you will be able to read another short book excerpt on Ho‘omau, the Hawaiian value of persistence and perseverance.

The Language of Intention, and the Power of Words

To tell you the honest truth, I do regret one phrase I included in Managing with Aloha.

I listened to the voices in my head (and my editor) for political correctness and global selling power when I wrote this: “You need not remember my Hawaiian words … these values are universal, and you may have your own words for them.”

Luckily, you don’t get to that sentence until you reach the Epilogue near the end of the book. People have told me, “Rosa by the time I read that, I already was!”

Thank goodness, for I know better now. When you learn the words, you associate newly meaningful definition to values you thought you already knew all about. When everyone in a company defines them in that new way, and they are spoken out loud, they speak a new language of intention. Spoken words become a promise begging to be made good on. You are forced to walk your talk — now how many times have you heard employees ask for that from management?

So quick review of the last post: Aloha is our personal combination of innate talents blended in perfect harmony with our values. Of those personal values, the ones that perfectly match up to great business character are the ones I coach you in within the pages of Managing with Aloha.

Don’t let the Hawaiian words intimidate you. Think of them as a new framing for universal business values you already know - that’s exactly what they are. For example:

 Leadership and Initiative - Alaka‘i (Ala-kah-ee)
 Responsibility and Accountability - Kuleana (Koo-lay-ah-na)
 Achievement and Excellence - Kūlia i ka nu‘u (Koo-lee-a ee kah noo-oo)
 Integrity and Professionalism - Ho‘ohanohano (Hoe-oh-hano-hano)
 Honesty, Truth, and Authenticity - Nānā i ke kumu (Nana ee kay koo-moo)

Not that bad, huh? Have some fun with them (look in the mirror and say them :-) Learning should be fun; it sticks that way. And when managing with Aloha sticks, there will be changes made …

We work on two things in Managing with Aloha: 1. Putting your individual signature on these values so you become a great manager and leader, and you grow. 2. Getting these values out of your staff consistently. More than consistently, willingly and enthusiastically, to the point of your needing to keep up with them! I promise you, you will be amazed at the ideas they begin to share with you.

These two things will make all the difference in the world within your company, and to your customers.

Last post, I told you there were more benefits: Not only do you keep loyal customers, your staff retention soars. People stick around. They tell their family and friends they have Aloha at work, and you find that recruitment is no longer an issue for you. Everyone wants your business to profit so it will continue to sustain them, and you find that your staff takes better care of all your assets, same as they have your customers.

There’s more! As a manager you have time to learn and to innovate, for with so many invested in the success of your business you no longer need to babysit. You can work on your business rather than getting stuck in it. Because of Aloha, you have become a company of growing, thriving people fully vested in a business that sustains you.

Is this exciting or what?!?

The Aloha Connection to Business

When someone asked me, “Can Aloha be taught?” I had to stop, and really think about it. The question came at a time I was about to welcome 150 new hires at a resort development opening in Hawaii, and the executive who asked it of me sincerely wanted us embody that intangible thing we call “the Aloha spirit.” He wanted our customers and guests to be able to feel it. He wanted us to feel it. He knew that if we could accomplish that one thing, we would be wildly successful.

He was right. And we discovered that it didn’t have to be taught; our new staff already had it. We just had to embrace it and let it work its magic. That’s what great managers are supposed to do.

Aloha is something we are all born with. It is an inner source as real as anything you can physically touch. It is our personal combination of innate talents blended in perfect harmony with our values. When we manage with aloha, we release it and celebrate it through our work. When it is incorporated into your business model, Aloha will virtually guarantee your management success and your business profits. Customers will flock to your doors because they want it. When genuine Aloha touches your life it is a pretty remarkable experience for you. Especially in business.

There is a universal problem in business today that crosses all industries: Mediocrity. Customers do not feel they consistently get good service from us, whether they seek it at the grocery store, at their kids’ schools, when seeking the help of professionals, or in your business office. “Business as usual” does not mean “feels-good customer service and exceptional value.”

Managing with Aloha is your ticket to being different. You can have devoted customer-evangelists who have found Aloha in you and everything your company stands for; customers who keep coming back to you for more, happily buying your product or service and telling everyone else about you.

Your customers feel it when your staff has it.

Think of Aloha as a person’s inner spirit with a good attitude. Aloha is inclusive and healthy. At work, Aloha is a feeling you have because you believe in what you do and in what your business stands for, you feel your work is worthwhile and you are needed to deliver it.

Let’s read that one more time, slowly:

At work, Aloha is a feeling you have because  you believe in what you do,  you believe in what your business stands for,  you feel your work is worthwhile, and that  you are needed to deliver it.

Aloha permeates your company when everyone in it feels the same way: They treat each other with honesty, trust, dignity, and respect. They freely share Aloha with each other, and so naturally, they treat customers the same way. And because those customers don’t experience it too often, they come back to you time and time again to get another fix, confident that you will deliver. The actual service or product they pay for becomes icing on the cake, for if Aloha is the feeling they associate with your company, they are equally confident your product will be infused with value and quality and worth: They trust you will not give your customers anything less. They may not be able to specifically give it a name, but they perceive Aloha in your character, and it is a discovery that excites them.

This is just the beginning: there’s more! We’ll talk about it in the next post.

Managing with Aloha

Aloha everyone, it is wonderful to be here as guest author on the 800-CEO-Read Blog today. I am a management coach, small business owner, first-time entrepreneur, and the author of Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawaii’s Universal Values to the Art of Business. I also write a blog called Talking Story, designed to be an online coaching resource for managers and leaders. My sincere mahalo (thank you) to Jack and Todd for giving me this opportunity to tell you more about my book and answer your questions.

Perhaps we should start with this question: Why did I write Managing with Aloha, and more important, why is it relevant to you?

I can give you the quick answer with two statements:
1. I want to start a movement that will reinvent work as we know it. We all deserve to work while living our best possible life, and it is possible.
2. I know that managers in business are the ones to help us make this happen. However they can only do this by working on themselves first, and by bringing aloha and nobility to their profession.

Ambitious? Sure. Likely? Inevitable if we are to thrive and prosper while working in business.

Managing with Aloha is managers’ toolbox, workplace reinvention, and new business model wrapped up in one. Only managers and leaders destined for greatness need purchase.

In mid 2003 I left a plum executive position at a world-renowned residential resort to start my own management coaching business. I’d worked my way through one of those classic ironies of life: work long and hard to finally “arrive” and then figure out that inhabiting the executive suite is not really what you want to do after all. After a lengthy management career in both small and large corporate business I knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that I wanted to spend my time mentoring and coaching managers, so that together, we could lead a workplace reinvention that would change work relationships and work itself forever.

I was inspired to this, because in my own small corner of the world, with a group of employees most people had written off, we had already done it. It felt great. It felt right. All the business philosophies and leadership training I’d been given over the years finally blended together in an operation that was exceptionally profitable, meaningful, and fulfilling. It was an experience which changed me and gave me new hope —no, certainty, that here was a business model which could be duplicated successfully. But not duplicated with cloning and systemization: Individually adapted to the true character of a business with value-matching. I called this business model Managing with Aloha, and I started to teach it.

The book came to be written a little bit after my coaching practice began. The group of employees I referred to were a group of watermen called The Alaka‘i Nalu, and as their reputation spread I was asked to visit workplaces and share their story. In the telling, I’d find that managers wrote feverishly, taking copious notes on these Hawaiian values which had brought the Alaka‘i Nalu to their own self-made reinvention. I’d often stop them and say, “How about if you write less and just try to do it? Don’t write down what I say, let’s talk about it.” But managers, being creatures of habit with some things, wanted and needed their notes. They asked for more examples, more stories. So my next thought was, “Tell you what, I’ll write it down for you.” What I wrote for them, and for you, was Managing with Aloha.

Managing with Aloha on 800-CEO-ReaD

Rosa Say Here Tomorrow

I just wanted to post a reminder. Rosa Say will be keeping you entertained tomorrow.

Regular programming resumes Friday.

Bill's Predictions Ten Years Later

The Road Ahead by Microsoft founder Bill Gates is ten years old and Forbes has a rundown of what did and did not come to be.

A Little Late to the Party on Freakonomics

I feel like we are a little late to the party on telling you about Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden State of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. I know we still may be the first place that you heard about it, but we still like to be in front on these sorts of things.

This is another one of those books Jack was talking about in the Financial Times. It give you another view of the world. It is written in a series of vignettes. Here are the titles:

• What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have In Common?
• How is the Ku Klux Klan Like A Group of Real Estate Agents?
• Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?
• Where Have All The Criminals Gone?
• What Makes a Perfect Parent?
• Perfect Parenting Pt. II; or Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?

Jack and I both liked the book. It is one of those books that makes you think differently. My wife and I went back and forth about the Perfect Parent chapter. With this type of book, it is about the discussion created, not the conclusions given.

Here is a list of the people who got to the book first:

• Craig Newmark reviewed it a couple of weeks ago.
• Jason Kottke has a great Q&A with Levitt
• Jason also references an excerpt at Slate
• Steven Landsburg gushes about the book for the WSJ today

Like all good authors, Steven and Stephen have a blog (with RSS feed).

The Art of Demotivation

You might be familiar with Despair Inc. They have take a different angle on the popular line of Successories. My personal favorite is "Consulting: If you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made in prolonging the problem."

They have a new book out called The Art of Demotivation. Here is the summary:

At no time in history have there been more motivational resources available to the modern manager. And yet, in spite of the dazzling array of solutions sold, employee morale has reached critical lows- with the majority of workers actually reporting hate their jobs. How did this happen? And more importantly, what can executives do about the crisis of employee discontent?

In this incisive new work, former professor and current executive Kersten offers a devastating critique of the motivation industry and its complicity in the crisis. But more importantly, he offers to managers and executives everywhere a shockingly radical solution to the problem of employee motivation - one tested and perfected within the confines of Despair, Inc. itself.

The marketing and packaging of the book are brilliant. There are three editions available. The first is the Manager edition that comes with a secondry dust jacket "render[ing] the book virtually invisible to your employees, who have no interest in such subjects." The Executive edition comes with a leather cover, is printed on premium paper and has a lock and key. The Chairman edition is over the top--the book comes in a custom Daniel Marshall book coffer/cigar humador.

[via del.icio.us businessbooks tag]

Dr. Phil's Life Laws for Success

Wiley has a new book out called The Making of Dr. Phil: The Straight Talking True Story of Everyone's Favorite Therapist. Author Sophia Dembling and Lisa Gutierrez start with the birth Phillip Calvin McGraw and end with his appearance on David Letterman in 2002. Here is a piece from the book that give you a little insight into Dr. Phil and how he has gotten to where he has:

Phil McGraw has studied success his entire life. As a teenager, he and his dad analyzed his high school football games looking for those elements that added up to winning results. As a psychologist, he observed and learned from his patient's pursuit of success. And as a trial consultant, he helped formulate courtroom strategies that would allow his clients to emerge victorious from trial. While the venues may have differed, McGraw's theme over the years has remained the same: Uncover the traits that allowed others to get ahead and that he, in turn, could use to achieve success in his own life.

McGraw's books are filled with formulas for success, starting with the "Life Laws" he lays out in his first book, Life Strategies. McGraw started devising these 10 "rules of the game" when he was a young hothead drag racing through the streets of Kansas City. Today, these Life Laws are the cornerstone of the philosophy on which McGraw his built his empire:

Life Law #1: You either get it, or you don't.
Life Law #2: You create your own experience.
Life Law #3: People do what works.
Life Law #4: You can't change what you don't acknowledge.
Life Law #5: Life rewards action.
Life Law #6: There is no reality; only perception.
Life Law #7: Life is managed, it is not cured.
Life Law #8: We teach people how to treat us.
Life Law #9: There is power in forgiveness.
Life Law #10: You have to name it to claim it.

Fairy Tales in BusinessLand

I always find it interesting how books seem to go in cycles. Chances are if you see one book with a particular angle you will see another with a similar angle. And they usually come out around the same time. The music analogy would be Britney and Christina.

I have two books on my desk right now that are using children's tales to illustrate lessons in business. The first is Aesop & the CEO: Powerful Business Insights From Aesop's Ancient Fables by David Noonan (Nelson Business). In the book, Noonan tells 46 of the classic fables. Each section start with a three or four paragraph telling of the original story ending with Aesop's Moral. The story is following by two to three pages explaining the application to business and the Business Moral. The fables are divided into sections like Rewards and Incentives, Winning Business Strategies, and Negotiations, Mergers, and Alliances. I like what Noonan did with the book and would recommend as an airplane read.

I am not as thrilled with the other book. Mette Norgaard is the author of The Ugly Duckling Goes to Work (AMACOM). Her approach was to take the tales of Hans Christian Andersen and apply them to the workplace. She uses six of HCA's stories and I think that is the problem. In each section, you get a summary, a HCA trivia fact, the classic tale, and then a section on how it applies to work. I didn't find the summary much different from the actual story. It made it hard to get into the business application and read the lessons I should have learned for a third time. There is just not enough there for me. I'd say skip this one.

Seth Godin on BBBT #9

I posted this at A Penny For... and I wanted to make sure you all saw it too...

The next Business Blog Book Tour will take place May 23rd - May 27th.

We will again have Seth Godin joining us. He will be taking about his new book All Marketers Are Liars.

In the meantime, check out his book blog and check out the schedule here.

Paying for College

This is one of those items that has been sitting on my desk for a couple of weeks. A few weeks ago, the topic of the Journal Report in the WSJ was How to Save for College. Don Taylor, an associate professor at The American College, put together a list of books and documents "for helping parents plan for the high cost of higher education."

• "The Best Way to Save for College A Complete Guide to 529 Plans 2005 Edition," By Joseph F. Hurley, CPA 2005
• "Bogle on Mutual Funds" By John C. Bogle, Dell 1994
• "J.K. Lasser's Winning Ways to Save for College," By Barbara Wagner, Wiley 2002
• "The Standard & Poor's Guide to Saving and Investing for College," By David J. Braverman, McGraw-Hill 2003
• "Savings Bonds for Education," on the Bureau of Public Debt's Web site.
• "IRS Publication 970 (2004), Tax Benefits for Education"
• "Just Give Me the Answer$: Expert Advisors Address Your Most Pressing Financial Questions," By Sheryl Garrett, Marie Swift, Dearborn Trade 2004
• The Princeton Review's, "Paying for College Without Going Broke," By Kalman A. Chany with Geoff Martz, Random House 2004
• "The Everything Paying for College Book," By Nathan Brown & Sheryle A. Proper, Adams 2005

The Rundown on Winning

With this being the opening weekend for Winning, much has been written.

The consensus seems to be "Yeah, it's worth reading."

• BusinessWeek - Welch Has More to Say. Really.
• Fortune - Jack Welch: 'It's All In the Sauce" (Book Excerpt, sub. needed)
• Newsweek - Jack on Jack: His Next Chapter
• Newsweek - How To Be A Good Leader (Book Excerpt)
• Newsweek - Q&A between Welch and NEWSWEEK's Daniel McGinn
• Newsweek - Jack Welch on Hiring, Inspiring
• Newsweek - Jack Welch on Work and Family

Let me also point you to the audio excerpt on the Podcasts blog. The excerpt is about Six Sigma.

Lost Comments

Like most blogs, we are fighting comment spam on a daily basis. We got over 3000 pieces this weekend. As we try to filter through the good and bad, we sometimes delete the good by mistake. I think we (e.g. Jack) got rid of some good comments this morning.

We want to apologize. It is not intentional. We will try harder.

-Management

The World is Flat

Tom Friedman, who has won three Pulitzer Prizes, has written what he calls "A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. It is not only about globalization but it is about how we got here. I am 100 pages into it and truly can’t put it down. I have called Todd to read him paragraphs. Now I want to share a paragraph with all of you.
Talking about open source—which I have always wondered about, being a non geek—and how it is a challenge for Microsoft. He says:

"Why would so many people be ready to write software that would be given away for free? Partly it is out of the purely scientific challenge, which should never be underestimated. Partly it is because they all hate Microsoft for the way it has dominated the market and, in the view of many techies, bullied everyone else. Partly it is because they believe that open-source software can be kept more fresh and bugfree than any commercial software, because of the way it is constantly updated by an army of unpaid programmers. And partly it is because some big tech companies are paying engineers to work on Linux and other software, hoping it will cut into Microsoft’s market share and make it a weaker competitor all around. There are a lot of motives at work here, and not all of them altruistic. When you pet them all together, though, they make for a very powerful movement that will continue to present a major challenge to the whole commercial software model of buying a program and then downloading its fixes and buying its updates."

The Sad State of Business Books

There is a piece in the Financial Times today about how business books are not what they use to be. Jack is quoted at the start and the end the article. Writer Simon London quotes lots of people from the industry.

It is worth a look.