Other than the incomparable Bill James, Lewis may be the man most responsible for popularizing the sabermetric approach to analyzing baseball. His seminal book Moneyball, in which he profiled the work of Billy Beane--GM of the Oakland Athletics--led many baseball fans to a better appreciation of just how valuable walks and On Base Percentage are. Joe Posnanski, of the Kansas City Star and author of The Soul of Baseball, described that phenomenon recently on his blog.

One of the reasons the book Moneyball was such a success, I think, is that it gave us a fascinating glimpse at how the magic trick worked. Yes, there was a lot of stuff in there about the draft, a lot of stuff about finding pitchers who throw funny, a lot of stuff about not selling jeans. But it seems to me the epiphany was that the Oakland A's just walked a whole helluva lot. [...] They walked and walked and freaking walked, And those walks turned a fat, limited, defensively challenged, John Jaha, Matt Stairs, Giambi Brothers bunch into a good enough offensive team to back up the Big 3 pitchers and win 87, 91 and 102 games.

With walks playing a starring role in Moneyball, many people just then started to realize how valuable and under-appreciated walks have been through the years. Not only does the walker get to go to first base, but he he uses up some of the pitchers valuable pitch count, he creates frustration, he has a chilling effect on the stadium atmosphere. I'm not suggesting that an increase in walks is good for baseball ... it is not, nothing in the game is more boring than a walk. But years ago, Pat Riley discovered that his New York Knicks could win basketball games by bullying and clawing and shoving and making basketball boring beyond pain. Sure, walks are boring. But they work.

Although you'll find it in the Sports and Recreation section of your local bookstore, Moneyball will be one of the books featured in Jack and Todd's 100 Best Business Books of All Time (which now has an ISBN and amazon page!) because it is essentially about managing an organization and changing an entire field of business with fresh thinking and new approaches. Jack contends that Michael Lewis is in the class of Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Joan Didion as a contemporary non-fiction writer. The Vanity Fair story certainly has me convinced.

VF Daily also interviewed Lewis about this recent article, and you can read that here.

As a result, says Rosenzweig, Collins ends up creating a managerial parable with little empirical basis. Instead, he has deftly packaged, in a catchy set of metaphors and slogans, a few timeless ideals about what great managers should do. Rosenzweig charges Collins with carefully creating a safe, appealing promise that holds profound allure to any manager who considers themselves above average, and who, with just the right amount of gumption and stick-to-it-ness, could truly shine.

Here’s the money passage:

Yet no one seemed to look closely at these [methodological] shortcomings, because Good to Great had such an encouraging message: You, too, can transform your good company into a great one. Collins was explicit on this point. He wrote: “Greatness is not a matter of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.� It’s a compelling story. People want to believe their good efforts will be rewarded, that good things come to those who wait, and that’s exactly what Collins was saying: With vision and humility, by caring about people, through persistence and focus, you can become Great. As a tale of inspiration, there’s hardly a better one than Good to Great.

Indeed, Rosenzweig goes on to posit that Good to Great is at its very essence a fable, “rooted in a classic narrative structure� of rags to riches, an archetypal tale whereby persistence and humility eventually lead to triumph.

Now personally, I’ve always believed that one of the reasons that Collins’ book went into the stratosphere was its ability to marry the Millionaire Next Door promise of greatness to those who considered themselves ordinary folks who, by dint of daily discipline, could elevate themselves. And, I’ve always admired Collins’ brilliant ability to make his ideas sticky by applying smart, evocative labels that communicate the key ideas.

I believe that the real value of the book is how well it helps executives (i.e. the people whose decisions have a material impact on the company) make better decisions by broadening the frame through which they weigh their choices. And in this regard, ultimately, I am far less persnickety than Rosenzweig when it comes down to methodology. Call it lazy thinking, maybe. But I guess the point is that ultimately the proof of what works is…what works. And just as Rosenzweig goes to great lengths to prove how difficult (nay, how impossible) it is to trace the true causes of business success, one must apply this same thinking conversely. Which is to say that by his own argument, it is almost impossible to prove that the reasons attributed to success are wrong.

It’s important to note that Rosenzweig takes no pot shots or Collins nor does he actually dis the entirety of his work. (Remember this is a man who cares about fine distinctions—he states that his book is meant to shift inquiry away from explaining why companies succeed into an exploration of why it is so hard to understand the root cause of enduring success.) After making a case that Collins is essentially a story-teller seen as sage, Rosenzweig goes on to concede the potential value of Collin’s tale, or that of any other business writer who helps managers frame their actions in a new light. “The test of a good story is not whether it is entirely, fully scientifically accurate—by definition it won’t be. Rather, the test of a good story is whether it leads us toward valuable insights, if it inspires us toward helpful action, at least most of the time.� And in that regard, I fully agree with him.

How about it readers? Where do you come down on this debate?

Rosenzweig’s argument is thoughtful, and I highly recommend that anyone who believes in the power of business ideas read his book. To get started you can read a great deal of his work on his website, which contains study guides to The Halo Effect, excerpts, a feisty blog, and a trove of original articles. Moreover, he goes into detail about the business books he likes, and also about books that can help one develop a thoughtful frame for assessing business ideas.

On his blog, Rosenzweig holds up Bob Sutton as a business writer whose work he admires. They could be seen as part of a small trend among business thinkers, new realists might be a way to define them, who are working to strip away wishful thinking when it comes to identifying good business practices.

I have but one key critique of the book, which is that Rosenzweig is nowhere as compelling in putting the pieces back together as he is in toppling the Humpty-Druckers from the wall. Now granted, at the essence of his argument is the case that the complexity, uncertainty, ferocious competition, and constant change of the business world prevents any enduring principles from being drawn. He argues, in fact, that his points “expose the principal fiction at the heart of so many business books—that a company can chose to be great, that following a few key steps will predictably lead to greatness, that its success is of its own making and not dependent on factors outside its control. We’re not far off from self-help books that tell people that they can be millionaires in five easy steps, or lose twenty pounds in two weeks, or awaken the power of greatness in them.�

As a result, success comes down to a “mix of shrewd strategy, superb execution, and good luck.� There IS no secret formula, and anyone who tells you so is selling you something, is his point. Okay. I buy Rosenzweig’s argument that there is no magic truth that guarantees success. But I also believe that business books that shed light into the nature of what works, and which provide managers with tools that help them make informed decisions, are, to put it simply, good. Useful. Regardless (to a degree) of how that advice is derived.

Tomorrow I’d like to focus on one entertaining passage of Rosenzweig’s book, in which he takes on the methodology of Jim Collins.

Phil argues that he has...

...seen so much nonsense—unsupported claims by famous gurus and self-described "thought leaders," sweeping assertions based on poor data, and simplistic stories that claim to be rigorous research. Worse, most people—including many very smart managers, consultants, and journalists— can't tell the difference between good and bad research. The Halo Effect is an attempt to raise the level of discussion in the business world, and to sharpen our skills of critical thinking about management.

The discussion is starting over at USA Today, CIO and CFO.

In my last installment, I thought I would highlight his mention of other business books. Rushkoff has no hesitation about calling people out. His first swing is at HBSP's Got Game (John Beck, Mitchell Wade):

In a classic misunderstanding of play culture, a Harvard Business School Press book about how "the gamer generation is reshaping business forever" contends that kids who grew up with videogames need to be treated differently in the workplace. True enough, but the authors but the authors surmise that game play has made young workers more competitive "because the object of all of those games is to win." They couldn't be more wrong. Beyond technology, the main difference between video games and those that came before them is that many videogames have no winner. That should be a clue: the real difference in creating a work environment for the gamer generation is finding ways to allow them to participate actively and consciously in the evolution of the enterprise itself.

I would say he goes a bit further with Clotaire Rapaille, author of The Culture Code. In this section, he is referencing his Frontline documentary The Persuaders where he spent time with Rapaille (watch section four The Science of Selling):

I've watched another consultant, an eccentric French former psychologist named Clotaire Rapaille, utterly transfix the CEOs of dozens of Fortune 500 companies by claiming to have a system through which he can discern "the code" underlying each of their industries. Through focus groups and hypnosis sessions , Rapaille uncovers people's earliest remembered associations for anything from coffee to jet planes, in order to help clients redesign their products, packaging, and promotions in accordance with the buried archetype or "code".

One Boeing executive I interviewed fully believes that the new Dreamliner aircraft will achieve its success with customers primarily because of Rapaille's input. "It's not enough to make bigger baggage compartments. They have to be 'on code.' " Of course, the executive could not tell me Rapaille's code for the Dreamliner, for it I released it, the competition would be able to redesign its aircraft using the same secret formula.

An interesting feature of Rapaille's work is his insistence on hypnotizing not only random focus groups, but also key executives involved in making decisions. His combined role of hypnotist, psychologist, and brand guru puts his clients in a particularly passive--what Freud would call "regressed"--position The net result is to make these executives more dependent on his advice and support. From what I've witnessed at baronial estate in Tuxedo Park New York, his clients are quite under his spell. They drink champagne, marvel over his car collection, and listen with rapt attention as he explains that women's experience bearing children makes them more conscious of automobile interiors, or that a luxurious air travel experience is undermined by aggressive search routines at the gates. His insights are either absurd, obvious or both, but his audience of executives focus on his every inflection with their jaws slack and eyes glazed over.

By hypnotizing this clients, Rapaille also gains insight into their true personal and business aspirations. The information about airplanes he gets from airplane executives is just as, if not more, important than what he gets from their customers. For those who have forgotten how to get back to the source of their passion and expertise, a hypnotist and psychologist like Rapaille might be useful--at least in the short run--as a form of psychotherapy or internal inquiry. The problem is, of course, that, unlike a course of therapy where the patient learns to solve his or her own problems, here Rapaille ends up receiving credit for insights gained and retains the exclusive ability to mine for more.

If you stuck with me on this post, the first thing I like about the book is Rushkoff's challenge of other people's thinking. It is often too polite in the world of business thought and we don't get to work really works.

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

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Managing with Aloha on 800-CEO-ReaD

• Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, New York: Vintage Books, 1991.
• Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of Love, New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
• John Armstrong, Conditions of Love: The Philosophy of Intimacy, London: Penguin, 2002.
• Donald Caine, Within Reason: Rationality and Human Behavior, New York: Vintage Books, 2000.
• Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, New York: Avon Books, 1994.
• Antonio R. Damasio, Looking for Spinoza: Joy. Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2003.
• Giep Franzen and Margot Bouwman, The Mental World of Brands: Mind, Memory and Brand Success, Oxfordshire: World Advertising Research Center, 2001.
• Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, New York: Litde, Brown and Company, 2001.
• Thomas Hine, I Want That!: How we All Became Shoppers, New York: HarperCollins, 2002.
• Lynn Jamieson, Intimacy: Personal Relationships with Modern Societies, Oxford: Polity Press, 1998.
• Regis McKenna, Total Access: Giving Customers What They want in an Anytime, Anywhere World, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
• Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson, The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
• Geoff Mulgan, Connexity: How to Live in a Connected World, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998.
• David G. Myers, Intuition: Its Powers and Perils, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
• Hamish Pringle and Marjorie Thompson, Brand Spirit: How Cause Related Marketing Builds Brands, Sydney: John Wiley & Sons, 1999.
• Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
• Annette Simmons, The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling, Boston: Perseus Publishing, 2001
• Gerald Zaltman, How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market, Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2003.
• Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity, New York: Vintage Books, 1998.
• Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin, The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism, New York: Viking, 2002

I generally believe that reading begets reading and typically find great books because they were referenced in a book that I'm reading or on a list in the bibliography.

I thought this might be an interesting feature for this blog. In the extended entry, I have listed all the books mentioned in Re-Imagine!. Since I couldn't, find a bibliography, it went through the book manually and I may have missed a couple. The 81 books I did find cover a wide ranges of subjects. While many titles you'll recognize, there are others you probably won't.