800-CEO-READ Blog

Thanks for 2007

Thanks to everyone who helped make 2007 a great year for 800-CEO-READ.

To all the customers, authors, readers, agents, publicists, editors, and marketers, thank you.

-The gang

More Kudos For Michael Gates Gill

In the Wall Street Journal's Best Books of 2007, deputy books editor Mark Lasswell calls out Michael Gates Gill's How Starbucks Saved My Life saying:

At 63, Michael Gates Gill, father of five, found himself out of work, divorced, and nearly broke--not quite what he expected when he was growing up on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the son of New Yorker writer Brendan Gill. But then Mr. Gill found a life raft in the form of an unlikely job, as he relates in the memoir How Starbucks Saved My Life.

Lasswell also mentions My Secret Life on the McJob: Lessons from Behind the Counter Guaranteed to Supersize Any Management Style by college professor Jerry Newman. I missed this one initially and am going to go back to check it out. The premise reminds me of Alex Frankel's Punching Out, which came out last month.

Book Excerpt - Bull in China

From: A Bull in China by Jim Rogers

This is from Rogers' current book in which he examines the growth and future of the Chinese economy. He just didn't stumble upon this, he first came upon China's importance in the world back in 1984 on his motorcycle tour around the world. Rogers has been following this certain country's growth and development for some time. Take a look at just one of the many things he has noticed:

With a growth rate averaging 9 percent since the start of the 1980s, the value of the Chinese economy has pretty much doubled each decade, and shows few signs of stopping.

If projections hold, China will surpass the United States as the world's largest economy within twenty years. On top of that, China attracted nearly US$70 billion in direct foreign investment during 2006, which, combined with its trade surplus, has brought Beijing's foreign-currency reserves above US$1.3 trillion (now the larget in the world). In one astounding decade, China's manufacturing base for durable goods increased one hundredfold.

But all those heavy numbers are just a starting point. Sleek office towers and assembly lines rising from rice paddies don't mean as much as China's immeasurable advances in civil conduct, internationalized awareness, and opportunities for achievement. In urban areas, the traditional greeting "Have you eaten today?" has been replaced by "Have you surfed the Net today?" Chinese executives, engineers, artists, athletes, and designers are already leading the world into "the Chinese century".

FYI: Rogers' book Hot Commodities has just been published in paperback!

Other Jim Rogers books include:

Investment Biker
Adventure Capitalist

Dip into Seth's Meatball Sundae: it's available.

With all the hype and Meatball Mondae blog posts, we've been waiting for this book. Seth's latest is now available!

Check out Squidoo to find excerpts and riffs from the book. And MarketingProfs is hosting Seth for a 60 minute, live web broadcast on January 3rd. You can sign up here [details fixed; thanks Shelley!].

And, meet Seth, the action figure with different colored socks:

[Psst...a little bird told me a ChangeThis manifesto is in the works. Stay tuned; the next issue to be published on the 16th.]

MIT Author's New Job

Author, artist, and technologist John Maeda has been named president of Rhode Island School of Design.

His video announcement is worth a look.

His latest book The Laws of Simplicity provides 10 Laws and 3 Keys described in his self-imposed limit of 100 pages.

I pulled it back out for another look as we head into the new year.

[hat tip: TP Blog]

Jack speaks with The Cranky Middle Manager Show on notable books in 2007.

For the second year in a row, Wayne Turmel over at the Cranky Middle Manager Show spoke with Jack on some of the books nominated for our awards. A number of our award nominees were interviewed by Wayne at various points throughout the year. You can find the interviews here.

Thanks Wayne and best of luck with the new venture!

strategy + business picks of 2007

The folks over at strategy + business have chosen what they consider the best business books of the year. There were eight categories, and each one was assigned to an expert in that field for review. Each reviewer also delivered an essay on the books chosen, and they are all good reads. The categories were Behavioral Theory, Biography, Biotech, Capitalism, The Entrepreneurs, Human Capital, Innovation, and Strategy. If you'd like to learn more about the the reviewers, or would like to read their essays, you can find all of that on their website (membership is free). Here I will just list the books chosen, putting "s+p's Top Shelf" in bold and starring the books that made our shortlist as well.

Behavioral Theory: reviewed by Howard Rheingold

Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity by John Henry Clippinger, PublicAffairs

*Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger, Times Books

The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You by Mark Buchanan, Bloomsbury USA

Biography: reviewed by James O'Toole

Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw, Penguin Press

Andy Grove: The Life and Times of an American by Richard S. Tedlow, Portfolio

The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World by Randall Stross, Crown

Biotech: reviewed by by Joe Flower

Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet by Denise Caruso, Hybrid Vigor Press

Science Business: The Promise, the Reality, and the Future of Biotech by Gary P. Pisano, Harvard Business School Press

Capitalism: reviewed by Diane Coyle

Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity by William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, & Carl J. Schramm, Yale University Press

*Grande Expectations: A Year in the Life of Starbucks' Stock by Karen Blumenthal, Crown Business

The Most Important Fish in the Sea by Bruce Franklin, Island Press

The New Capitalists:How Citizen Investors Are Reshaping the Corporate Agenda by Stephen Davis, Jon Lukomnik, & David Pitt-Watson, Harvard Business School Press

Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction by Thomas K. McCraw, Belknap Press

The Entrepreneurs: reviewed by Tom Ehrenfeld

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston, Apress

Mommy Millionaire: How I Turned My Kitchen Table Idea into a Million Dollars, and How You Can, Too! by Kim Lavine, St. Martin's Press

*No Man's Land: What to Do When Your Company Is Too Big to Be Small but Too Small to Be Big by Doug Tatum, Portfolio

*Typo: The Last American Typesetter, or How I Made and Lost 4 Million Dollars by David Silverman, Soft Skull Press

Human Capital: reviewed by R. Gopalakrishnan

30 Reasons Employees Hate Their Managers: What Your People May Be Thinking and What You Can Do about It by Bruce L. Katcher with Adam Snyder, AMACOM

Ego Check: Why Executive Hubris Is Wrecking Companies and Careers and How to Avoid the Trap by Mathew Hayward, Kaplan Business

Five Minds for the Future by Howard Gardner, Harvard Business School Press

Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, and Organizations Buzz with Energy — and Others Don't by Lynda Gratton, Berrett-Koehler

The Truth about Being a Leader... and Nothing But the Truth by Karen Otazo, FT Press

Innovation: reviewed by Michael Schrage

Brilliant! Shuji Nakamura and the Revolution in Lighting Technology by Bob Johnstone, Prometheus Books

Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Pro-grammers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software by Scott Rosenberg, Crown Books

The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun, O'Reilly Media

Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design by Bill Buxton, Morgan Kaufmann

Strategy: reviewed by David Newkirk

Dragons at Your Door: How Chinese Cost Innovation Is Disrupting Global Competition by Ming Zeng & Peter J. Williamson, Harvard Business School Press

Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement by William Duggan, Columbia University Press

The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (and What to Do about It) by Michael E. Raynor, Doubleday

Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth by Chris Zook, Harvard Business School Press

Wal-Smart: What It Really Takes to Profit in a Wal-Mart World by William H. Marquard, McGraw-Hill

We're big fans of the strategy + business list and the essays they include each year. Todd has written a post on the list each year dating back to 2003. If you're interested in what titles they've chosen in the past, I've linked to those posts below.

2006
2005
2004
2003

Five Books from 2007: Wikinomics, Halo Effect, Firing Back, one on Starbucks and a Fable.

Carol Hymowitz over at the WSJ shared her list of business books for holiday reading (you may need to log in). On it, were these books:

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams.

This is what we've all been talking about in the past few years and even more so since the rise of Wikipedia. What's the future of mass collaboration and how is it changing what we do? Here's an introduction to our new wiki-ed world. For more, join Don, Anthony and friends over at their blog.

: : : : :

The Halo Effect ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers by Phil Rosenzweig.

One controversial title of the year as Phil debates the merits of many well-known business titles: Good to Great and In Search of Excellence. As Carol explains, "The Halo Effect is for executives who aren't looking for a quick-fix prescription and who understand that winning depends on knowing one's own company and on executing smart decisions well -- with a little luck mixed in." For the record, Tom Ehrenfeld highly recommends checking it out. And, a link to Phil's blog plus a ChangeThis manifesto Phil wrote.

: : : : : :

The Three Signs of a Miserable Job by Patrick Lencioni.

Here's a good airplane read and another of the Lencioni fables. The three signs of a miserable job: irrelevance, immeasurability, and anonymity. Even if you're not a friend of fables, check out the back portion for the guts of the book.

: : : : :

Firing Back -- How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward.

The title is self-explanatory. How do you get back up and revamp your career? By the way, Jeffrey was recently in a Fortune article.

: : : : :

How Starbucks Saved My Life by Michael Gates Gill

This past fall, Michael visited us in Milwaukee. Jon had a chance to interview him. This is Michael's story of how he went from having everything to working at Starbucks -- quite a humbling experience.

Yes, Reading is Sexy.

Last week we gave Jack a Christmas present. You see, long before our beloved Jack founded this crazy entity now known as 800-CEO-READ and became an author, he ran a record store with his wife Ann. [Local Milwaukeeans out there can probably recall his nickname.] And so, we gave him 45 RPM: A Visual History of the Seven-Inch Record.

The book was accompanied by this pencil (a testament to the hipness of booksellers and readers).

Yes, reading is sexy. Thanks for reminding us BuyOlympia.com.

Friday Links

Tis the last Friday before the holidays and all through the office
Here's what we found while surfing the web this week:
Enjoy!

Independent Booksellers' Picks: The best in fiction!

Ever wonder if you should be drinking that much water or reading in bright light? Here's 7 Medical Myths that even doctors believe.

What would the holidays be like without Dolly Parton?? The little songstress is going on a European tour and promoting literacy through her Imagination Library program. Read more about her UK invansion here.

Pat Evans, author of SalesBurst, is giving 50% of his book's net profits to something dear to his heart.

For all you travel bugs out there - check into this: Travel Game! It's quite addictive, so settle in and see how much you know about our small world, after all...

Hey! What's going on with pals Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart?

NFL Players help out retired NFL brothers in dire need during this Sunday's game.

Feeling blue during the winter season? Try This

- - - That - - - OR - - - The Other Thing!!

Ever wonder about one of the most beloved games in American culture?

Have a fun and safe holiday season!

Three Leadership Experts on Dealing With Internal Trouble

Hidden inside Fortune's 2008 Investor's Guide is a one page article titled "The Three Minute Manager: Lessons In Leadership." They interview Bill George (True North), Noel Tichy (Judgment) and Jeffrey Sonnenfeld (Firing Back) and each was asked questions around the problem:

"What do you do if you discover a huge loss at your company?"

There is no link on the Fortune's site to the piece, so I can only give you the choicest words from each authority:

• Sonnenfeld on your first move: "First you want to figure out the entirety of the problem so you don't lose credibility coming out with more and more bad news. Determine how much time you have to analyze the extent of the situation before you release information to the public."
• George on taking responsibility: "Do everything you can to avoid denial. There's a tendency in many organizations to not want to hear bad news. I used to say at Medtronic, 'You will never get fired for making a mistake, but you will get fired for covering it up.'"
• Tichy on who's done it right: "Jack Welch was a master of crisis management. In the 1980's a GE engineer was caught bribing a Israeli general, and Welch himself fired 20 other GE managers because they should have smelled it. They were the ones stealing, but they got fired for it. Welch personally owned that."

Kindle vs. Reader and Beyond

I recently spent some time with the Amazon Kindle side-by-side with the Sony Reader. Having never used any type of virtual book device before, it took me a bit to adjust to both (both have slightly awkward hardware characteristics), but once I settled in, some big things became apparent. Kindle is very connected to a large world beyond the text you're reading on the screen. With services like Wikipedia and Dictionary connection, and their experimental "NowNow" service - where you type in a question about ANYTHING, and a rep from Amazon will upload 3 related links to your Kindle in response - a reader has a pretty robust reference library at their fingertips. But that's not all. Because it's connected to Amazon, all their features also apply - book recommendations, preferences, etc., making it really easy to buy new eBook titles.

Sony's Reader is a fine reading device. The text on the screen is just as legible. But it's all the things that Kindle is connected to outside itself that makes it more compelling. I actually pictured myself using one beyond this test - something I never imagined considering. All in all though, I'm mostly interested to see where this goes. I don't think it'll die like some think, but it certainly isn't the answer for everyone. Future devices will find ways to improve this connectivity to a larger world, and will give it broader appeal. In the meantime, I'm cherishing my signed, leather-bound Thomas Ligotti books with crimson type and black page edges.

The Inside Advantage

Robert Bloom has marketed the launch of some very great and successful companies--Southwest Airlines, Nestle, T-Mobile and Novartis just to name a few. He has worked with numerous others along the way, including BMW and L'Oreal. In each instance he applied a winning formula for growth based on the assertion that every company has an Inside Advantage. He is now sharing all that knowledge and experience with anyone who has $24.95 and a company to grow with his new book The Inside Advantage: The Strategy that Unlocks the Hidden Growth in Your Business. An Inside Advantage is an unexploited strength in a company that can be used to spur growth. Bloom believes every company has one, and that the path to growth starts with identifying this unique strength and using it to strengthen the company and brand as a whole. He lays out a system for finding and using that Inside Advantage he calls The Growth Discovery Process, and that process has four steps--WHO, WHAT, HOW, and OWN IT! A chart reprinted throughout the book explains the steps.

WHO is the core customer most likely to buy your product or service in the quantity required for optimal profit.

WHAT is the uncommon offering that your business will own and leverage.

HOW is the persuasive strategy that will convince your core customer to buy your uncommon offering versus all competitive offerings.

OWN IT! is the series of imaginative acts that will celebrate your uncommon offering and make it well known to your core customer.

Those italicized phrases are used widely throughout the book to keep providing emphasis on aspects of your business Bloom believes are most critical to growth. He believes the word customer, for instance, is "the most important word in the vocabulary of business." That is the WHO, or your core customer. The WHAT is what you're offering, for sure, but he starts by urging us to discover WHAT business we're really in. He uses L'Oreal as an example here, explaining that while, yes, they are in the cosmetics and hair care business, their view is that they're in the business of "helping women look and feel beautiful." That viewpoint provides a much more emotional connection to their customer.

The book is full of such insights, and there are "Bob Bloom Consulting Session" sections for each step of the process where he provides specific scenarios and walks you through how to find solutions. If you're looking to grow your business in the new year, this would be a good book to read over the holidays.

links for 2007-12-20

• The Tide of Fortune>>The Wall Street Journal | Commodore
  Along the way, this uneducated, gutsy and often callous man laid the foundations for what Mr. Renehan describes as "the greatest private fortune the world has ever known."
  (tags: businessbooks biography)

Last Minute Book Gift Idea

If you are looking for a last minute gift idea and you think a book might work, I have two ideas for you.

The first is This I Believe. Released last August, the book is a compilation of the NPR project by the same name. Edward R. Murrow in the 1950's went out and asked people, famous and everyday, to write a short essay about their core values. The series was revived in the last few years using the same process. I read the book cover to cover over the holidays last year. I found the writing powerful and moving. I highly recommend it. A paperback version is available now for $14.

The second is a parallel and equally interesting book called Listening Is an Act of Love. This is the bound version of selected works accumulated by Story Corps, a non-profit initiative to capture oral history in America. A person brings a partner to one of Story Corps' stations and records a 40 minute interview. The partners are given a copy of the interview and a second copy is sent to and stored at the Library of Congress. Taking spoken word and presenting it in a written form is challenging, but I like the stories and sentiments shared. You might buy the audiobook in this case to hear the stories from the original people.

If you need them for next week, I would recommend a visit your local bookshop.

P.S. For all the locals, there is a Story Corps outpost in Milwaukee.

Forces for Good event

As of today, we've got 10 seats remaining for the January 16 Forces for Good event with Leslie Crutchfield. Anyone involved in nonprofit work or simply interested in how to make a better impact in the world needs to attend. Everyone from Barack Obama to Jim Collins is talking about this book, and this event is sure to cause a positive stir in Milwaukee. For more info and to register for the event: click here.

Jack Covert Selects - Strategic Intuition

Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement by William Duggan, Columbia Business School Publishing, 192 pages, $27.95, Hardcover, October 2007, ISBN 9780231142687

In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about how professionals in different fields make important in-the-moment decisions using the instinct gained from past experiences and expertise. One would think that strategic decision-making, the focus of William Duggan's new book, is detached from intuition and based in rational planning, reflection and intellect. This is the classic idea of the split between right brain and left brain functions--the distinction between creativity and rationale. However, referencing modern brain science, Duggan explains how--with advances in MRI technology and brain imaging--that previous model of the brain and its functions has given way to the idea of "intelligent memory." He then takes a look at what this new model tells us about intuition.

Brain science tells us there are three kinds of intuition: ordinary, expert, and strategic. Ordinary intuition is just a feeling, a gut instinct. Expert intuition is snap judgments, when you instantly recognize something familiar, the way a tennis pro knows where the ball will go from the arc and speed of the opponent's racket....The third kind, strategic intuition, is not a vague feeling, like ordinary intuition. Strategic intuition is a clear thought. And it's not fast, like expert intuition. It's slow. That flash of insight you had last night might solve a problem that's been on your mind for a month.

The main point of Strategic Intuition is that large, long-term improvements are not the result of setting a goal and planning a strategy. Instead, accomplishments build on one another. Even the fact that the stricter split-brain model has given way to a new, more nuanced one as a result of the development of the MRI is an example. The same can be said of Newton improving Copernicus's model of the solar system or Microsoft's improvements of the personal computer.

Not only does Duggan tell these stories compellingly, he weaves in the work of three great minds who have influenced his thinking--Thomas Kuhn on science, Joseph Schumpter on economics, and Carl Von Clausewitz on military strategy. He also includes a chapter on three eastern texts to discuss the mentality one needs to maximize the potential of strategic intuition. Innovation is the result of an intuitive and flexible approach rather than setting a goal that is planned, fixed, and inflexible. As a whole, this book might just change how you look at human thought and strategy, and influence how you organize yourself and your team strategically.

Love the lists

Gotta love this time of year. Lots of lists. As is true in business book publishing. Let me catch you up on the last few weeks of lists. This week we announced the semifinalists for our first ever 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards. There are the best books according to the Amazon editors. And BusinessWeek's choice picks. Books written by Economist writers.

And, now we have the best books as chosen by the Economist. You'll find a number of duplicate titles on the various lists. The business titles from the Economist lists are:

• *The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America
  By Allan M. Brandt. Basic Books; 704 pages


• *The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co--A Tale of Unrestrained Ambition, Billion-Dollar Fortunes, Byzantine Power Struggles, and Hidden Scandal
  By William D. Cohan. Doubleday; 742 pages
  *Winner of the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs' Business Book Award


• *The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
  By Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Random House; 400 pages


• The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It
  By Paul Collier. Oxford University Press; 224 pages


• *The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World
  By Alan Greenspan. Penguin Press; 531 pages


• Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
  By Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. Portfolio; 320 pages; $25.95


• From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession
  By Rakesh Khurana. Princeton University Press; 542 pages


• The Billionaire Who Wasn't: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune
  By Conor O'Clery. PublicAffairs; 352 pages


• Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits
  By Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant. Jossey-Bass; 336 pages
  
  In Milwaukee? Join Leslie for lunch on January 16th.


• Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart
  By Ian Ayres. Bantam; 272 pages

Find the entire list here.

*Starred books are in the running for our 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards which will be announced on January 15th.

CEO of Me

Work/Life balance was a big topic in business books, this year. A new book about the topic just came out last week: CEO of Me: Creating a Life that Works in the Flexible Job Age by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Brenda A. Lautsch.

Here's what the authors lay out in the preface:

By reading this book you will be able to

• Learn how to take charge of your life to implement new ways for using flexibility to make life work better.
• Better evaluate the different choices you make, either consciously or unconsciously, that shape how your work and personal life fit together.
• Develop more positive relationships between your work life and personal life.
• Get practical diagnostic tools and self-assessments to determine how you are currently using flexibility in your working life and how it may be getting in the way of the life you really want.
• Identify the barriers that block you from making true personal changes.
• Get practical tips and tools for making changes.
• Identify which of the three flexstyle types you use to manage work and life relationships and determine whether you use flexibility to make your life better or worse. By finding your flexstyle, you will discover whether you're a Captive or a Work or Family Firster, a Fusion Lover or a Reactor, a Job Warrior or a Quality Timer.
• Learn tips and tools that you can use to improve the quality of your working life.
• Find strategies that work to negotiate a better deal (based on leading negotiation principles) that consider the interests of other parties, such as your bosses, coworkers, and family, who are invested in how you are currently managing work and personal life relationships to develop win-win solutions to work and life conflicts.
• Learn how to make it easier for you and the people you work and live with to have more effective working and personal lives.
• Get a refreshing new spin on the work-life dilemma.
• Make better choices and create a life that works on your terms.

The book includes a few worksheets and assessment tools for finding out more about yourself and how well your work goals and personal goals are meshing.

2007 Best Business Book Awards: Semifinalists and Shortlist announced today

After nearly 300 submissions and weeks of intense reading, the 8cr editorial staff has narrowed down the top titles to be considered as the best in 13 categories for the first 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards.

The shortlist for the Best Business Book of 2007 was also announced which includes:

The Dream Manager
Matthew Kelly


The Last Tycoons
William D. Cohan


Made to Stick
Chip and Dan Heath


Strengths Finder 2.0
Tom Rath

Final winners for the will be announced on January 15, 2008. To view the complete list of semifinalists and shortlist please visit www.800ceoread.com/bookawards

links for 2007-12-15

• Starbucked >> New York Times Book Review | Venti Capitalists
  There’s a great story to be told about the success of Starbucks. But we’ll have to wait to hear it from somebody other than Taylor Clark.
  (tags: industry businessbooks negative)

Friday Links!

Yeppers! It's another edition of what we all found interesting this week. Enjoy!

New Inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - See who made list this year! - And on a side note: ABBA museum to be built in Stockholm!

More news on the writer's strike - and how it could hinder the Golden Globe awards in January.

American sportswriters urge to prevent steroid and hormone usage. And here's more on Clemens and his denial.

Terrorist Thugs, Muslim, New York Subway & Jews Oh my! Catch the New York Post video here.

The best time to see Mars.... and deck those halls with boughs of - nylon?

Seattle mayor urges people to bus it! Free bus rides to come in 2009.

Chicago: How green is your alley?

Jack Covert Selects - The Opposable Mind

The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking by Roger Martin, Harvard Business School Press, 224 pages, $26.95, Hardcover, December 2007, ISBN 9781422118924

Most leadership books teach readers how to become a better strategist or a successful manager or how to get things done. "In recent years, the dominant question addressed for the would-be leader is 'What should I do?' rather than 'What should I think?'" The latter question is what Roger Martin answers in The Opposable Mind.

Martin interviewed a variety of business leaders--including the founder of Four Seasons Hotels Isadore Sharp, Procter and Gamble's CEO A. G. Lafley, co-founder of Red Hat Inc. Bob Young, and Meg Whitman, of eBay fame. He found that their one common skill was being able to employ integrative thinking. That is, they have the "ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each."

Take Taddy Blecher, co-founder of CIDA City Campus who ventured to educate young black people in post-apartheid South Africa. With a university education priced at $5,000 a year, most South Africans couldn't afford the higher education necessary to pursue new opportunities. Nor could the government financially support enough young people's education to make a difference. Blecher sought a third model by building a university that is "completely self-sustaining and self-generating because it's generating its own economic activity." Beyond attending classes, students at CIDA are responsible for running the university, including maintenance and paperwork. This keeps costs down and enables students to apply their knowledge. Blecher's ability to use integrative thinking to create a new educational model has given thousands of South African youth access to an extraordinary higher education.

By becoming integrative thinkers, Martin explains, we can "hold two conflicting ideas in constructive tension. We can use that tension to think our way through to a new and superior idea." By utilizing this skill in everyday decisions, we can ultimately find more successful and creative solutions to the issues that face our businesses.

Jack Covert Selects - Human Sigma

Human Sigma by John H. Fleming, PhD and Jim Asplund, Gallup Press, 313 pages, $25.95, Hardcover, October 2007, ISBN 9781595620163

In Human Sigma, John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund paint a grim picture of business and the traps some companies fall into. Organizations create a world where computerized machines run everything and humans are expendable creatures that offer no contribution. The authors even call this sort of business practice "Terminator Management." Fleming and Asplund acknowledge that this is the extreme, but they caution that the business world is on its way to becoming a misguided, thoughtless, emotionless machine.

Fleming and Asplund assert that companies have neglected the human element of Six Sigma or, as the authors call it, Human Sigma. Most companies, like banks or huge retail conglomerates, regard individuals as volatile and/or unpredictable. As a result, they do not pay enough attention to basic employee-customer interactions to keep their companies focused and growing. The authors provide five rules of thumb for companies to stay on track and not lose the Human Sigma, a vital factor of every organization.

Rule 1: E Pluribus Unum: Every interaction between employee and customer should be seen and evaluated as a collective entity, not separate.

Rule 2: Feelings are Facts: Emotions drive the interactions for the employee/customer relations.

Rule 3: Think Globally, Measure and Act Locally: Manage at a local level.

Rule 4: There is One Number You Need to Know: A single performance metric the measures the employee and customer engagement

Rule 5: If You Pray for Potatoes, You Better Grab a Hoe: Good intentions do not constitute a plan of action. Be ready to carry it out.

The human quotient has never really left organizations, but companies focus instead on problems or situations that are more concrete. It's easier to solve a problem of disinterested or ill-informed employees handling a call-center by getting a fully automated phone system than creating a self-empowered team that feels passionate about both the company and customer they work for. Yet rote technological changes can lead to continued customer dissatisfaction, especially when customers are emotionally tied to a company.

This book clips along at a surprising speed, offering insights from many companies that have and have not implemented Human Sigma. The authors explain how companies can identify with their customers, how employees matter in all circumstances in business relationships and how this plan of action needs to not only be implemented, but maintained for success.

Another List

Rebecca pointed us all to Amazon's Best Books of 2007 last month, and in light of all the other lists coming out lately, I thought it'd be a good idea to revisit that list and highlight the business titles on it. There were three business categories--Business, Business Narratives, and Finance & Investing. So without further ado, the choice of Amazon's editors were...

Business:
*1-The Future of Management by Gary Hamel with Bill Breen

*2-Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip & Dan Heath

*3-The Leadership Challenge (4th Edition) by James M. Kouzes

*4-The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun

*5-Off-ramps and On-ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success by Sylvia Ann Hewlett

*6-We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business by Barry Libert & John Spector

*7-The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees) by Patrick M. Lencioni

*8-Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't by Ram Charan

*9-Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want by James H. Gilmore & Joseph B Pine II

*10-Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose by
Rajendra S. Sisodia, David B. Wolfe & Jag Sheth

Business Narratives:
*1-The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan

*2-The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co. by William D. Cohan

*3-The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

*4-The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun

*5-A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World by Gregory Clark

*6-Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich by Robert Frank

*7-Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams

*8-Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston

*9-The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

*10-All the Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make--and Spend--Their Fortunes by Peter W. Bernstein & Annalyn Swan

Finance & Investing:
*1-The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns by John C. Bogle

*2-Invest Like a Shark: How a Deaf Guy with No Job and Limited Capital Made a Fortune Investing in the Stock Market by James "RevShark" DePorre

*3-Wise Investing Made Simple: Larry Swedroe's Tales to Enrich Your Future by Larry Swedroe

*4-Your Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich by Jason Zweig

*5-Hedge Hunters: Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, the Risk, and the Reckoning by Katherine Burton

*6-Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics by William Bonner & Lila Rajiva

*7-Bonds: The Unbeaten Path to Secure Investment Growth by Hildy Richelson & Stan Richelson

*8-Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse by Peter D. Schiff with John Downes

*9-A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation by Richard Bookstaber

*10-The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles

Wikinomics also made the list in the Computers & Internet category, as did David Weinberger's excellent book, Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. The Age of Turbulence and The Shock Doctrine made the list in multiple categories, both making the Current Events list and The Age of Turbulence making the Memoirs list as well. The Black Swan also got the nod in Nonfiction.

And don't forget to check back Monday to see who made the shortlist for our first annual 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards.

BusinessWeek's Best Business Books of 2007

I have always appreciated BusinessWeek's commitment to the category of business books. The magazine reviews books in each issue and publish its monthly business book bestseller list.

Continuing in their support, here are the slideshow of books BusinessWeek choose in 2007 as their Best Business Books of the Year:

• In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce
• Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia by Joe Studwell
• The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (And What to Do About It) by Michael E. Raynor
• Boeing Versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business by John Newhouse
• The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea by Steve LeVine
• The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty by Julia Flynn Siler
• The Billionaire Who Wasn't: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune by Conor O'Clery
• Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back by John Kao

Books From the Staff at The Economist

There has been an explosion of business books written by journalists in the past few years, and this trend doesn't seem to be stopping. Personally, I like the trend. The authors write for a living, so the books are usually well written, and the topics they touch on are making business literature accessible to a wider audience. In its latest issue, The Economist listed the books members of its staff have written in the past year. Although not all of these are business books (and not all have been published in the U.S. yet) there are some great reads on the list. The list is:

*Martine Franck by Louise Baring

*Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future by Iain Carson & Vijay Vaitheeswaran

*Guide to Hedge Funds: What They Are, What They Do, Their Risks, Their Advantages by Philip Coggan (not being released until 2008)

*Pistols at Dawn: A History of Duelling by Richard Hopton (not yet released in the U.S.)

*Young Wisden: A New Fan's Guide to Cricket by Tim de Lisle (not yet released in the U.S.)

*Doing Business in China: How to Profit in the World's Fastest Growing Market by Ted Plafker

*Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul by Michael Reid

*The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

*Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself by Ann Wroe

*Holy Land, Unholy War by Anton La Guardia (this is the updated edition of a book first published in 2001, which I believe was published in the U.S. as War Without End)

That's a pretty impressive list of books for one magazine staff to create in a year. I've read Zoom and Doing in Business in China, and would recommend them both. I'm even thinking of getting one or two of the others as Christmas gifts... Christmas gifts I may very well give to myself.

Post Pow-wow Thoughts

I promised I'd write more about the pow-wow. With the assistance of the words from some of the pow-wow-ees, here goes. This year was our second annual Author Pow-wow. It's two days where business authors and some of the best of the publishing world gather to pick each others' brains, meet interesting people, and walk away a bit more energized. The setting: the brilliant Catalyst Ranch in Chicago.

Nearly a week has passed since the 50 (or so; thanks Phil) of us bid farewell and journeyed home. For us, the pow-wow is the only time in the year where we meet many of our customers and colleagues in person. It's easy to forget how important quality face time really is. As Mike, one of the pow-wow-ees, explains,"there is still no substitute for face-to-face, real-world meetings."

There's an amazing dynamic that occurs when a group of people are brought together; especially so when a group of people who usually play the role of teachers and consultants come together to learn, converse, absorb and share. Each of us had to unbuckle our egos and leave them at the door and so we did. For many authors, like David, it was the first conference they attended that year for themselves and many, like Raj, didn't know what to expect but brought their passion. I imagine they felt like the business leader who sits down to hear the consultant's advice or read the business book that will help them turnaround the company strategy.

"In a world where cut throat competition is celebrated and civility too often gets lost, it truly was magic to watch people who compete for contracts, shelf space, and media time, willingly reach out to those around them to offer insight from their own experiences that would help their colleagues. I'm guessing that no one left this two day session without learning at least one thing about publishing that had never crossed their mind." (From Barbara.)

As Erika blogged, "It was a delight to be in a room full of smart people trying to get smarter." At the end we had an exercise where everyone reflected with one word on what the pow-wow was for them. [I'm stealing this from Kevin's blog.] "Words included: fun, invigorating, energy, relationships, generosity, memorable, learning, and fattening (that was right on Ben).I [Kevin] chose the word Remarkable. The group chuckled at my choice, but it truly is the best word I could have chosen."

Remarkable it was. You see, as Jose points out, "There is nothing more personal than business and as long as we continue to exchange currency for goods and services, relationships will be the foundation of our economies. And as long as we have business, we will need to understand how to navigate the pitfalls and adventures that come with work...Business books will never die because there will always be incredible people with wonderful stories to share." That is really what the pow-wow was about: connecting and sharing. And for that, I thank each pow-wow-ee and everyone that helped make the two days a success. We can't wait to do it again!

Photos of our days at the ranch: via Phil, Jose, and our collection. And a pictorial representation of the two days by Dan (woot. woot.).

 

New Excerpt up - from The Sales Manager's Success Manual

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There's a new chapter up on the Excerpts blog--Chapter 19 of The Sales Manager's Success Manual by Wayne M. Thomas (AMACOM). This book covers fundamental sales management topics including compensation, forecasting, and motivation, along with more advanced topics such as dealing with internal politics, understanding generational issues, managing up, and developing intuition. It also shows how managers must be more productive than ever while relying more on partners and technology with reduced resources in the field. Chapter 19 focuses on the sales-oriented CEO.

There is another important axis on which to view your CEO. One of our experts termed this as "evolved" or "unevolved." A CEO, like any unevolved manager, is limited by a narrow scope of interest. One could argue that the primary focus for Carly Fiorina during her days as HP's head was, well, Carly Fiorina. In her later book, she blamed her woes on the machinations of others. Apparently, she remains unevolved.

Mark Hurd next assumed the reins and was swept into the HP Board scandal early in his tenure. He could have blamed others, but instead ceaselessly uttered mea culpa. Obviously, he demonstrated an emotional maturity that he was a team player who could be counted upon to shoulder his own share of the burden. He did not look for a scapegoat. This demonstrated that Hurd was an evolved player whom his managers could trust. Hurd and Fiorina are archetypes of the CEO behaviors just discussed.

Here's a direct link to the excerpt: http://800ceoread.com/excerpts/archives/007521.html#more

Kindle packaging

All opinions on Kindle aside, have you seen its packaging? Pretty spiffy.

* Image from Bad Banana Blog.

2007 Brand Autopsy Marketing Book Awards

John over at Brandy Autopsy has announced his favorite marketing books of the year. Among them are What Were They Thinking?, Wal-Smart, and Made To Stick. He also called out our ChangeThis manifesto The Secrets of Market-Driven Leaders as the "Best Business Book That is Not A Book".

BTW, the short lists for the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards will be announced next Monday (December 17th).

Catching up with the guys from Freakonomics

Yesterday I had a chance to catch up on a few weeks of blog posts over on the Freakonomics blog. I found out that their book is going to be made into a documentary; each story will be told by a different set of directors. One set of directors is looking for ideas from Freakonomics fans.

An earlier post had an interview with Vijay, co-author of Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future. Vijay answers questions on economic incentives in the automobile industry, why abolishing cars is only half right and what the car of the future looks like.

And finally, Stephen debates how compelling book blurbs actually are. For him, book blurbs are of little importance. I have to say I'm on that bandwagon, too. Especially since, the occasional quote is prefabricated by publishers and signed off by blurb-ers. Of course, this isn't always the case but makes you wonder.

Ask 8cr! - Growing Great Employees

Ask 8cr! is a section of our blog used as a forum to address the kinds of issues and challenges people are having in the workplace. We take these issues and apply a business book we feel offers a viable solution. Others then chime in via the comments section. The person with the selected challenge gets a free copy of the book, but everyone who reads these posts, wins. What's your challenge at work? Send it to me at jon(a)800ceoread(dot)com.

Today's challenge deals with keeping employees from slipping into mediocrity, or worse. Here's what one of our readers is dealing with:

"Long time associate is 7 out of 10 on best days, 4 out of 10 on worst days, but never the worst at any time. Every time a corner is turned, she slips and falls and reverts back to her old ways soon thereafter. Firm embraces longevity and diversity. Suggestions on how to fire her up or fire her outright?" - Phil

The good news with this challenge is that things are never at their worst, implying there's hope for the situation. From the outside, it appears that the employee generally does a good job, but then something happens. What causes that change? Something personal? Frustration with her responsibilities? Concern with management? Her co-workers? It could be anything, really, and not knowing that causes a great challenge for managers, but also puts them in a position to help their employees and become stronger leaders in the process.

Erika Andersen has written a great book (that we've talked about lots here) called Growing Great Employees: Turning Ordinary