800-CEO-READ Blog

Business Blog Book Tour Heads For Finish Line

We have had a great week on the Business Blog Book Tour with Darren Rovell.

I wanted to catch you up on the stops from the second half of the week. On Wednesday, we were at The Marketing Playbook. My favorite bit was assessing Gatorade through the MP framework:

Darren Rovell: In some ways this is a hard play to call. Internally, one of the things I admire is how much the Gatorade team acts like they are always in a life or death dragrace. They worry all the time about Powerade. They see them as the enemy and always want to make sure they are ahead. At the same time how can you really be in a dragrace when you have nearly "illegal" market share?

So in another way, they are acting like they are in a platform play, rising above the noise and continuing to grow the overall sports drink category.

Finally, at the same time, you could say they began by executing on a stealth strategy, focusing on an underserved, un-noticed subsegment of the market - non carbonated sports drinks and staying way under Coke's and others' radar for some time. Until now where the whole category of alternative, non carbonated beverages is a huge growth category of it's own - vitamin waters, bottled teas, and yeah, the giant business of bottled water. And yet somehow amidst all this Gatorade keeps growing.

Yesterday, we were at Slacker Manager. Bren goes through the very practical things like asking Darren what his favorite flavor is (just kidding). It is a great piece from another viewpoint.

Finally today we are The Personal MBA. I know it isn't technically a blog, but I thought it was be a great place to be talking about the book. They are already talking this morning about the book on their discussion boards.

Finally, I want to thank Darren for spending time with everybody this week. You can keep up with the Gatorade story at Darren's Gatorade Blog.

How is Moral Intelligence connected to business performance and successful leadership?

We conducted multiple interviews with myriad of business leaders from a variety of both large and small domestic and international companies. We also tapped into a variety of studies and research conducted by institutions like DePaul University, and our conclusion is there is a direct connection between moral intelligence and business performance.

At DePaul researchers from the School of Accountancy and MIS compared the financial performance of 100 companies selected by "Business Ethics" magazine as "Best Corporate Citizens" with the performance of the rest of the S&P 500. Corporate citizenship rankings were based on quantitative measures of corporate service to seven stakeholder groups: stockholders, employees, customers, the community, the environment, overseas stakeholders, and women and minorities. The study found that overall financial performance of the 2001 Best Corporate Citizen companies was significanty better than the rest of the S&P 500. The average performance of the Best Citizens, as measured by the 2001 "Business Week" rankings of total financial performance, was more than 10 percentile points higher than the mean rankings of the rest of the S&P 500.

Is there a difference between moral intelligence and emotional intelligence?

There is a difference between moral intelligence and emotional intelligence. Moral intelligence involes the mental capacity to determine how to apply universal moral principles--like integrity, responsibility, compassion and forgiveness--to our personal values, goals and actions. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is about decision making and performance in the presence of competing emotions.

Although both emotional intelligence and moral intelligence come into play when moral decisions are at stake, they are not the same. Emotional intelligence is values free. Moral intelligence is not. Emotional skills can be applied for good or evil. Moral skills, by definition, are directed toward doing good.

Emotional intelligence and moral intelligence, though distinct, are partners. Neither works in a truly effective way without the other.

Is Capitalism Basically an Immoral and Selfish System?

Do you think capitalism is an immoral and Selfish System? Tell us what you think...and check out the following byline that appeared in the Business Forum Section of the Star Tribune on July 4th to read our thoughts.

By Fred Kiel, Ph.D. & Doug Lennick

Authors of Moral Intelligence: Enhancing Business Performance and Leadership Success, Wharton School Publishing, 2005

Recent disgust with the excesses and betrayal of trust in American corporations tempts us to condemn capitalism. Don’t blame capitalism. And don’t think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. The other major system for organizing economic life tried in the last one hundred years was a disaster.

Capitalism is by far the best economic system ever invented and holds great promise for our collective future. But in recent years, something has been missing from our understanding of capitalism. The underlying beliefs about our free market capitalistic system are usually attributed to the Scottish economist and philosopher, Adam Smith. In his classic, "The Wealth of Nations," (1776) he claimedHe wrote a book in 1776 entitled The Wealth of Nations in which he claimed that the free market system is the best way to obtain the greatest good. Adam Smith believed that when people act in their economic self-interest, it amounts to an "invisible hand" that creates good for all. So, let’s focus exclusively on satisfying our own needs and everybody wins, right? Well, that’s not quite what he said.

What is usually not mentioned when Adam Smith’s ideas are discussed, is that he was actually better known as a philosopher who wrote a best seller called The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In it he stated that we are all born with a “moral sense” – that is, he believed humans are innately equipped with consciences. Because of this assumption he thought that the “invisible hand” of economic self-interest would be governed by the people’s’ moral sense. Economic self-interest, yes, but in the context of what’s good for all. Adam Smith did not envision the “invisible hand” as a competitive, cut-throat economic system where you take and grab what you can for your own personal gain and do your best to destroy your competitors. Instead, he envisioned it as a people working competitively and productively for individual gain and cooperatively for the overall good of society.

We think he got it right. Basically, this is what has happened in the past two hundred years. By all measures, a significant number of people on the face of the earth have experienced unprecedented prosperity, living much better today than royalty lived two hundred years ago. We all know that we have a long way to go before all of humanity has even the basics, but it was a lot worse two or three hundred years ago.

Capitalism’s success all hinges on people trusting the system – trusting that when I engage in commerce with you, that you will not screw me! Adam Smith probably didn’t use those words, but his underlying assumption was that we are all moral individuals and we will operate our market by playing within the rules. And the rules were moral rules. Keep your word. Be responsible for your actions. Tell the truth. Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.

Daily news accounts detail the numerous ways in which business executives have not played by those rules. A new set of rules seems to have crept into the system. The common assumption seems to be, “Yeah, being highly ethical and moral in business is the right thing to do, but it’s naïve to think that this is the way the world works. Sometimes you just have to do things to survive. Playing hardball means you have to bend the rules.”

This kind of thinking is bad business. The cost of moral stupidity is reported daily. Marsh McLennan, the world’s largest insurance broker, paid $850M in fines for cheating customers and three of its executives have pleaded guilty to bid-rigging. Andrew and Lea Fastow, both senior executives at Enron are now either in jail or heading there for the massive fraud that led to the Enron disaster. (Actually, they’re taking turns so their kiddies don’t have to be taken care of by nannies all the time.) Why don’t ghetto kids don’t get this kind of consideration?)

The Arthur Anderson accounting firm no longer exists – another casualty of Enron. And then there’s the mutual fund industry. Strong, Putnam and Janus and several others are struggling to recover from their after-hours trading sins. And who can forget Worldcom, HealthSouth, Tyco, and Boeing? Boeing fired two CEO’s and two other former executives are serving jail terms for contracting scandals. The list is long and getting longer..

Playing by these “new” but morally bereft rules has cost billions of dollars for shareholders, lost jobs and retirement funds for employees, and lost commerce for the merchants and others who did business with the firms which have failed. But these criminals have done great damage to the most precious commodity of all – trust in the system. Investor confidence is a fragile commodity and must be carefully nurtured. Sarbanes-Oxley solutions and other earlier reforms and regulations are one reaction. But legal solutions will never address the core issue: the quality of the moral sense of the individual capitalist.

It is time to deliberately train business leaders to think in this way before their worldviews are “baked in”. The most important skills for our collective well-being are moral competencies—honesty, responsibility, compassion and forgiveness and an underlying worldview that guides these human actions. All cultures around the world agree that these are universal virtues – and we certainly believe that they can be taught to our young. But it takes more than a family to teach these beliefs – it takes a global village!

Business schools should sit up and take notice. This is their job – but it also the job of each employer. Business and organizational life is becoming the most powerful social force on the planet today. More powerful than governments, family, and yes, even churches. Because of this fact, employers are becoming de facto moral educators, shaping the moral practices of their employees. As a capitalist and business leader, it is your responsibility to step up to the task and invest in the maintaining the system by teaching the next generation the moral competencies and beliefs needed to insure that capitalism continues to bring prosperity to humans around the world. Silence on this subject simply serves to reinforce the status quo.

No, capitalism is not basically an immoral and selfish system. It is, has been and can continue to be a wonderful economic system which that provides great benefits for the individual and for the common good. All we need to do is live by the rules!

And, what are those rules? Adam Smith told us: Tell the truth. Keep your promises. Be responsible for your actions. Treat others as you would like to be treated – with compassion and forgiveness.

Another CEO bites the dust...

Another CEO bites the dust. Hank Greenberg has been a CEO of the world’s largest insurer for more years than many readers of this piece have been alive. His business results have been impressive, if not unmatched. So, why is he being canned?

Check out the full article as it appeared in the July 2005 issue of Business Journal.

Does it Matter What CEO’s Believe?

By Fred Kiel, Ph.D. & Doug Lennick

Authors of Moral Intelligence: Enhancing Business Performance and Leadership Success, Wharton School Publishing, 2005

Another CEO bites the dust. Hank Greenberg has been a CEO of the world’s largest insurer for more years than many readers of this piece have been alive. His business results have been impressive, if not unmatched. So, why is he being canned? Well, the directors apparently are worried that he has become a liability and the Department of Justice seems to think he might be a crook – it is investigating whether or not to bring criminal charges against him for having inflated AIG’s financial figures. That’s called lying by most ordinary people.

How can we explain the behavior of people who have contributed so much but yet flame out like this? It’s as if one element of their “winning formula” was a clinker – or more precisely, a time bomb waiting to go off and erase the otherwise impressive history of winning.

Our research suggests to us that a leader’s behavior is the expression of a set of underlying beliefs and that all behavior is aligned with a corresponding belief. We believe that this part of an individual’s “moral compass” and it contains a relatively short list of beliefs about human nature, the world and how to best influence people—one’s “worldview.” These beliefs inform one’s decision making and drive behavior.

So, what was the clinker for Hank? Does he believe in his heart of hearts that it’s okay to cheat if you don’t get caught? Or a slightly more socially acceptable version – “Everyone has to bend the rules from time to time in this competitive global market. The good guys come in last?”

What are the core beliefs that drive moral behavior? Does it really matter what CEO’s believe? We believe it matters a great deal. And we think that there is a “right” view on this matter – even though it has yet to be proven with research. These are empirical questions that beg to be answered.

Some interesting research along these lines has begun. Kotter and Heskett in their 1992 book, Corporate Culture and Performance, discovered that revenue, stock prices and net income were found to be far greater for those companies who were led by leaders who created “adaptive cultures” and strove to live in alignment with a specific value system.

More recent research reported by Collins in his book, Good to Great, also lends support to this idea. He found that all good-to-great executives were similar in important ways. He calls them “Level 5 leaders” and notes that they are driven to produce results but in a morally intelligent way.

No one to date, however, has isolated the contents of what Collins calls a “black box” or identified all the elements in our “winning formula” metaphor. These basic questions remain to be answered: What are the beliefs of these amazing leaders – their core convictions and worldview? What do they believe about human nature? What do they believe about themselves? Why are they so driven to achieve sustained business results by following universal rules of human conduct instead of bending the rules?

Answering these questions might be the most important research that can be done. After all, no amount of new rules about compliance or newer versions of the Sarbanes-Oxley bill will accomplish what we need. Simply staying within legal boundaries is not enough. Instead, we need to develop self-monitoring moral individuals who then go on to create virtuous circles and become moral educators in their own right. For better or worse, CEO’s teach us all by their behavior.

Moral Intelligence and the Costs of its Absence

Are you curious about the cost of the absence of moral intelligence? If so, check out our extended entry...an article published in a recent issue of Minnesota Business Magazine.

By Doug Lennick & Fred Kiel, Ph.D.

Authors of Moral Intelligence: Enhancing Business Performance and Leadership Success, Wharton School Publishing, 2005

If you are anything like us, you have probably been unable to calculate a “return on investment” for the presence of moral values in your workplace. That said, if you’ve been reading any newspapers the last few years, you’ve probably noticed not having moral values at work can be very expensive.

We don’t need to name names of either executives or their companies. You know the names, and you know the stories. And it is clear. The business costs (not to mention the human, family and societal costs) associated with moral incompetence are indeed high. In fact, earlier this millennium domestically traded stocks of both “good” and “bad” companies took a huge hit. Market capitalization was hammered by the tune of more than one trillion dollars!

Numbers like that certainly catch one’s attention…and they beg some questions:
•Is there such a thing as moral intelligence? If so, what is it?
•Can moral intelligence be developed? If so, how?

First, and importantly, moral intelligence does exist, and it differs from our cognitive, technical and emotional intelligences. Moral intelligence is our mental capacity to determine how universal human principles (yes there are universal human principles that cut across the globe and are not gender, ethnic, cultural or religious specific) should be applied to our personal values, goals, and actions.

Time and space for this article do not permit going into much detail, but suffice to say we are born to be moral. We are actually provided moral hardwiring at birth (nature). Of course, we are also hardwired at birth to be lingual. Although we are not born speaking and we are not born moral, we are born to speak and we are born to be moral. That’s where our environment (nurture) comes into the picture.

Our moral intelligence is nurtured in the early years by our family and/or caregivers, and later in life the workplace itself serves as a place where our moral intelligence comes into play. We have learned sustainable personal and organizational success requires moral competence, which is the active application of our moral intelligence.

Our moral competence can indeed be enhanced throughout life. Competence shows up in behaviors. And when it comes to moral behaviors in the workplace, organizations can and must create environments within which the following principles of moral intelligence come to life: integrity, responsibility, compassion and forgiveness.

Absent integrity, the hallmark of a morally intelligent person or organization, and the competencies to tell the truth and stand up for what is right and keep promises and align actions with goals and behaviors, organizations will either implode or explode.

Absent responsibility and compassion and the associated competencies to actively care about others, to embrace serving others, to be accountable for personal choices and to be able to admit mistakes, workforce morale will erode and best efforts will not be put forth. Ultimately, customers are served less well and the shareholders experience less than desired returns.

Absent forgiveness, which is about letting go of mistakes (one’s own or those of others), innovation and creativity will suffer. And we all know businesses will not last if they cannot reinvent themselves over time.

Indeed, the business case for the importance of moral intelligence has been made by understanding the cost of its absence. As time goes by someone will calculate the ROI, but in the meantime it’s incumbent on each of us to act on what we know to be true about the importance of moral intelligence in our workplace.

Moral Intelligence -- The Key to Enhancing Business Performance and Leadership Success

Strong moral principles and business success are powerfully correlated with each other. Two globally respected leaders introduce the tools for business leaders and organizations to harness the power of moral intelligence and enhance business performance.

Backed by extensive research, Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel, Ph.D., have tapped into the power of moral intelligence — an individual’s mental capacity to determine how universal principals are applied to personal values, goals, and actions. The concept focuses on four principals that are vital for sustained personal and organizational success: integrity, responsibility, compassion, and forgiveness.

“The business advantages of moral intelligence may be hard to quantify, but the business costs of moral ignorance are undeniable,” said Lennick. “We’ve all seen more than enough images of corporate executives being carted off in handcuffs. Moral intelligence is a leader’s secret weapon for lasting personal and organizational performance.”

Lennick and Kiel invested more than 10 years of concentrated research to refine the concept of moral intelligence as it relates to business success. In their new book, Moral Intelligence — Enhancing Business Performance and Leadership Success, Wharton School Publishing, Lennick and Kiel demonstrate how the best performing companies are guided by leaders with both a strong moral compass and the ability to follow it. In the book, Lennick and Kiel provide realistic guidance on being a moral leader in both large organizations and entrepreneurial ventures: guidance reflecting decades of executive coaching with high level leaders.

"Moral intelligence is the foundation of moral authority, which alone enables leaders to work and be sustainable over time,” said Dr. Stephen R. Covey, Author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. “Building universal principle-centered values into our lives and cultures is critical.”
Moral intelligence is an outgrowth of “living in alignment,” the interconnection of an individual’s moral compass (basic moral principles, personal values, and beliefs); their goals; and their behavior, including inward thoughts, emotions, and external actions. Living in alignment means an individual’s behavior is consistent with their goals and that their goals are consistent with their moral compass. Living in alignment is not accidental. It requires understanding and building on each component while maintaining alignment among all components.

Facilitating the individual exploration of moral intelligence, Lennick and Kiel are introducing moralcompass.com, an innovative Web site that features the Moral Competency Inventory (MCI): an indispensable metric to assess where an individual and an organization stand right now with regards to moral intelligence. The MCI featured on the Web site enables people to understand and capitalize on their moral strengths while addressing the moral skills that are most challenging to them in order to achieve personal and business success.

“Common values, based in the universal principles, can knit together a diverse global workforce,” said Kiel. “In an era marked by international conflict, we believe it will be in the world of business, rather than in the political arena, that people from different ethnic, racial, and religious heritages will discover their common path. Moral intelligence is the key to that path.”

About the Authors:
Doug Lennick led 14,000 financial professionals and support teams at American Express Financial Advisors to unparalled success. Today, in addition to his work as managing partner at the Lennick Aberman Group, specializing in business performance enhancement, he continues working directly with American Express’ CEO, retaining the title of EVP and focusing on workforce culture and performance. He is known worldwide for his expertise in driving business results by improving managers’ emotional competence.

Fred Kiel, Ph.D., co-founder of KRW International, Inc., a premier leadership development firm, dedicated to helping senior leaders achieve self-mastery to deliver extraordinary results for their organizations and the world, brings more than 30 years of experience to his work with Fortune 500 executives on building organizational effectiveness through leadership excellence and aligning organizations with mission. Kiel is often called the “father of executive coaching” for his pioneering work in this field. Before founding KRW, Kiel worked with senior executives in private practice, developing a rigorous data-gathering and customized development process designed to provide executives with transformative feedback. Over the past decade, he has coached individuals who have become CEOs of large, complex businesses, all of which have multi-billion-dollar top lines.

What is Moral Intelligence?

Moral Intelligence is the mental capacity to determine how to apply universal moral principles--such as integrity, responsibility, compassion and forgiveness--to our personal values, goals and actions.

Moral Competence is the ability to act on our moral principles.

In other words, Moral Intelligence is knowing right from wrong. Moral Competence is doing what's right. Unfortunately, because of the fallibility of human nature, it is highly likely most of us have been both morally intelligent and morally incompetent at the same time. What's vital for sustainable organizational and personal success, however, is a directional commitment to our moral principles, what we call our moral compass. Visit our book's companion website at www.moralcompass.com.

How do you harness the Power of Moral Intelligence

How are moral principles related to business performance and successful leadership? Two globally respected leaders, Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel, have spent 10 years researching the connection and have discovered the best performing companies are guided by leaders with both a strong moral compass and the ability to follow it.

The business advantages of moral intelligence may be hard to quantify, but the costs of moral ignorance are undeniable. We've all seen more than enough images of corporate executives being carted off in handcuffs. Moral intelligence is a leader's secret weapon for lasting personal and organizational performance.

MUST READ: Then We Set His Hair On Fire

I only do this once a season.

If you pick up one book this fall, it should be Then We Set His Hair On Fire. I raved about it earlier this month, and still haven't found anything else that caught my attention like this book. It reminds us of Who Says Elephants Can't Dance by Lou Gerstner. Spending a career at BBDO, Phil Dusenberry has spent time with all the big brands. He knows the brand stories behind GE, FedEx, and Pepsi. He talks about the power of finding great insights about your company and its products. On top of it all, it has been written in a wonderful narrative.

Here are the 8cr favorites from the book:

• Jack
• Tom
• Todd

Here are some others who have had something to say about the book:

• USA Today - Grab a refreshing glimpse of how advertising works
• Fortune - He Brought Good Ads to Life
• Wall Street Journal - The View from Madison Avenue

Day Two of the BBBT

Today, Darren is visiting with John at Brand Autopsy. Check out the audio interview.

New Releases - (9/26/05)

Here are some of the new releases for this week:

• The Winning Spirit: Sixteen Timeless Principles That Drive Performance Excellence by Joe Montana, Bruce Henderson, and Tom Mitchell
• Perfect Phrases for Business Proposals And Business Plans: Hundreds of Ready-to-use Phrases for Winning New Clients, Launching New Products, And Getting the Funding You Need by Don Debelak
• Integrity Service: Treat Your Customers Right, Watch Your Business Grow by Ron Willingham

Business Blog Book Tour #10 - First in Thirst

I didn't create a lot of fanfare ahead of this, but this week were are running the 10th Business Blog Book Tour. I am tickled that Darren Rovell, author of First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon, is joining us this week. Darren is a reporter for ESPN.com and has written an interesting history of the first sport drink.

Today he is visiting with Andrea Learned. Here is the rest of the schedule:

September 27th - Brand Autopsy
September 28th - Marketing Playbook
September 28th - Slacker Manager
September 29th - Personal MBA

To the Gray Beards: Don't Retire, Rewire!

Today, in the The Wall Street Journal's "Recommended Reading", a book on the art of "flunking retirement" was featured. As described by The Wall Street Journal, the book, Don't Retire, Rewire! 5 Steps to Fulfilling Work That Fuels Your Passion, Suits Your Personality, or Fills Your Pocket is:

"Lively and upbeat in tone, this book promotes 'flunking retirement' and offers a practical and fun self-discovery process that will help boomers reimagine and design fulfilling work."

The Journal also recommended
Support your RV Lifestyle: An Insider's Guide to Working on the Road

The Best Home Businesses for People 50+

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

Don't Stop the Career Clock: Rejecting the Myths of Aging for a New Way to Work in the 21st Century

This Week - 9/26/05

Kate and Jack have been minding the store for the last two weeks, as I spent some time at home helping adjust to the new addition to the family. It is good to be back.

We are really getting into the full swing of the fall season. We'll point you to some more titles this week.

On the Excerpt Blog, we will be running a piece from Steve Cone's Steal These Ideas.

We will also have Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel, authors of Moral Intelligence, guest hosting the blog on Thursday.

To round things out, I will also see if I can find something for the Audio Blog.

Have a great week!

The Search

It is very seldom that a book comes out with as much buzz as this book currently has. The book is called The Search. But what is neat is the buzz seems legit. First you have to consider the author's pedigree. Founder of The Industry Standard and co-founding editor of Wired are impressive. Then the book is a finalist for the FT/GS business book award and the reviews are off the charts. So I sat down with it.

This is from the first chapter:

Implications
What do Japanese teenagers think is cool this week? What pop star is selling, and who is falling off the charts? Which politician is popular in Iowa, or New Hampshire, or California, and why? Where do suburban moms get their answers about cancer?...

So what does the emergence of such an artifact augur? What effect might it have on the multibillion-dollar marketing and media industries? Why have the governments of China, Germany, and France threatened to ban search engines like Yahoo or Google, and why might our own national security hinge on plumbing the depths of their databases?...

The answers to these questions are not simple. But I hope to at least address them as I tell the story of search in the pages that follow. Search straddles an increasing complicated territory of marketing, media, technology, pop culture, international law, and civil liberties. Etched into the silicon of Google’s more than 150,000 servers, more likely than not, are the agonized clickstreams of a gay man with AIDS, the silent intentions of a would-be bombmaker, the digital bread crumbs of a serial killer. Through companies like Google and the results they serve, an individual’s digital identity in immortalized and can be retrieved upon demand. For now, Google cofounder Sergey Brin has assured me, such demands are neither made nor met. But in the face of such power, how long can that stand?

I look forward to continuing this book.

Hang Out With Freaks and other Tom Peters' TIBs

Need a new coffee table book? This may be for you. Tom Peters' new book, Sixty, is large and in charge. It's full-color and filled with witty and memorable messages. One example,

Innovation = Easy. (True.)
(Message: Hang out with Freaks!)

About the book's background:
When Tom Peters turned 60, he reflected upon his life and compiled a list of 60 things he believed (TIB = "This I Believe"). Sixty is the full-color compilation of these 60 TIBS available only at the WOW!Store for a limited time. Check out Tom Peters' blog for more about the book.

An afternoon quote from Sixty:

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. --Michaelangelo

I enjoyed it so much that I may just borrow Jack's copy for my coffee table.

Great Read

Highly recommended: Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Lee Standiford. This compelling history of the acrimonious relationship between two of the men who created the modern steel industry casts a novelist’s eye on a great story. Standiford, who has written ten novels, uses the Homestead steel strike of 1892 as the central event to illustrate the conflicts of capitalism. In this famous battle, the Carnegie Steel laborers, facing the breaking of their union and the smackdown of their wages, battled a crew of 300 Pinkerton agents shipped in by Frick as muscle. More than 30 people died in the battle.

The company triumphed over the workers in this instance, busting the union and proceeding to enjoy massive productivity and profit gains over the next decade (without listing the wages of the laborer in step). Carnegie went on to become one of the world’s wealthiest men, a philanthropist who endowed more than 3,000 libraries, foundations, and so forth. Standiford does a terrific job showing that his late-life largesse was made possible only through a ruthless approach towards seeing labor as a fixed cost that should always be reduced—an approach executed by the brilliant Frick, who went on to amass his own superfortune. For those interested in a smart, textured, history of a key time in American industry, this book will delight.

Out of the Box Marketing

One of the first things I look at in a new book is the Intro or the Forward. A January 2006 book called Out of the Box Marketing has a great story about looking around before throwing money at a project.

Check this out:

American astronauts upon first going into space soon discovered that their pens didn’t work in zero gravity. So NASA embarked upon a program to invent a writing instrument that would work in outer space. After spending millions of dollars and burning thousands of man hours on research and engineering, they finally developed a "pump pen" that could write anything, anywhere, at any angle.

Meanwhile, in the secret laboratories behind the Iron Curtain, Soviet Union scientists casually took note of the researches of their American counterparts. They spent almost no time and no money solving this problematic dilemma. They already had the answer, their cosmonauts used…pencils.

I have only seen this part of the book but can tell you that I look forward to seeing more.

Craigslist's Book Recommendations for Start-Ups

To continue this week's business book recommendations, here are a few suggestions from Craig Newmark, founder and chairman of craisglist Inc., featured in Monday's Wall Street Journal. Check out the detailed list here.

• Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond
• Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In
  by Roger Fisher and William Ury
• We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People
  by Dan Gillmor
• Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs
  by Leonard Cohen
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
  by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
• The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Front
  by Bruce Sterling
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
  by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
  by Lawrence Lessig
• The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad
  by Fareed Zakaria
• Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror
  by Richard A. Clarke




Posted by Kate at 4:12 PM | Comments (0)

FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book Award Finalists

This morning, they announced the finalists for The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of The Year Award.

The finalists are:

• The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote The Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture by John Battelle (Portfolio)
• The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Globalized World in the 21st Century by Thomas Friedman (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (William Morrow)
• Fast Second: How Smart Companies Bypass Radical Innovation to Enter and Dominate New Markets by Constantinos Markides and Paul Geroski (Jossey Bass)
• The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Econonmist Examines the Markets, Power and Politics of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli (Wiley)
• DisneyWar: Battle for the Magic Kingdom by James Stewart (Simon & Schuster)

Each finalist receives £5000 (~$9000) and the winner will receive £30000 (~$54,000). The overall winner will be announced Monday, November 21st.

Stay Tuned....

What's Happening This Week in Business Books

It's the start of another great week. Here's the inside scoop of what's going on in business books this week.

Have you ever heard of the store Trader Joe's? If not, it's a grocery store phenomenon not to be missed. Earlier this month, the new book about Trader Joe's Adventure became available to Trader Joe enthusiasts everywhere. Today, we posted excerpts from The Trader Joe's Adventure. Check it out here.

Searching for some new business book reads? Here is a list of business books due out this week:

• The Leadership Game: Seven Winning Principles from Eight National Champions due out Tuesday, September 20 *Learn the skills needed to create a successful team from some of the best football coaches in the nation including Osborne, McCartney, Stallings, Fulmer, Stoops, Bowden, Coker, and Spurrier.
• Instinct: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial DNA to Achieve Your Business Goals due out Thursday, September 22
  *This book was a Jack Covert Selects for September. Instinct reviews the age-old question of to what extent your DNA influences your success.
  
• Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery due out Friday, September 23
  *Beer School details the story of the Brooklyn Brewery. It's a story for the aspiring entrepreneur and beer lover, alike.

Enjoy your week!




Posted by Kate at 4:09 PM | Comments (0)

FT Financial Editor Andrew Hill on New Biz Book Award from FT/Goldman Sachs

Tomorrow the finalists of the first annual Goldman Sachs Financial Times business book of the year award will be announced, with the winner to be made known to the world on November 21 in what is promised to be a "gala ceremony." FT Financial Times financial editor Andrew Hill recently took some of his time to answer a few questions from us about the contest.

Q: Can you share a few details on the contest itself, such as how many entries you1ve received for this award, as well as any other important bits?

A: The contest attracted a great deal of interest--as the only one of its kind in the world and with a first prize of £30,000 that was probably inevitable--but of course the 150 or so titles that were submitted by publishers represented only a fraction of the eligible titles published in the 12 months since last October. My colleagues and I worked hard to make sure that the confidential long list of books that were considered by the judges included works from across the spectrum of business books. The aim of the prize is to find "the most compelling and enjoyable book on business issues", and that overall criterion was intentionally broad. In the end, we selected 17 books for the long list--from hard-bitten investigative journalism about recent corporate scandals to lofty analyses of globalisation, as well as a few books on management strategy. In some cases, the judges had to "call in" books that had not been formally submitted but seemed to be worth reviewing. I was surprised that some obvious candidates were not submitted--and that some titles that would probably never have met the criteria found their way into our in-tray. Once the industry hears the buzz created by the inaugural award, I think publishers will pursue a much more targeted approach in 2006.

Q: In the States today business books don't get much "respek," to quote Ali G. The number of publications that reviews business books is in steep decline (and even some business weeklies prefer to review non-business titles), smart writers like Barbara Ehrenreich bash the genre in the pages of the New York Times, and you would be hard-pressed to find many booksellers "hand-selling" the new Jim Collins. So what gives? Should the genre get more respect? Do few titles set the bar high enough? Will people start to confuse this new award with the Booker?

A: One of the aims of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book Award is to encourage authors and publishers to sharpen their act. I don't think we will ever have difficulty finding 20 or 30 titles for a long list of the best business books, but it would be great to have 100 to choose from. Most of us are "in business" in one form or another and all of us are affected by the successes and failures of business, finance and industry, so it surprises me that the genre is losing ground. I was interested to see in a recent browse through American and British book stores that our shortlisted titles were found in more than one "genre" (from current affairs, to economics and even politics), so perhaps the tag "business book" is doing a disservice to some very powerful works that have a broader importance.

As for confusion with the Man Booker prize--that seems unlikely. We are global and the original Man Booker seeks the best works from the UK, Commonwealth and Ireland; we are after the best business books, broadly defined, they are looking for fiction. That said, I was a little disappointed that publishers didn't submit any strong business novels this year. After all, we are looking for the most compelling and ENJOYABLE title about business--who's to say that in some years (Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full springs to mind), a work of fiction couldn't make the shortlist?

Q: Part of the basis for the past question is a belief that business books have indeed gotten better over the past 5-10 years--that there is a greater selection of books, that the good ones are of higher quality, and that many ambitious books strive to do more than simply provide a list of tips and tools. They help you, to paraphrase Jack Covert, to see the world differently. Would you agree or disagree with this, and why? And if so, how does this tie into the launch of the contest?

A: I think you're right that business books have got better in the past decade. But they also seem to have multiplied and, at the fringes, there are some very poor books. My colleague Mike Skapinker has described them as books by "get-rich-quick tipsters, motivational preachers and one-minute-solution merchants". Alas, busy people such as the FT's readers and Goldman Sachs' clients, don't have much time to filter out the poor ones. As a result they may end up rejecting the whole genre. This prize aims to help do the filtering for them.

Q: The award is designed to recognize books "that quickly become a must read for anyone who’s serious about business." What are some classic business books that would fall into this category? And what makes a business book a "must-read"?

A: A personal selection would include Roger Lowenstein's When Genius Failed, on the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund, and, more recently, Jim Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds, although it is perhaps too soon to call either a classic. Liar's Poker, though flawed, remains a fantastic read. Some of the benchmarks cited by the judges as they were assessing the long list included The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, Jim Collins' Good to Great and Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma. We're running a discussion at www.ft.com/bookaward in which readers are invited to suggest their favorite business book of all time--it's throwing up some interesting suggestions.

Q: What are your hopes for this award? The reward is certainly rich, and will motivate authors to compete. Do you believe it will raise awareness of business books and ideas in general?

A: As outlined above, we're hoping it will motivate authors to raise their game. I think the publicity around the award will also encourage book stores to push the worthy finalists' books a little more aggressively--if that means that people who would normally shun a "business book" take a second look, then it can only be good news for us and for everyone involved in that area of publishing.

Gordon MacKenzie: Where Have All the Geniuses Gone?

A regular on the bookshelf next to my desk, is Gordon MacKenzie's Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace. While I admit that I have yet to read the entire book (I'm about 3/4 of the way done), I keep going over the beginning.

Today, I have returned to one part several times. It's a page that starts with Gordon questioning, "Where Have All the Geniuses Gone?"

Each one of us has at least one "genius" side to us. These sides come in a variety of forms. Yet, we rarely let them show.

As Gordon believes,

From cradle to grave, the pressure is on: Be nORMal.

Those who somehow side-step that pressure and let their genius show are customarily ridiculed, reviled or otherwise discountenanced.

Gordon goes on to ask where is your genius?

Having trouble with the idea of your own genius? My guess is that there was a time--perhaps when you were very young--when you had at least a fleeting notion of your own genius and were just waiting for some authority figure to come along and validate it for you.

But none ever came.

Of course not. It is not the business of authority figures to validate genius, because genius threatens authority.

But there is still hope. You are an adult now. As an adult, you can choose to become your own authority figure. As such, you will be in a position to redeem the creative genius in you that was put to sleep when the Fool was being tamed.

The next time you question your genius, try a little Gordon MacKenzie advice.

Side note: my favorite part of this book is that there was actually someone hired to do "graffiti" in the book!

For the Marketing Book Fanatic in You...

Each year, dozens of marketing books are published, making it slightly difficult to choose which books to read. To help you sort through the piles of books, Jack recently summarized the top Marketing Books of 2005 in an article for MarketingProfs.com.

For your marketing reading enjoyment, here is the article, Three (Plus One) of the Best Marketing Books of 2005: Start Reading Here.

New Book Excerpts!

Yesterday, I started posting excerpts from Rick Mathieson's recently published book Branding Unbound. The excerpts are from Mathieson's question and answer sessions with several leading business people.

Here is the line-up for the week:

Wednesday's Q&A: Mathieson interviews Don Peppers
Author of Entreprise One to One and Return on Customer

Today's Q&A: Mathieson interviews Christopher Locke
Co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and author of Gonzo Marketing

Tomorrow is a double-header with two great interviews:

1. Mathieson interviews Seth Godin
   Author of Purple Cow, Free Prize Inside! and many more


2. Mathieson interviews Tom Peters
   Author of Re-Imagine, The Pursuit of Wow! and many more

Finally, Friday's line-up includes:

Mathieson interviews Howard Rheingold
Author of Smart Mobs and The Virtual Community

Enjoy!

I've Seen a Lot of Famous People Naked-- by Jake Steinfeld

Jake Steinfeld, of Body by Jake fame, has a new book out - I've Seen a Lot of Famous People Naked, and They've Got Nothing On You. It is a book about success, motivation, and entrepreneurship.

There are a couple of cool things he is doing to promote the book. First, Jake has an audioblog. He is using Audioblog.com and leaves one to three minute audio pieces. I think it is a great use of the technology and allows Jake's fans to get a dose of him every day.

The second thing is a little bigger. Today, Jake was on Fox & Friends (that is what started this whole post) and he announced the Live Your Dream Contest to go with the book. He is going to giveaway $200,000 to the best business idea he sees submitted for the contest. The winner also get $50,000 worth of flight time from Marquis Jet.

This Week - 9/12/05

Welcome to the week.

We will have an excerpt running from Trader Joe's Adventure starting tomorrow.

And there will be the normal stuff too...

ChangeThis: New Manifestos and Proposals!

It's Friday afternoon and I am sure all you, like myself, are thinking about what's going on this weekend. If you have some downtime this weekend, here are some great thoughts to ponder, arguments to consider, and proposals to review from ChangeThis.

If you have not yet heard about ChangeThis, it's a website dedicated to distributing ideas. Read this to find out more.

Each month new proposals are voted on by the ChangeThis audience. To read and vote on this month's proposals, click here. The proposals receiving the most votes are then turned into manifestos.

The final format of these manifestos are then posted each month on ChangeThis. Check them out!

The five newest manifestos include:

1. The Hypomanic American by John D. Gartner
2. The "PSF" is Everything! by Tom Peters
3. 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself by Rajesh Setty
4. The Personal MBA: Mastering Business Without Spending a Fortune by Josh Kaufman
5. Critical Thinking for Managers: A Manifesto by Crystal King

And, if you have ideas of your own (I know you do!), I encourage you to submit your own proposal! Just think of it as a great weekend project!

Have a fabulous weekend!

Rick Warren on Pyromarketing

We always try to provide both sides here on the blog. In the current issue of Publisher's Weekly, there is another article about the coming release of Pyromarketing (you can get the back story here). I wanted to share with you the objections Rick Warren had for the book:

My request to Harper-Collins was simply that Greg's forthcoming book not use The Purpose Driven Life as example of pyromarketing, since that would be inaccurate. The effectiveness of 40 Days of Purpose spread from one pastor to another through word-of-mouth endorsement, not through anyone's marketing plan. That doesn't mean pyromarketing doesn't work. It just means that it didn't create the PDL worldwide phenomena.

Warren said he wants all recognition for the PDL sensation to go to God. "My only concern was that no one, neither Zondervan nor myself, claim credit for the astounding success of The Purpose Driven Life book. The worldwide spread of the purpose driven message had nothing to do with marketing or merchandising. Instead it was the result of God's supernatural and sovereign plan, which no one anticipated."

[‘Pyro’ Goes Ahead; Warren Weighs In, Juli Cragg Hilliard, Publisher's Weekly, August 29, 2005]

11 out of 24 ain't bad

Ray Bard of Bard Press in Austin,TX has done something many publishers would love to duplicate. in the past decade he has published 24 books. of those 24, 11 have made national business best seller lists. I knew Ray had a good track record but this is ridiculous.

Some of the titles are:
Marketing Outrageously
Nuts
Little Red Book of Selling
The Wizard of Ads
and his new book which I just did a JCS for and I am sure will add to his success,
Bag the Elephant.

Congrats Ray

Advice for The New Manager

Sports has always understood the difference between coaching and playing. Business has a hard time with that. The better the player (i.e. individual contributor) you are, the quicker they want to make you the coach (i.e. manager). Worse than that, there is very little training for new managers at most companies.

Amacom has a title called The First Time Manager by Lorin Belker and Gary Topchik. It is a great primer for a new "coach". I like the topics they cover. Here is a little piece on showing appreciation:

There are many managers, especially newer ones, who are uncomfortable giving praise. It is a new skill set for them. This is to be expected. In order to become more comfortable expressing appreciation, you have to do it. The more you practice it the easier it will become. Consider some of the following points when giving praise or showing appreciation:

Be Specific. If managers want certain behaviors repeated, they need to be specific in the type of positive feedback they give. The more detailed the manager is, the more likely the behavior or action will be repeated.
Describe the Impact. Most team members like to know how their work ties into the bigger picture or the larger scheme of things such as meeting the objective of the unit, department, or organization.
Do not overdo it. Many managers go to extremes when they give positive feedback. They give their team members too much positive feedback. When this occurs, the impact of the important feedback is diminished and the praise may seem insincere.

I think this advice can also be valuable for giving constructive feedback.

A talk with Kevin Carroll

Today I posted my interview with Kevin Carroll, author of Rules of the Red Rubber Ball.

Kevin also has a great website where you can find out more about his Katalyst Consultancy. One of the pieces he has posted is how the book came to be.

Business Blog Book Tour #10

I wanted to announce the next Business Blog Book Tour. We are going to have Darren Rovell and his book First in Thirst. Darren has written a biography of Gatorade from an experiment at University of Florida to the multi-billion dollar brand it is today.

Darren has a blog where he talks about everything that is Gatorade if you want to get a little more info.

Here is schedule for the tour:

September 26th - Learned on Women
September 27th - Brand Autopsy
September 28th - Marketing Playbook
September 28th - Slacker Manager
September 29th - Personal MBA

This Week - 9/6/05

Hope everybody had a great Labor Day Weekend.

We will have some new audio this week.

We will tell you about the new books for September.

We also have a new issue of ChangeThis coming out this week.

Have a great week!