800-CEO-READ Blog

WSJ's Women to Watch

In the special section of the Wall Street Journal today, you will find profiles of The 50 Women to Watch 2005. Publishing is represented by two executive with Majorie Scardino (Chief Executive, Pearson, she's #8 here) and Tami Booth Corwin (President, Rodale Books, she's #21 here).

Janet Hanson, founder of 85 Broads, provides the recommended reading. These are a list of books that she says has shaped her professional life:

• The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander
• Got Game: How the Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever by John Beck and Mitchell Wade
• The Party: A Guide to Adventurous Entertaining by Sally Quinn
• Close to the Wind: An Extraordinary Story of Triumph Over Adversity by Pete Goss
• Learning to Love Africa: My Journey from Africa to Harvard Business School and Back by Monique Maddy
• Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11, Edited by Allison Gilbert, Robyn Walensky, Melinda Murphy, Phil Hirschkorn and Mitchell Stephens

You can see comments for all of her recommendations at wsj.com.

Halloween Business Books

We want to wish everyone at Happy Halloween.

We thought it would be fun to a list of books to consider on this harrowing holiday:

• Twilight In The Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy by Jim Keene
• Monster Careers: How To Land the Job of Your Life by Jeff Taylor
• A Ghost's Memoir: The Making of Alfred P. Sloan's My Years with General Motors by John McDonald
• Devils on the Deep Blue Sea : The Dreams, Schemes and Showdowns That Built America's Cruise-Ship Empires by Kristoffer Garin
• The Emperors of Chocolate: The Inside World of Hershey and Mars by Joel Glenn Brenner
• The Witch Doctors: What The Management Gurus are Saying And What It Means For You, Your Company, And Your Career by John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge (this one is out of print, but you can find it used at Amazon)

New Excerpt: Spark by John Winsor

Tomorrow, a new book called Spark is due out. I read the book about a month ago and was intrigued by the different perspectives shown through the interviews. At the beginning of each chapter, a person is interviewed about their company. The interviewees include: Matt Jacobson, VP of Quiksilver Entertainment; Jeff Garwood, New Product Development Manager for Miller; Mark Parker, President of Nike Brand; Scott Bowers, Senior VP of Marketing Worldwide for Oakley; and many more.

Earlier today, I posted an interview from the book. It was an interview with Rob Bon Durant, Director of Brand Development for Patagonia. Check it out. It's a great inside look at Patagonia's culture and will make you slightly yearn to pick up your skis or surfboard and head out for the day.

One interesting note about the book is John's dedication page, here's how reads:

To the Garage - Where great ideas are sparked.
(This is my garage and the home of a couple of start-up companies.)

[Just a note: John did place a nice picture of his garage above the dedication; so, use your imagination to picture it.]

A Whole New Whole New Mind

Here’s a clever contest spawned by an equally clever book. Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind has been widely and justifiably touted on this site, which has also compiled a list of links.

Now, with the paperback publication on the horizon, Pink asks readers to help him out. Here’s the pitch from his website:

A Whole New Mind continues to sell strongly, thanks to your great support. We just went back for an eighth printing and recently sewed up our 10th foreign rights deal. But this is no time for complacency. It's time to start thinking about the paperback! For this version of the book, which will appear in 2006, I'm adding a bunch of new items to the Portfolios at the end of Chapters 4 through 9. But I need your help.

Is there an exercise you've found useful in sharpening your aptitude for Design or your capacity for Symphony? A tool you've used to get better at Story or Empathy? A book, magazine, or web site you'd recommend for deepening a sense of Play or Meaning?

If so, I'd like to hear from you. If we use your suggestion, you'll get: 1) full credit on the page on which your idea appears; 2) several free copies of the paperback; and 3) a chance to share your knowledge with tens of thousands of other readers.

Send your Portfolio ideas to portfolios@danpink.com by Nov. 2. Thanks, as always, for your sharing your creativity, enthusiasm, and brainpower.

Fire Scoble!

For all who frequently buzz through the blogosphere, you clearly know who Robert Scoble is. If you have read any of the business media on blogging, you have probably seen him quoted or profiled. Robert works for Microsoft as one of their technical evangelists. On his blog he is constantly talking about the good and bad of what Microsoft is doing. He often compliments competitors and encourages his fellow employees to get it in gear.

Enter Brian Fugue. He is the author of Why Business People Speak Like Idiots and he was speaking on the Redmond campus yesterday. Here were his remarks:

"I’m shocked that you guys tolerate Scoble. I mean, it’s like give me a break. Here’s a guy that you pay to criticize you. And you can say, I know the other side of the argument, I’m well aware of it, it’s like listen celebrate, you know, celebrate the openness and all that kind of stuff. To me that’s crap. I think it’s crap. You pay him to say the kinds of things he says? Not in my company man, no way. But I like the other things, the fact that you’re opening up and blogging and working with your customers."

A Little History

Yesterday afternoon, Todd and I were discussing the day before we left for home. I told him the story about how 8cr went from the corner of an independent bookstore that sold books to business folks to a company that uses direct marketing to sell business books. This is a piece of history Todd thought I should share.

It started with a book, doesn’t almost everything? Richard N. Foster’s Innovation, The Attacker’s Advantage, long out of print, arrived and it had a dynamic cover. I love to collect information about my customers and in those days I collected business cards. I took the dust jacket to our local copy place and copied the cover and the fly leaf and then hand typed—on a really crappy typewriter—38 letters stating "I thought you would be interested in this book" and included the copies of the dust jacket. I sold 64 books for a world class response rate and set a standard that I have not yet been able to duplicate.

Maybe later I’ll tell you more about how we became what we are today before I forget.

TOC - Fast Company's The Rules of Business

Currency Doubleday has a book out now from the editors and writers of Fast Company called The Rules of Business: 55 Essential Ideas to Help Smart People (and Organizations) Perform At Their Best. The book is organized into 22 chapters that each have an introduction followed by quotes and from the past nine years.

Here is a sample from me just randomly opening to pages in the book:

"No person or firm will ever achieve greatness without an outrageous objective." - Bill Davison, founder, MESA Research

"Best practices usually aren't" - Christopher Locke, co-author, Cluetrain Manifesto

"My advice to young entrepreneurs? Don't be quick to run out and start a business. Young people today think they'll miss their big chance if they don't get involved in a startup immediately. But what many people don't recognize is that the basic skills of building a company are the same as they were 20 years ago: Know how to create customers, deliver on your promises, and keep your costs lower than your revenue. The problem is that many people are simply too inexperienced to start their own business." -Frank Greene, founding partner, New Vista Capital

"The worst sound in your business is silence. That means they don't care." - Vince McMahon, World Wrestling Entertainment

It is definitely a best of FC. I have put the Table of Contents below the fold if you are interested in seeing the topics they cover.

Table of Contents

An Introduction to Where We Are Heading

1. Change
   
2. Communication
   
3. Creativity and Innovation
   
4. Customer Service
   
5. Decision Making
   
6. Welcome to The Design Revolution
   
7. Execute!
   
8. Hiring and Developing and Retaining Great Employees
   
9. Technology Is Not a Strategy
   
10. Knowledge
    
11. Leadership
    
12. Life and Career
    
13. Managing
    
14. Marketing
    
15. The Organization and Corporate Culture
    
16. Teamwork and Partnerships
    
17. Risk
    
18. Social Responsiblity, Trust, and Ethics
    
19. Speed
    
20. Strategy and Growth
    
21. The Link Between Success and Failure
    
22. The Future

Our New Project

We are working on a new project.

I can tell you it has something to do with books.

I can tell you that there will be something new every day.

And I can tell you it starts Nov. 7th.

Let us know if you want to be the first to know.

The Play List

I found a gem locked away in my email this morning. Our friend Kevin Carroll sent me a list of the books he gives out at his seminars. It is a great list. I am just going to let it speak for itself.

• The Art of Business by Stan Davis and David McIntosh
• Bang! By Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval
• Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
• Discover Your Genius by Michael J. Gelb
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
• How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb
• Jamming by John Kao
• Juice: The Creative Fuel That Drives World-Class Inventors by Evan I. Schwartz
• Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders
• Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands by Kevin Roberts
• Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon Mackenzie
• Primal Leadership by Danielle Coleman
• Purple Cow by Seth Godin
• Rules of the Red Rubber Ball by Kevin Carroll
• The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley
• The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds
• The Five Faces of Genius by Annette Moser-Wellman
• The Map of Innovation by Kevin O’Connor
• The Power of Cult Branding by Matthew W. Ragas and Bolivar J. Bueno
• The Power of the Tale by Julie Allan, Gerard Fairtlough and Barbara Heinzen
• The Story Factor by Annette Simmons
• The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
• The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
• The Visionary’s Handbook by Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker
• The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
• Unstuck by Keith Yamashita and Sandra Spataro
• Why Not? By Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
• The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
• Roadtrip Nation by Mike Marriner and Nathan Gebhard
• The Battle Against Boredom by Ray Nelson
• Cool To Be Kind by Val Litwin, Chris Bratseth, Brad Stokes, and Erik Hanson

Creative Class

Richard Florida's books are interesting and troubling. His latest The Flight of the Creative Class is another thought provoking book. Fast Company has an exclusive web based interview with him. He is interviewed by Adam Hanft, founder and CEO of Hanft Unlimited:
Here is one of the questions and answers.

FC: Any kind of two-tier sociological stratification makes us a bit nervous. For everyone in the Creative Class there must be someone in, well, the Creative Underclass. Isn't that a recipe for a dysfunctional society?

Florida: Absolutely. It's something I talk about often, from my book, The Flight of the Creative Class, to the Atlantic Monthly article I referred to before. It's a deeply, deeply disturbing phenomenon, this socioeconomic division our world -- and especially frighteningly, our country -- faces in the 21st century global creative economy.

Check out the rest of the interview here.

The Way The World Might Be

Can anybody really predict the future? No.

What is interesting though is what Royal Dutch/Shell did in the 1980's and 1990's with scenario planning. Fast Company did an article in July 2002 on how scenario planning changed the course of the entire company.

What grew out of that thinking was the Global Business Network. This was a group that included Peter Schwartz (The Art of the Long View), Jay Ogilvy (Creating Better Futures), Napier Collyns, Stewart Brand, and Lawrence Wilkinson. The idea was to continue the evolution of scenario planning and scenario thinking.

The current GBN CEO is Eamonn Kelly and he has a book out from Wharton Business School Publishing called Powerful Times: Rising To The Challenge of Our Uncertain World. It reminds me of a more academic version of Funky Business.

Kelly describes extensively what is going on in the complex world around us. The meat of the explanation is given in dichotomies (clarity vs. craziness, secular vs. sacred, technology accleration vs. pushback, prosperity vs. decline). After laying out the case, he asks two questions - "Will sources of innovation, leadership and change be centralized or decentralized?" and "Will the United States exert more or less influence globally?" He shows alternate scenarios for what the world might look like as the answers to those questions varies.

For you crystal ball watchers out there, it may be worth a look.

2005 Berry-AMA Book Award

The Berry-AMA Book Award has been given out the past four years to books "whose innovative ideas have had significant impact on marketing and related fields." It is the only award we know of that recognizes marketing books and one of only two that recognizes business books (FT/Goldman Sachs being the other).

The 2005 winner is Simply Better: Winning and Keeping Customers by Delivering What Matters Most by Patrick Barwise, Sean Meehan (Harvard Business School Press).

The other finalists for this year's award included:

• Accountable Marketing: The Economics of Data Driven Marketing (Thomson), by Peter J. Rosenwald
• Effective Advertising: Understanding When, How, and Why Advertising Works (Sage Publications), by Gerard J. Tellis
• Marketing and the Bottom Line (Prentice Hall), by Tim Ambler
• Purple Cow (Penguin Group), by Seth Godin

I should mention that Jack is one of the judges for this competition.

New DVD Version of Cubicle Classic

Office Space is the cult classic about working for corporate America. In case you weren't one of the 3.5 million who bought the original DVD, here is the summary from the Internet Movie Database:

Peter Gibbons just can't seem to catch a break. His girlfriend is cheating on him, he has an obnoxious neighbor, and he's completely miserable with his job as a small cog in a company called Initech. Then he visits a hypnotherapist, who dies just after putting Peter into a state of complete bliss. Free of worrying about making a living, he no longer feels the need to keep his job, just as the company is going through a massive downsizing. However, his new attitude only makes him more valuable in the company's eyes, and his friends Michael and Samir are fired instead. Together, they scheme to plant a virus inside Initech's computer system that will pull money into their own account.

There is new version titled Office Space: Special Edition with Flair. The new features include outtakes, a behind-the-scenes documentary, and animated shorts from creator Mike Judge that inspired the movie

Russian Bestsellers

As I was browsing The Atlantic Monthly, I found a list composed of bestselling books in Russia. Three of the books on the list were business related. Here's the list and The Atlantic Monthly's descriptions:

1. I Take My Words Back by Viktor Suvorov.
   Description: A Russian military historian finds flaws in the memoirs of the late Soviet World War II hero Marshal Zhukov--and takes his words back for him.
2. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
   Description: World economic institutions are purportedly shown to be as corrupt and conspiracy-ridden as Russians always believed them to be.
3. The Blue Day Book by Bradley Trevor Greive
   Description: Animal photos and corny captions as mood enhancers, compiled by a Tasmanian author.
4. My Life by Bill Clinton
   Description: The memoirs of Russia's favorite American president.
5. Catherine the Great: The Diamond Cinderella by Aleksadr Bushkov
   Description: A patriotic account of a German noblewoman's rise to the Russian throne and of her rule as an enlightened despot.
6. Hunting for Werewolves by Aleksandr Khinshtein
   Description: A Dumba deputy's expose of the gravest threat to law and order in Russia: "werewolves" (corrupt law-enforcement officers).
7. Business is Psychology by Marina Meliya
   Description: Self-help for the disgruntled Russian businessman.
8. Lost Civilization: In Search of Lost Mankind by Aleksei Maslov
   Description: The "true" history of mankind, including Atlantis, our vanished horned ancestors, and mysterious giants.
9. Doctor Sinelnikov's Practical Course: How to Learn to Love Yourself by V. Sinelnikov and S. Slobodchikov
   Description: A step-by-step course in supermarket psychology, Russian-style, for sufferers of low self-esteem.
10. The Mafia Manager: A Guide to the Corporate Machiavelli by V
    Description: An anonymous author confirms what Russian entrepreneurs already know: business isn't about mission statements, but about who whacks whom--commerically, of course.
Posted by jack at 9:38 AM | Comments (0)

Boss's Day Summary

With Boss's Day a few days behind us, here is a brief overview of the leadership items posted in the last week:

• Book recommendations just for bosses
• Interview with Justin Menkes about the components of executive intelligence; Justin is the author of Executive Intelligence
• Excerpts and exercises from the book Resonant Leadership
• An e-book: Nine Lives of Leadership

Get your Freakonomics Book Plate!

For those of you who bought (and enjoyed!) the book Freakonomics, here is a unique opportunity for you.

The authors, Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, are offering a free autographed bookplate. Want one for your book? Check it out here. They'll even pay the $0.37 to send it your way.

Another note on the book, it just won the 2005 Quill Book Awards' business book of the year award. Check it out.

The Art of Execution

At your company, what is the time ratio of brainstorming vs. executing ideas? It's easy to get caught up in the brainstorming process. The next rut: agreeing to do something without plans to implement it. The art of follow-through is where many leaders are lacking.

Earlier this week, Tom Peters posted a blog entry on executing ideas. The entry referenced the book Execution.

The idea presented in the book:

More time is spent on creating ideas and not enough time is spent implementing them.

It's definitely a true review of what happens in many companies. Ideas are great; they're even better when they're put into practice.

And you think we review alot of business books...

Robert Morris is a management consultant based out of Texas. He likes reading business books. He says he has read over 1500 management books. You will find 900 reviews of his all over Amazon, where he has been ranked a Top 10 reviewer.

Harvard Business Review has a Q&A with him in the current October 2005 issue. He says he spends time with books based on research like Jim Collins' Good to Great and Jason Jennings' Think Big Act Small. Morris says all the books he reads helps him see a big picture on how business works. The piece ends with his recommendations:

Big Insight Books

• Knowing Doing Gap by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton (HBSP, 2000)
• Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown, 2005)
• Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen (Doubleday, 2002)

Business Classic Morris re-reads every year

• The Lever of Riches by Joel Mokyr (Oxford, 1992)
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (University of Chicago, 1996)
• On the Profession of Management by Peter Drucker (HBSP, 2003)
• Engines of Creation by Eric Drexler (Random House, 1987)
• Holding On to Reality by Albert Borgmann (University of Chicago, 1999)

Fiction for Leaders

• The Illiad and The Odyssey by Homer
• Antigone by Sophocles
• The Four Gospels and St. Paul's letters to the Corinthians
• Julius Casear by William Shakespeare
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• The Heart Aroused by David Whyte

The Ten Faces of Innovation

In October 24, 2005 issue of BusinessWeek, Bruce Nussbaum reviews Tom Kelley's new book The Ten Faces of Innovation. He starts the review:

“Like many people these days, I only have time for books during airplane trips. And I measure how long they take to read by mileage. Tom Kelley’s The Ten Faces of Innovation is a coast-to-coast, five hour affair. But unlike the mostly unsavory food served on transcontinental flights, this book delivers some tasty morsels to managers hungry to boost their companies’ level of innovation. It is funny, insightful, and chock-full of surprising examples. If you take it on a flight from Los Angeles, you will have something to use at work by the time you land in New York.�

The review continues along this vein and ends with “You can learn a lot by flying.�

Books for Boss's Day

I know it may be a little late for this, but I wanted to recommend a set of books for managers.

If you are a first time manager, pick up The First Time Manager. It is a basic book that covers alot of ground on the challenges and responsibilities of being a new mangaer. We pulled a piece from the book last month on the importance of appreciation.

If you have made it a rung or two up the ladder, I would check out High Impact Middle Management. Lisa Haneberg thinks middle management is the unsung heroes of a corporation. We can see the table of contents, foreword by Ralph Stayer, and introduction to the book on the Excerpt Blog.

For the CEO (or aspiring-to be) in your life, make sure they have read all three of these:

• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Execution by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan
• Who Says Elephants Can't Dance by Lou Gerstner

Chances are they have probably read those. The big management book for the fall from Crown is Results: Keep What's Good, Fix What's Wrong, and Unlock Great Performance. Gary Neilson from Booz Allen makes the case that companies have personalities or "Organizational DNA". He says it is important to understand the business' DNA before you can optimize performance. You can download the TOC and first chapter here.

Happy Boss' Day to all!

A picture is worth 2000 dollars

Ed Miracle is a self-taught painter who has found himself in the middle of a business book buggle. He created a painting called "I Told You So", which depicts falling off the edge of the earth. Thomas Friedman came across a poster version of the painting and thought it would be a cover art for The World Is Flat. Trouble is no one really asked Mr. Miracle if it was OK.

This story has been buzzing around the publishing world since the book came out, and Fortune wrote a small piece on it last week. Read it here to to get the full craziness of the story.

For the Bosses: Eye and Ear Candy Plus a Few Exercises

And the Boss's Day festivities here at 8cr continue...

Ear Candy: Earlier this week, Todd interviewed Justin Menkes, author of Executive Intelligence on the difference between knowledge and intelligence. Check out the podcast to learn more.

Eye Candy: Today, I posted two excerpts from Resonant Leadership by Annie McKee and Richard Boyatzis. The first part is an introduction and will give you a taste of the book. The second part is an excercise for leaders that questions, "Where Am I?" Tomorrow, I will post two more exercises from Annie and Richard's book so use today's exercise as a warm-up.

Until tomorrow, check out, savor and enjoy today's eye and ear candy.

Also, if you're still looking for a special gift for the boss(es) in your life, check out our e-book, Nine Lives of Leadership.

Question For Bosses: "Where Are You Stuck?"

We're inching ever so closer to Boss's Day!

Today's question for all you bosses out there is:

"Where are you stuck?"

This "million-dollar question" comes from Graham Alexander's new book, Tales From the Top.

Graham's thoughts:

Many of us have been conditioned to think that the harder we work, the more successful we will be. We have to challenge our inner beliefs with regard to time and work/life balance in order to make lasting changes.

My thoughts:
I think Graham presents both an interesting question and answer. This past summer I spent some time in Europe and conversed with many different travellers from around the world. (It was great!) I learned something from each new encounter--from the location of the local art gallery to a new perspective on the latest current event.

One Austrailian guy and I spoke a lot about careers and life in general. He was an experienced web-designer, photographer, animal breeder and a lot of other things. We discussed how Americans view their jobs and how many Americans are encouraged to put 60-80 hours into their careers. For some Americans, career = life.

Even now, a question asked by the Austrailian still sticks in my mind, "Is your career your life or merely part of it?"

So where does this question fit in with Graham's? Right here: are you stuck in the belief that your career should be the key focus of your life? [Enter your answer here].

******
As you know from Todd's post yesterday, Boss's Day is this Sunday, October 16. In honor of this special day, we are selling an e-book, Nine Lives of Leadership. Check it out. Stretch your mind.

Evil Profit???

As I am reading a collections of essays on business from a book due a few weeks. I have come across another great Peter Drucker quote from his book The Essential Drucker. The quote is about profit and whether profit is a noble goal.

“Profit is not the explanation, cause or rationale of business behavior and business decisions, but rather the test of their validity. If archangels instead of businessmen sat in director’s chairs, they would still have to be concerned with profitability, despite their lack of personal interest in profit.”

I’ll be telling you much more about this collection of essays in the coming couple of weeks but I want to thank Rob May for this essay called Why Business Matters which is from the forthcoming collections of essays called More Space: Nine Antidotes to Complacency in Business edited by Todd Sattersten—or our very own "Todds".

The 800-CEO-READ Boss's Day Ebook

You might not know that Sunday is Boss's Day. Yes, it is October 16th every year (it moves with birthday of the founder's father)

As you now start to scramble to find something for that special someone, we at 800-CEO-READ have a solution. We have developed a ebook called Nine Lives of Leadership with Lisa Haneberg of Management Craft for this very special holiday.

We went out and talked to nine thought leaders and asked them about leadership and management. What is great about the ebook is the many facets that are covered. Here is the line-up

• Sally Hogshead on Careers
• Keith Ferrazzi on Relationships
• Luda Kopiekina on Decision Making
• Laurence Haughton on Team Building
• Peter Han on Others' Career Paths
• Gary Neilson on Organizational Style
• Jason Jennings on Start-up Spirit
• Eileen Shapiro on Placing Smarter Bets
• Tim Sanders on The Power of Emotion

We brought in Phoebe Espiritu, designer of the ChangeThis manifestos, to do the layout. It is easy to read and navigate on your computer. You can just as easily print it out.

Here is the front page:

We are selling the ebook for $8.95. We can either send you the ebook or you can have it sent to your person of choice.

New Business Books and Other Events Happening This Week

Here at 8cr, there are a few things happening this week.

First, here are a few of the books due to be released this week:

• One from Many by Dee Hock


• Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia) *Jack even wrote a review on this book.


• The Martha Rules by Martha Stewart


• Tales From the Top by Graham Alexander


• Ahead of the Curve by Joseph H. Ellis

Second, at the end of this week, we will post excerpts from Resonant Leadership.

Finally, there is a very special holiday on October 16: Boss's Day! In most offices around the U.S., this holiday will be celebrated on Monday, October 17. This year in honor of Boss's Day, we are selling a Boss's Day E-book (more information coming soon!). We are also trying to do various tie-ins to Boss's Day including the previously mentioned excerpts from Resonant Leadership.

Enjoy your week!

Career Burnout?

In the Work & Family Mailbox of Thursday's WSJ, a reader named J.H. wrote in and asked about career burnout. J.H. described symptoms such as being "lethargic", detached and exhausted from work. J.H. also stated that she/he could not get away.

What was Sue Shellenbarger's, the WSJ columnist, solution?

"The No. 1 remedy for burnout, and the belief that you can't take time off is a common self-delusion among burnout sufferers."

Other remedies suggested by Sue:

1. "Seek the perspective of people you love."


2. Set "aside some time each workday for quiet-time rituals such as massage or meditation."

Sue also recommended two books:

• Read Slack to better understand the necessity of having time off.


• Check out Getting Things Done to help "ease your job anxieties".

The Power of the Purse--Ten Questions

McDonald's and The Home Depot. Procter & Gamble and Kodak. Avon and AXA Financial. The companies featured in my book are a diverse lot. They also have taken very different paths to reach their women consumers. Despite those differences they do have certain core ideas in common. As I researched these companies and interviewed dozens of executives during the past three years, many of the same questions kept cropping up in our conversations. Over time, ten questions surfaced as the foundation for how these companies had challenged conventional wisdom in their companies--and as important, challenged their own thinking about how to adapt to today's women consumers. Here are three to jumpstart your thinking about women consumers.

1. Do you have stereotypical views of women consumers that haven't changed in more than a year?
Often we think that the bad stereotypes we have of women all come from the 1950s. We know that we aren't supposed to pitch pink cars to women or talk to them as if their only role in life is as a housewife. But stereotypes that we think are valid--women only want paint and decor items when they shop at home improvement stores, for example--may become invalid very quickly as women evolve. The Home Depot is a perfect example of how quickly valid impressions of women can shift into stereotypes. The Home Depot realized that simply cleaning up its stores and offering more paint colors and decor items wouldn't cut it with women who had moved beyond painting their walls--they were tearing them down and doing major home repairs. Understanding how quickly women had shifted in their needs in home improvement helped The Home Depot reach women consumers in a compelling way that was different from its competitors.

2. Do you still think of women as a minority?
Many companies still consider women "minority" or niche consumers. Some of the world's biggest companies still place "women's marketing" under executives who also oversee Hispanic and African-American marketing. Such "minority think" can cripple any significant change toward women consumers because it doesn't place women in their rightful place as majority consumers whose wants and needs are critical to corporate strategy. Neither Kodak or McDonald's would have succeeded, I believe, if they had pitched Premium Salads or EasyShare cameras, respectively, as "women's products." Instead they used women as the driving force behind the creation of those products to produce products that appealled to all consumers. Making this critical shift from minority to majority is a critical step in adapting to women consumers.

3. Do you still think one ad campaign or marketing message will work for all women?
Many companies have made the mistake of creating ad campaigns that try to sell products to women that weren't made for women. Moreover, many companies believed a single campaign would work to reach all women. As Nike found, marketing messages weren't enough to draw women to clothes and shoes that were simply "cut-downs" men's clothes. It wasn't until Nike began creating clothes designed specifically for women--coupled with smart advertising messages--that it began to make a difference with women consumers.

You can find the other seven questions in Chapter 9 of The Power of the Purse.

The Power of the Purse--Notes from Around the World

While my book focuses primarily on American women and trends I see here, many of those same trends also are playing out around the world. If you operate a business on a global scale, there is no doubt that women's economic power is going to affect you at some point--even in countries where women's consumer power is just beginning to be felt. Here's a look at a few issues I have found intriguing.

One of the most notable developments in women's economic power has been a shift in how developing countries think about women's rights. Women's rights historically has been considered a "nice to have" but not a "must-have" in a country's development. But now some developing countries are finding that women's rights--such as the right to education and the right to own businesses--is also sound economic policy. For an excellent discussion of the topic see the Foreign Affairs article at http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040501faessay83308/isobel-coleman/the-payoff-from-women-s-rights.html.

As Coleman points out this shift in thinking is still in the early stages, but increased education for women and access to business opportunities were two of the major forces behind the American women's transformation to economic powerhouse. Therefore, I would expect that access to such benefits will help transform women into major consumer forces in areas of the world such as Africa and Asia in the next decade.

On that same topic, in June 2004, the Saudi Arabian government lifted a ban on women obtaining business licenses. Before the change, women could only open a business in the name of a male relative. The change has brought about a marked increase in the number of women-owned businesses, according to press reports such as this one in the Japan Times.

But simply because women in Saudi Arabia are being given an increasing number of rights as men in their countries doesn't mean that they seek to be "Westernized." That message was heard loud and clear recently when Karen Hughes, the new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and a close friend of President Bush's, traveled to Saudi Arabia in late September this year. When she suggested that women in Saudi Arabia weren't full participants in their society, she was challenged by the women in the audience. They told Mrs. Hughes that "Americans failed to understand that their traditional society was embraced by men and women alike," according to a New York Times report of the speech published Sept. 28, 2005 "Saudi Women have Message for U.S. Envoy."

Such a failure to understand how different women can be from one another is a key component of my book. Whether here in America or globally, too many companies have assumed that women are a homogeneous group who could be targeted with one message. But women can be as different from each other in the way they think about their lives, what they buy, what they want from companies, as they are from men.

On a lighter note, winemakers are targeting Japanese women as a way of introducing their products into a country where beer and hard liquor have been the traditional drink choices for men. See this article at http://lifestyle.iafrica.com/wine/features/440091.htm. for more information. Historically, Japanese women haven't been huge consumers of alcohol. But with the growth of women's economic and social power over the past 10 years, Japanese women are beginning to break that mold--and companies are realizing that women consumers can be a driving force in making a new product successful. Gina Gallo, granddaughter of Julio Gallo, has held wine tastings in Japan and executives for the American company say Japanese women are helping to spread the word about wine because they are more flexible and willing to try new things than their male counterparts.

If you have any stories or anecdotes about women consumers around the world, let me know. It could be the beginning of yet another book.

The Power of the Purse--Is Motherhood the New Career?

In late September, the New York Times published a story which highlighted a few college surveys that revealed a shift in the way young women thought about their careers, motherhood and marriage. ("Many Women At Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood," by Louise Story, Sept. 20, 2005)

In light of the work I had done for my book, the story piqued my interest. I too had found some interesting shifts in the way women viewed their traditional roles in society versus the women who had come before them. Those past generations of women had laid the foundation to make it possible for future generations of women to hold virtually any position they wanted in society. This has led to the unparralled economic power of women we see today. Those earlier generations of women, I found in my discussions with authors and professors who have researched the topic, often felt they had to give up or de-prioritize their traditional roles as wife and mother to achieve success in the world of work. Such shifts in society gave rise to the stereotypes of the harried career woman/housewife, the soccer mom who resented her next door neighbor's freedom as a career woman even as the career woman envied the life of the soccer mom. Of course life is far more complicated than stereotypes as we all know.

Now it appears from this Times story as well as an earlier New York Times Magazine piece about the "Opt Out Revolution," that we have a new breed of women who see motherhood as a new career path. These articles focus on women who have decided that juggling a career and family isn't so great and that raising a family should be a top priority. These stories seem to point to a major trend where women drop out of the workforce and raise children--and are giving rise to a new stereotype of the "CEO mom" who apply their knowledge in the workforce or the college classroom to being a mother.

I'm not completely sold on "opting out" or "motherhood as the new career" as a major trend--primarily because of the women these articles and surveys choose to focus on. Most of these surveys look at women either studying or having graduated from Ivy League schools. Access to that kind of education puts these women in an economic class that is likely to allow them to stay at home because their husbands' salaries will be more than enough for the couple and the children to come. Therefore it may be a trend among a minority of women in the top economic classes.

For many women in America and around the world, staying home is simply not an economic possibility. Work is a necessity, not a luxury to choose or not. Two-income families are often critical to a family's survival.

Nor do I think that the surveys themselves really support the idea that's shouted in the headlines. When you read further in many of these stories you see a far more complex and complicated decision-making process going on. A majority of the women say they are thinking about working part-time or taking time off when children are small with plans to go back to work when the children are in school. Others point out that they will decide with their husbands who is going to stay at home with the kids. Two women interviewed for the surveys noted in the Sept. 20 New York Times article said either they or their husband would stay at home depending on whose career was furthest along. Now that's is a major shift--10 years ago a woman's salary likely wouldn't have been large enough, nor her career since as important enough, to merit her husband staying home.

From such surveys, therefore, it's tough to say just what is going on with women and work these days. What I do think is happening, at least from the research in my book, is a growing realization among women is that balance in life--not the constant juggling--is important. Sometimes family will take the top priority and then later a career will become important. I also think women never stopped cherishing and respecting certain traditional roles, being a wife, mother, emotional center of a family. Past generations may have thought they needed to sublimate those roles to the new "modern" roles of career women. Women today, however, do seem to be more comfortable saying they want to a traditional role in life. But...and this is a very big "but," ...that doesn't mean women want to go backward to a time when women's only socially acceptable role was as wife and mother. They want the best of the past and the present. That certainly played out in how DeBeers decided to position its right-hand rings, a case study that is explored in my book. DeBeers' ad campaign..."The Left Hand Rocks the Cradle, the Right Hand Rules the World"...sharply defined the duality of being a woman today. We want the family and the career; the wedding ring someone bought for us and the right hand ring we bought for ourselves.

I suspect that this tug of the past with the push of the present will confound many businesses as they try to understand women today and adapt products to them. I know that these issues of career versus family are likely to spark a lot of debate. I'd love to hear what you think about these issues. Do you think women leaving the workforce is a trend? How do you think your women consumers are reacting to these shifts? Do you think women who have consciously chosen motherhood as their career path will be any different from the mothers of the past? Let me know what you think.

The Power of the Purse--Sony Joins the Ranks of Marketing to Women

The great thing about women and marketing is there is never a dearth of great stories and ideas to keep the conversation going...and that goes for the companies featured in "The Power of the Purse." All of the companies are continuing to update and improve upon their efforts toward women. McDonald's is moving ahead with plans to put Wi-Fi into many of its restaurants and renovate decor to be more inviting to women. It's rolled out several new products as well like more robust coffee and a new apple-walnut salad. Nike has launched a smart, sassy ad campaign about women's bodies that proclaims the beauty of bodies--no matter what their size. One goes like this: my butt is big and round like the letter C. My butt is big and that's just fine and those who might scorn it are invited to kiss it." You can check out this ad and others at www.nikewomen.com and download them to your computer if one of them inspires you.

Plus, more and more companies are joining companies such as Nike and McDonald's in radically rethinking what women consumers want and what they will buy. Sony has joined the ranks of technology marketers such as Kodak, which found success in focusing on women for its EasyShare camera. For the launch campaign of its Bravia brand of flat-screen television it rolled out the tagline: Introducing Bravia. The World's First Television for Men and Women." The tagline isn't all that enlightening. But the ads, especially online, are attention-getting because they break from the crowd of flat-screen television screen manufacturers who often tout megapixels and size. The size--some of these TVs boast 60-inch plus screens--were often the cause of arguments between men and women. I met a furniture maker who said he was doing a great business in creating cabinets that would hid these big flat screens. He says his male customers told him their wives would only agree to their buying a big tv if they also bought something they could hide it in.

Sony is countering that battle of the sexes with some humor that also plays up the beauty of the Bravia design. The ads go on to say the television will "be coveted by men and admired by women." Sony needs to break away from the crowd--and women might just be the way to put the big electronics company back in the black. As MSNBC pointed out, Sony has been hit hard by consumers' quick shift from the old "cathode ray" television to plasma screen technology. We'll have to see if a woman's touch will help Sony as it did Kodak.

The Power of the Purse--the Power of Pink

Color choice has often been a big concern among companies trying to target women. Do you use pastels--pink in particular--when you are trying to attract women? Conventional wisdom has held that when in doubt stay away from pink.

But conventional wisdom can be wrong...and it now appears that pink is tremendously powerful. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and everywhere you look there's pink. Pink became the color of choice to raise awareness about breast cancer back in 1992. It was a takeoff of the red ribbon that symbolized AIDS research. Today, the campaign has exploded in a plethora of pink products--and helped raise $100s of millions of dollars for cancer research. Of course, there are potential problems for marketers who are trying to jump into the cause's marketing machine--especially if they aren't truly committed to the cause. Today's New York Times has an excellent article on how difficult it can be to find out just how much of the money is really goes to breast cancer research--and how consumers are beginning to do their homework before they buy pink breast cancer products. Check out http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/06/fashion/thursdaystyles/06skin.html for a look at the issue and a rundown of all the pink products out there this month.

So it appears that the use of pink for breast cancer research has helped break the prohibition on using pink in pitching products to women--or maybe we've just gotten more comfortable with our feminine sides.

Indeed, where once a pink product would have been considered a condescending pat on the head to women, today pink has taken on a position of power. The shift is most notable on the newstands where a new women's business magazine proudly proclaims that its name is Pink and it's proud of it. PINK's tagline is: the color women are wearing in the 21st century. For an explanation of why the magazine's founder choice Pink for the magazine's name, check out http://www.pinkmagazine.com/about/index.html.

So what do you think of the new "power pink?" Does color really matter when it comes to pitching products to women? Let me know what you think of pink.

The Power of the Purse--Introduction

Thanks to Todd and Jack for giving me the opportunity to be the guest blogger at 800-CEO-READ today. My book The Power of the Purse: How Smart Companies Are Adapting to the World's Most Important Consumers--Women seeks to outline and explore major shifts in the economic and social power of women--and how companies as diverse as The Home Depot and the maker of Bratz dolls are adapting to these revolutionary shifts to achieve great results with all consumers.

As a journalist covering marketing and consumer behavior for 15 years for publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Fast Company, I have been intrigued--and sometimes personally frustrated--by how companies tried (and often failed) to reach women consumers. In 2002, I decided it was time to stop being frustrated and begin to explore why some companies "got" women and others didn't. Along the way, I found that there was more to this story than some good marketing. As Alan Webber, the founding editor of Fast Company, wrote in his foreword to my book, a major shift is happening in business. As he wrote, business today and in the future is about biology (think gender), sociology and technology. As the companies in the book illustrate, we are in the beginnings of this major business revolution, which in part comes from women's ever-increasing economic power globally. We are just beginning to see how that power will affect corporations both from the inside and outside. Some of the early effects of that revolution can be seen throughout my book--from the statistics that reveal women's massive economic power--$13 trillion in private wealth; $7 trillion in spending power--to the stories of companies who have tapped into the changing gender roles that all that money has wrought. Women today have far more choices, more freedom and more financial power than ever in history. How they wield that power is going to be a major force in business going forward. I hope the book helps reveal how some of the world's biggest brands--Nike, Kodak, McDonald's--are grappling with these issue and how your company can too.

The Culture of Winning

In today’s Wall Street Journal, the Atlanta Braves GM explains how and why the Braves have won 14 straight Divisional Titles. The five tips for transforming a culture of losing:

1. Gather everyone, communicate the plan and preach it daily.


2. Constantly remind them it works.


3. Don’t be afraid to get rid of people who don’t buy in.


4. Make the lowest level employees feel as important to success as the top level executives.


5. Show trust in everyone to do their jobs well.

As an organization that went through this kind of transformation, I agree with these ideas and am hesitant to mention that the beloved Green Bay Packers could use some of this advice considering their 0-4 start. Sadness among the cheeseheads.

100 Day Projects

In Rapid Results: How 100-Day Projects Build Capacity for Large-Scale Change, authors Robert Schaffer and Ronald Ashkensas say forget about "betting the company" and large-scale change. They say the key to success to small, quick projects that build over time into company-wide change. For this strategy to work, they are very specific about the qualities these projects need to have:

1. Focus on an Important Goal - Everyone from the CEO to the front line worker recognize the need.
2. Produce a Measurable Stretch Result - Pushing for what many consider impossible creates a buzz when it is acheived.
3. Works in the Short Term - Short term focus completely changes the dynamics of the project
4. Pinpoint Clear Accountability - One person needs to be responsible for the success or failure of the project
5. Drives Experimentation - The message needs to be that this is not going to be business as usual.
6. Is Planned and Disciplined - This may seem counterintuitive, but with speed, you need a good plan and good communications.
7. Make Learning a Deliberate Outcome - The project should be a springboard for more projects and more change.

Make Your Own Magazine Karma

Does anyone else believe in Magazine Karma?