800-CEO-READ Blog: Book Reviews

Nick Hornby on Naked Economics

In Naked Economics, Charles Wheelan makes an analogy between music "piracy" and farming, writing "You spend all summer tending to your corn crop and then your neighbor drives by in his combine, waves cheerily, and proceeds to harvest the whole crop for himself."

Though an overall fan of the book, Nick Hornby disagrees with that specific sentiment. Writing about it on his blog on Tuesday, he grabbed hold of Wheelan's analogy and took it to a hilarious conclusion. After making a concise point about the very different nature of corn and music as products, he goes on to write:

(One reason why people--OK, evil people--feel it's OK to download, say, a Jay-Z album without paying for it is that there are few outward signs that Jay-Z is suffering as a result.) Or is the record company the farmer, in Wheelan's analogy? Well, if the farmer had spent decades overcharging grotesquely for corn, ... then perhaps the thieves would have been cheered all the way to the bootleg farmer's market.

This being a family blog, I cut out what exactly the record company execs spent their "grotesque" profits on, but Hornby continues from there, comparing some of the more innovative ways musicians have been releasing their music to traditional farming (and pointing you to online resources for free music along the way).

The Myth of Multitasking

It seems we all "multitask" these days... talking to a coworker while writing a blog post (Kate), answering the cellphone while crunching the monthly numbers, reading a new email while taking a phonecall. In fact, you're multitasking right now, aren't you? Dave Crenshaw would so no, you're actually not... he would say you're "switchtasking." You see, his Myth of Multitasking (watch out, it's a parable) not only exposes the inefficiencies of multitasking, it states that it doesn't even exist. Why? Well, in his words:

Because the truth is we really cannot do two things at the same time--we are only one person with only one brain. Neurologically speaking, it has been proven to be impossible. What we are really doing is switching back and forth between two tasks rapidly, typing here, paying attention there, checking our "crackberry" here, answering voicemail there, back and forth back and forth at a high rate. Keep this up over a long period of time, and you have deeply engrained habits that cause stress and anxiety and dropped responsibilities and a myriad of productivity & focus problems. It's little wonder so many people complain of increasingly short attention spans!

The quote above is taken from Dave's guest-post at The Cranky Widgets Blog.Since its release on the 18th, the book and author have been on a "blog tour," being reviewed and interviewed all over the blogosphere. If you're interested in learning more about Dave and his ideas, I've put links to many of those posts below.

Interviews:
Virtually Organized
Black Belt Productivity

Reviews:
awake@thewheel
Get Rich Slowly
Slacker Manager
Change Your Thoughts

BusinessWeek review of Hell's Cartel

Last week BusinessWeek reviewed Hell's Cartel: IG Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine by Diarmuid Jeffreys. Hell's Cartel is about IG Farben's decision to utilize death camp labor during WWII to speed up efforts to develop synthesized plastics. The German chemical group was famous for discovering ammonia and (at Bayer, a subsidiary) sulfa, the first antibiotic.

Jeffreys, author of Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug, details the journey this once highly esteemed company took once it made a deal with the devil. Part corporate biography, part history, and part moral tale, Hell's Cartel is, as the reviewer puts it, "not a pretty history. But it is gripping, full of warnings about the potential of corporations to mutate into criminal enterprises."

Here's a snippet from the review:

"IG Farben and Hitler: A Fateful Chemistry
How a company whose Nobel-winning scientists discovered vital medicines became a Nazi collaborator"

IG Farben traced its origins to the efforts of men such as Carl Bosch of BASF Group, who led the effort to mass-produce synthetic ammonia. The work was crucial to solving a worldwide shortage of fertilizer and preventing mass starvation. He and other scientist-managers made Germany the dominant producer of drugs and chemicals in the years before World War I. Bosch was a man of conscience but also deeply patriotic. During World War I he became a national hero after leading a crash effort to develop synthetic nitric acid, essential to producing explosives. Most notoriously, BASF chemist Fritz Haber, who had developed the processes used to make ammonia, came up with the idea of using chlorine gas as a weapon.

Read the entire article here: businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_34/b4097098922518.htm?chan=magazine+channel_opinion

If you like books in this vein, also check out The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug by Thomas Hager.

Wired Reviews

Wired Magazine doesn't review books in depth that often, so I was surprised that they were the first (that I've seen) to review Thomas Friedman's upcoming book, Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--And How It Can Renew America.

It is reviewed by Garret M. Graff, author of The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House. The most interesting piece of the review is the story he relates from the book:

Friedman tells the story of a Marine Corps general in Iraq who requested solar panels to power his bases. Asked why, he explained that he wanted to win his region by "out-greening al Qaeda." Instead of trucking in gas from Kuwait at $20 a gallon--money that fuels oppressive petro-dictatorships--in convoys that are vulnerable to roadside bombs, why not beat the insurgents by taking away their targets and their funding?

Also reviewed in this issue, and given four whole pages to Friedman's one, is Neal Stephenson's Anathem. Anathem is not a business book--it's a 960 page powerhouse of science-fiction. If you love good science-fiction, however--or just really good writing--our sister company's book buyer tells me it gets no better than Stephenson. It will be the next non-business book I read.

If you missed the links above, links to the reviews are below.

Hot, Flat and Crowded
Anathem

New Harbinger Titles

Here are some titles that I found a must-read from Harbinger Press. They deal with how to perform better in your current job situation and offer many different perspectives on what to expect from coworkers and bosses. The books go from simple disorganization to dealing with co-workers that are difficult. Hopefully, you'll find one that you may want to read more about - here they are:

Watercooler Wisdom: How Smart People Prosper in the Face of Conflict, Pressure, & Change by Keith Bailey and Karen Leland - The authors of the book surveyed 20,000 executives, managers, and staff from around the world and discovered how everyone from CEOs to secretaries can flourish despite the stresses of the workplace. It's a practical guide that offers powerful techniqes for coping with conflict, pressure and change.

The Well-Ordered Office: How to Create an Efficient and Serene Workspace by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, Ph.D. - According to the author's research, there are about an average of 150 hours spent every year looking for things in offices or cubicles. Taking the time to organize is making time to enjoy the things you really love. Kendall-Tackett draws on her own experience as an organizer and practicing psychologist and offers simple strategies for overcoming these issues once and for all.

Working with the Self-Absorbed: How to Handle Narcissistic Personalities on the Job by Nina Brown, ED.D, LPC, NCC - In this book, you learn to manage the destructive behaviors of narcissists in the workplace and to ensure that your work gets the credit it deserves. Brown helps the reader to find realistic strategies for ignoring outrageous narcissism and help to establish a seperate-but-equal working environment with that coworker.

Thinking Outside the Cubicle: How to Change the Job You Have into the Job You Want by Norman J. Meshriy, MS - Meshriy helps to find tips and strategy to increase job satisfaction by transforming the workplace from within. He tells how to deal with frustrating bosses, difficult coworkers, and hone job skills. Restructure jobs to match goals, build rewarding business relationships, and become more secure to leave the office at the end of the day.

Once You're Lucky....

Another title, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, came across my desk that I was surprised no one had talked about (or ordered from us) before. A little internet company (think Facebook) just ordered a mass quantity. Maybe it's because the book offers new, optimistic views on the internet and its future - or it could be because along with YouTube and MySpace, it's one of the major players in Sarah Lacy's new book.

Lacy was a reporter for BusinessWeek and has been following Silicon Valley and the dotcoms for about a decade now and offers readers what exactly is happening there. Many Americans have long thought that there is no more life in the 'Valley' and there is no 'new wave' coming. Lacy points out that is a huge misconception and says that many people starting out now in the web have learned from past mistakes and making "groundbreaking new Web companies".

Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good is a must read for 'Valley-fanatics' and any aspiring entrepreneur that want to take advantage of the next wave of the internet (Web 2.0).

The Change Cycle

A summer title, The Cycle of Change: How People Can Survive and Thrive in Organizational Change, caught my attention today and I was thinking that in this climate of change we're all in, ( what with the election coming up and many companies changing strategies due to the economy) there are many folks getting swept up in organizational change. They are dealing with inner feelings, conflicts, steps, upheaval and what not can put a strain on a person - not just professionally but personally as well (blood pressure, stress, etc). In The Change Cycle, Ann Salerno and Lillie Brock help people through this process.

It's chapters are clear, very user friendly and the book explains how different people might experience change at different levels. They do this by including exercises and giving help by showing different scenarios to help comprehend "six predictable and sequential stages of change": Loss - Doubt - Discomfort - Discovery - Understanding & Integration.

What's really nice is that they focus different chapters to explain these stages. It's also based on their experiences with companies to help anyone at various levels in change at an organization. The authors are co-creators of the Change Cycle Series - which house such clients as Nestle, the CIA, Homeland Security, GM, AARP, Disney and Sony.

5 ways to deal with negativity and foster positivity at work

Thanks to Jon Gordon, author of The No Complaining Rule and The Energy Bus, for contributing this article on positivity.

Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity

With the mortgage meltdown, floods in the Midwest, $4 a gallon for gas, food prices, the economy, famine, war in Iraq, etc., many would agree that there is a lot of negativity in the world and certainly a lot to complain about. And yet, while traveling the country this past month, ironically for the No Complaining Rule Tour, I met a number of people who inspired me with the positive ways they were dealing with the negativity in their life. In spite of their circumstances they chose to view their situation with a positive perspective... which so often makes all the difference. Since we all could benefit from their example, here are 5 positive ways to deal with negativity.

1. Find the Gift - Richard Bach said every problem has a gift for you in its hands. One woman came up to me and said that because of the cost of gas her family is driving less and as a result they are spending more time at home and having dinner together more often. She said this "negative" situation has been very "positive" for her family. Another person said he is taking the bus to work instead of driving and as a result he has met a lot of interesting people.
2. Look at the Bright Side - One gentlemen joked that because of the cost of gas he now has a great excuse to not drive and see his negative relatives.
3. Zoom Focus - It doesn't matter what the pundits say on television. It doesn't matter what Joe and Sally in your office are doing. It doesn't matter who is playing office politics. All that matters is what you do every day to grow yourself and your business. Focus on being positive and taking positive action every day. Be like the real estate agent who told me that he doesn't focus on what the news and newspapers say. He focuses on what he can do every day to be successful. He focuses on marketing his business, taking care of his clients, and building loyal relationships. What things do you need to Zoom Focus on?
4. Focus on the Opportunity Not the Challenge - Behind every innovation and solution is a story about someone who said there has to be a better way. I bet Henry Ford was walking behind a horse when he had the idea for his automobile. History shows us that a lot of people and a lot of companies make a lot of money during recessions. The key is to find the opportunity. Where is the market heading? What do people want and need? What will they want in the future? Now is a great time to build a positive team with great talent. Now is the time to gain market share while so many give up. Now is a great time to determine who is on your bus and who is off your bus. Now is the time to be indispensable to your company and demonstrate how valuable you are.
5. Be a Positive Influence on Others - I received an email from Ruthanne in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She wrote:

   "As you are probably aware, we were recently hit with a 500 year flood. My neighborhood was impacted the worst and most of our homes, mine included, are a total loss. People tell me I have been the most positive person they know who was directly impacted by the flood. I don't have a lot of time today (first day back at work in 2 wks) to tell you all the positive things that have been going on in our city and in my life, but I will be writing an article when this is all over with. I did want to say though that I have not complained throughout all the devastating catastrophe because of the knowledge I learned both from your seminar, books and newsletters."

   Ruthanne could have chosen to wallow in self pity and negativity but instead she chose to deal with her negative situation by being a positive influence on others. Think about how many people she is positively impacting in her community. Now think about the positive influence you can have on people at work, in your community and at home.

Every day simply ask yourself "How can I be a positive influence where I am, right now?"

Stay Positive!

-Jon

Author Bio
Jon Gordon is a speaker, consultant, and author of the international bestseller The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Lift, Work, and Team with Positive Energy, which has inspired readers the world over. He and his books have been featured on CNN and on NBC's Today show, and in Forbes, Fast Company, O: The Oprah Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. Clients such as the Jacksonville Jaguars. the PGA Tour, Northwestern Mutual, JPMorgan Chase, and Publix Supermarkets also call all Jon to get their team "on the bus" and moving in the right direction. Jon also impacts thousands of teachers and students each year through his work with schools, universities, and nonprofit organizations. He is a graduate of Cornell University and holds a master's degree in teaching from Emory University. He lives in northeast Florida with his wife and two high-energy children.

For more information about Jon, please visit www.JonGordon.com or www.NoComplainingRule.com.

Worth a Second (or Third Look)

Sometimes, we forget what books have been featured or talked about in the past few months. I came across some books that are worth a second look! One has been recommended by our Change This editor as a must read (Zenobia), another has been a Jack Covert Selects (Myself and Other More Important Matters), while the others I just felt the need to bring them back into the light and recognize them as invaluable resources for today's business environment.

So, for your consideration - - - take time to look at the titles again (maybe for some of you - this will be the first time):

The Nonverbal Advantage Carol Kinsey Goman	Celebrity Experience Donna Cutting
Zenobia Beth Kephart et al	Myself and Other More Important Matters Charles Handy

** Also new out this summer: The paperback edition of The Ultimate Sales Machine by Michael Gerber, Jay Conrad Levinson and Chet Holmes **

Plato and the Question of Beauty

I was browsing new book titles today and one just popped to my attention right away! It's called Plato and the Question of Beauty by Drew A. Hyland. The reason why I feel compelled to talk about this book goes back to my college days and my freshman year, second semester. I don't know if anyone has taken a right class at the wrong time like I did....the course was Communication in Civilization and I found out 3 weeks into it that even though it was a freshman course (# 171), juniors and seniors usually take it. (It was used, I like to think, to weed out those not ready for college). Most students had notes and past tests from alumni and I found out too late in the class to drop it. So, I muddled through.

Boy, was I glad I did! In the communication field, even though it can get a bit liberal as to what is taught, can feature very valuable information. The class I took brought Plato to my impressionable, freshman mind and I will never forget what I read. We only touched on the Symposium, the Republic and Pheadrus, and his lessons about life and skills in rhetoric are useful to us in 2008 just as they were to Plato those many years ago.

Hyland's book talks about those works as well as Plato's Hippias Major and is definitely right in step for today's business environment where people and companies move too fast, communicate too fast and tend to ignore details and the beauty around them. I'm not saying everyone that reads Plato will have this epiphany, but it may open minds to thinking of things in a different way. Plato may even help you when dealing in communication between co-workers, colleagues, etc.

If you do pick up a copy, enjoy it - and let me know what you think!

What to Say to a Porcupine

This cute, recently published, little book came to my attention the other day when a company called in to place an order for books to give to their staff. I was taken aback by the title and wondered what kind of a book this was, until that is I pulled it up on our website and found out that the subtitle was: 20 Humorous Tales that Get to the Heart of Great Customer Service.

What to Say to a Porcupine is a book that contains twenty different tales all centering around customer service and it offers topics for group (or single) discussion at the end of each fable. Some chapters include: My Big Fat Greek Chorus, Chilly Willy, The Knight Shift, Going to the Dogs and Sloth is Not a Vice.

Richard S. Gallagher, the author of all these little vignettes, has created such a great way to emphasize the fact that customer service is so important to companies and great service makes everything run more smoothly, intelligently, etc. In fact, What to Say to a Porcupine ends with the Gallagher saying that customer service is more than just another fable.

This book is great for any company that needs a little kick-start or even a reminder of how customer service should be like. It's thought-provoking in a very interesting way! I hope when you get a copy - or even copies for your whole staff - you'll enjoy it!

Have a GREAT weekend!!

Business Novels

In his wonderful review of Personal Days in last weeeknd's New York Times Sunday Book Review (free subscription), Mark Sarvas pondered the following:

... considering the ubiquity of the work experience in American lives, and the thousands upon thousands of novels published annually, perhaps the question shouldn't be why there are two work-related novels right now but why there aren't many more.

The other "work-related novel" he is speaking of here is Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End (read Dan Pink's review of that book here, or the NYT Sunday Book Review review here). I think Sarvas poses a good question. And, though it's a far cry from a real answer, there are a few other recent and successful examples I can think of.

Max Barry's Company has been well received by those who've taken notice (as were his other two books) and there are many who have. You can read the first chapter of that book here. Although it's officially a memoir, and not a novel, I really enjoyed Rock On, Dan Kennedy's February release about his time spent in the bowels of the music industry (read a review from our beloved sister company here and other reviews from the book's website here). And, finally, we have Back Bay Books' recently released Bank, David Bledin's promising debut novel about life in investment banking. For an example of his style and perspective, head on over to this rather humorous and slightly depressing Huffington Post entry.

That is by no means an overwhelming number of books considering, as Sarvas said, "the thousands upon thousands of novels published annually." There is also a similarity between all of these books--they're all satires, skewering the industries they work in and write about. Kate Jennings noticeded this trend way back in 2001 in an article about business novels for strategy+business:

...as the century progressed, the fecund field of business fiction was all but abandoned by serious novelists. In fact, the problem in the last 25 years is not one of novelistic "bad press" but hardly any press at all. To be sure, there have been a number of satires, some of them brilliant, that fall under the business-novel rubric: Martin Amis's Money: A Suicide Note (1984); Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) and A Man in Full (1998); David Lodge's Nice Work (1988); Bill Morris's Biography of a Buick (1992); Po Bronson's Bombardiers (1995); Douglas Coupland's Microserfs (1995); Julian Barnes's England, England (1998); and Kurt Andersen's Turn of the Century (1999). Nothing wrong with satire, but when it gets too broad, too silly, played only for yuks, it loses resonance. If we set aside these works, sober fictional treatments of business, such as Philip Roth's American Pastoral (1997) and Richard Powers's Gain (1998), are scarcer than Republicans who are proregulation.

Of course, Kate Jennings is author of her own satirical take on the business world, Moral Hazard, based on her own experience as a speechwriter on Wall Street.

If you're interested in more on business novels, you can find The American's pick of the top ten of all time here.

I was somewhat surprised while looking around for more on this subject not to see Eliyahu M. Goldratt's The Goal mentioned in any of these conversations. That is one business novel that is most definitely not satire.

Consumer or Consumed? BusinessWeek reviews two books about brands

Yesterday Dylan did a nice job of summing up the latest reviews and discussions about business books in business magazines. Sometimes it's hard for us to keep up with everything, so here's one from a few weeks ago.

In the June 19 issue of BusinessWeek, writer Susan Berfield reviewed two books that "explore the question of whether brands control us, or vice versa": Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker, and Obsessive Branding Disorder: The Illusion of Business and the Business of Illusion by Lucas Conley. (Image source=BusinessWeek.com)

Here's a snippet from the article:

My girl's request [for a Go-Gurt in her lunch]--fleeting, trivial, and unrepeated--nonetheless says something profound about our high-impact, omni-consuming culture. But what? Is she--are we all--just easy marks? Or is there a more complex dynamic between the marketer and the mark? Rob Walker, the author of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, argues for the latter view. Walker, who writes the "Consumed" column in The New York Times Magazine, offers a sophisticated and sometimes lighthearted take on how consumers interact with brands, defining and controlling them as companies struggle to keep up. By contrast, Lucas Conley, a contributing writer for Fast Company, takes a grimmer view. His book, Obsessive Branding Disorder: The Illusion of Business and The Business of Illusion, is a bleak assessment of how defenseless we are against ad creep, as he calls it.

Check out the BusinessWeek article to see which perspective Berfield tends to agree with more.

Outsmart!

Jim Champy is coauthor of the business classic Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, which is, without a doubt, one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time (we love manifestos). He also wrote the follow-ups Reengineering Management and X-Engineering the Corporation, and just released a new book, Outsmart!, in March.

Outsmart!, as Champy puts it in the introduction, is:

...The first in a planned series comprising four compact volumes on the key topics of strategy, marketing, leadership, and operations. Taken together, the books aim to deliver the most current intelligence available on how to succeed in today's brave new world of business. An ambitious project? Yes. But what I see a host of companies accomplishing today has me both excited and encouraged.

With the current state of the economy, we can all use a little more encouragement. Maybe Jim Champy can help.

You can read a review from the Boston Globe here.

You can read an interview of Mr. Champy from Management Consulting News here.

The Pixar Touch review in the New York Times Book Review

The Pixar Touch, which was a Jack Covert Selects in May, was reviewed in this past Sunday's New York Times Book Review.

Read the review here.

The Future of the Internet

You guessed it! Another book was brought to my attention the other day when someone called and placed a mass quantity order for their employees to read, the other day. The book was: The Future of the Internet....And How to Stop It. The title alone made my ears tingle, which urged me to find out more about this book and what Zittrain could possibly mean by this ominous title. Well, turns out, he suggests in this book that the internet has set itself up for 'a complete meltdown'. With all the 'wiki'-stuff, 'I"-stuff, etc., the web is getting increasingly muddled.

In just a few years, how we perceive the net is going to be quite dramatically different. It's already started to morph. Zittrain offers solutions in how we can maintain or even keep ahead of this great change. He also, which was very interesting to me, tells of how this happened (and still is happening) in the first place. Then, he even goes on to tell us about the 'next best thing' and how this is going to further breakdown the net. It's call the XO laptop, and well, you'll have to read the book to find out more about that. It's just in several countries right now, but what it can do will (and should) astound you.

Here's what some people said about this book:

"Jonathan Zittrain does what no one has before - he eloquently and subtly pinpoints the magic that makes Wikipedia, and the Internet was a whole, work. The best way to save the Internet is to turn off your laptop until you've read this book." - Jimbo Wales, Founder, Wikipedia

"Zittrain provides a compelling account of the changes that have shaped the Internet and where it is heading. His assessment of the future of communications, collaboration, and privacy provides important food for thought for everyone who will shape - or be shaped by - the future of this thechnology." - Brad Smith, General Counsel, Microsoft Corp.

First Stop in the New World

I've commented before on how small the world is getting and how business attitudes have and must change to comply this fact. Many places around the globe are either losing their stance with the global economy because they may have not recognized the need for change or they just lost the "IT" factor; while other countries are picking up the flack, so to speak. First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century gives such a locale as an example that many people have either not thought about being in a power position or just written off because they don't know much about the city.

According to David Lida, Mexico City is such a place that may be a viable place for business of the future to take a stronghold in. He has worked in the city for many years and his book reads like a sharp-witted, David Sedaris type memoir, making it accessible to just about everyone. Lida projects Mexico City as a key player in the twenty-first century and gives graphic details of its culture, sex, politics, economics, corruption, and "the brutal interactions of everyday commerce".

Think of it: Paris in the nineteenth century. New York in the twentieth. Mexico City in the twenty-first?

The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II

Dave Balter seems to love proving people wrong. People thought he was crazy when he created one of the first word of mouth media companies, BzzAgent. But, through his work, he has proven that people are not only willing, but actually want to be involved in learning about brands and products, and helping spread the word about them, if engaged with and listened to.

Dave is being looked at askance once again, people wondering if he's finally lost it. The reason this time is the release of his new book, entitled The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II. In an rather unorthodox move, he has decided to self-publish it. He didn't have to self-publish it--his last book, The Grapevine, was published by Portfolio and did well. He also doesn't have to release a free eBook of the material, something a publisher would never let him do, but he is.

After reading the eBook--reading how word of mouth marketing is the Grateful Dead to viral marketing's Falco ("Rock Me Amadeus") for example--you'll want to buy the physical edition. Only a few thousand are being printed, so it's sure to be a collector's item, and each book comes with an original piece of artwork by their artist in residence, Seth B. Minkin.

If you'd like more material to start you off, Dave has previously written a ChangeThis manifesto, and Todd interviewed him after the release of his first book. If you're interested in why he decided to self-publish, he has written a very well reasoned post on the topic.

Here's the direct link to the PDF edition of The Word of Mouth Manual:
http://www.800ceoread.com/wommvii

Personal Days

Just how absurd (silly, mundane, hypocritical, etc - pick one or use your own) has the workplace gotten since the introduction of new technologies and the seemingly endless barrage of office politics? In his new novel, Personal Days, Ed Park examines the culture of business like it has never been examined before. He makes up a New York company, adds a bit of George Orwell, dabbles in office romances and starts it all off with a certain employee getting a phone call on a Sunday from the office.

Sure, it's a novel about a made up office, but for anyone that does work in one of these, week in and week out, the similarities will ring true. It may start off funny, seemingly unimportant/trivial, but by the end with all the politics, conspiracies and backstabbing, one may wonder how far off the mark is this book from everyday life.

Here's what people are saying about the book:

"The funniest book I've read about the way we work now." - William Poundstone, author of Fortune's Formula

"[Park's] sardonic humor will ring true to cube monkeys everywhere." - Fast Company

"Hysterical." - Wired

"The ideal read for anyone who has ever felt possessive about a stapler, confused by their boss's behavior, or suspicious of the stranger who works two cubicles down." - Amanda Filipacchi, author of Love Creeps

Read more about the book HERE

Superclass

A company recently ordered a bunch of copies of a book called Superclass the other day and I had to look into getting them some copies. Boy, did it sound interesting once I did some research! So interesting in fact that I had to get a copy for myself. I was glad I did. The book's subtitle is: The Global Power Elite and the World They are Making and the author is David Rothkopf. He writes about certain powerful businesses, legal leaders, big-shot celebrities and power countries that seem to decide what we should/shouldn't do on a global scale. This could be dictating trends in business, economical, legal, cultural, etc. He talks about Bono and the environment then he'll switch to how the internet changed the world then go on to terrorists. This is definitely one of those rare books that will touch a cord with just about everyone that reads it.

What I found REALLY great was that each chapter will catch a certain interest in a particular area that the reader may be interested in. This will help those that have a short attention span, like yours truly, and just want to find out what pertains to them. AND....within the chapters, they have different parts as well - picking up and looking at it again is very easy to do (i.e. great beach read once you get on vacation this summer).

Here's what some people have said about it:

"In his lively and brilliantly written book Superclass, David Rothkopf has captured the connections and interactions among the influential, rich, and famous throughout the world. He compellingly describes how those links are shaping the global economic and political landscape today - and how they will powerfully influence the future institutions and politics of our planet." - Robert D. Hormants, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs (International).

"An entertaining and well-researched taxonomy of the rich and powerful who shape foreign policy and business in our globalized world. Rothkopf gives us the story behind Davos Man." - Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Guilty Pleasure: Miss Walters' New Book

OK, I know this is getting quite a bit of media attention already, but I'm going to add to it here and now regardless.

This past weekend, our sister company, Harry W. Schwartz Bookstores brought Barbara Walters in for a signing/interview session at Alverno College . So, I got to meet with and help Miss Walters during the event for her new book Audition and I found her to be quite a remarkable woman! In person she is quite small in stature, razor thin and very nice. It's hard to believe when I saw her that this was the woman that helped alter the way news was done. A pioneer in broadcasting, Miss Walters changed the 'old boys club' by not only doing what they did, but assured the places for women that would come after her, as well.

Well, that's the shameless plug.... I have a copy of the book and just think that everyone should too! That's about it - oh, and Happy June (finally)!!

Book reviews in The Economist

The Economist regularly reviews history, business, and nonfiction books in its "Books and arts" section. This week, two reviews caught my eye. Here are brief excerpts from the reviews.

Tall tales
The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company

A number of interesting things about Disney emerge in this excellent, readable account of Pixar's early years. David Price claims, for instance, that Disney's chief executive, Michael Eisner, considered shutting down the company's animation unit after he took over as chief executive in 1984, an astonishing fact given the subsequent success of cartoon films such as "The Lion King". Mr Price also makes clear just how much Pixar owes to Disney: it was the larger company's marketing for "Toy Story", for instance, that gave Mr Jobs the confidence to launch an initial public offering of shares in Pixar in 2005. Go to the review.

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Marketing maestros
Alpha Dogs: The Americans Who Turned Political Spin into a Global Business

James Harding, who is now the editor of the London Times but used to report on American politics for the Financial Times, has written a punchy book about spin. Its title, "Alpha Dogs", refers to an American company, the Sawyer Miller Group, which for a while shaped and polished political campaigns all around the world. Go to the review.

Roam on Television

Back of the Napkin author Dan Roam has made the rounds of cable television lately, appearing on Fox Business, CNN Money and MSNBC's Consultant's Corner. In both the CNN and FOX interviews, Dan breaks down Microsoft's bid for Yahoo on his whiteboard, and implements the same approach on MSNBC to explain how small businesses can be heard in the marketplace. If you're going to watch only one, I would suggest the one from FOX (I've placed it at the bottom of this post. In it, Dan was able to get in a few points about why his approach works that were absent from the others. In the other two interviews, he shows that drawing pictures can help solve problems or explain ideas, but not why. One of the great things about Dan's book is that it gives you an understanding of the science behind how we process information visually, establishing right away why visual thinking is hugely beneficial in the process of selling ideas and solving problem--and not just some gimmick. He gets that point across very well in the FOX interview. We get a bit of his biography at the end of the interview as well, which is nice.

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently reviewed the book as well. You can find that here.

Also, If you missed it the first time around, it was one of March's Jack Covert Selects, and we posted the book's "missing chapter" over at ChangeThis. If you'd like to read an excerpt from the book, we have that too.

The World Bank and the Gods of Lending

Ever wonder about what has been going on behind the closed doors of one of the most powerful and omnipresent financial institutions? Steve Berkman, a 16-year veteran of World Bank, answers that question and more in his new book. He uncovers mismanagement and hypocrisies that have gone on for decades behind the scenes of the banks' loan programs.

Berkman joined the bank in 1983 and has worked in 'all the major economic sectors throughout the region'. After he retired in 1995 he was brought back from 1998 to 2002 to assist in setting up an Anti-Corruption and Fraud Investigation Unit which lead to several findings of corruption cases in Latin America and Africa. The World Bank and the Gods of Lending delves into such corruptions like the bloated bureaucracy and misguided leadership that penetrates what should be a wholesome, nurturing and honest business. Due this June, Berkman's personal accounts of the bank's failures (bank projects in Nigeria for example) will make for one heck of a summer read!

"A passionate, informed, and devastating first-hand account from the front lines of World Bank operations. Students, development professionals, and especially policy makers in Washington should read this book." - Jeffrey A. Winters (Professor of political economy, Northwestern University and co-editor of Reinventing the World Bank)

"Recommended reading as a hard-hitting lesson on how not to run the Bank." - Paul Arlman (Former Executive Director of the World Bank (1986-1990) and member of the Dutch Treasury

New Books for Spring

It may be the social and political climate we are in, but I am seeing more and more books coming out lately dealing with race, gender and politics then ever before. Ideas about how business is conducted on personal and corporate levels are now commonplace areas open for debate and change. How we view business, politics and life are vastly different from even five years ago, let alone 80-plus years past when women weren't allowed a voice in our government. These new books are not just for CEOs or business-minded people, but for anyone that wants to broaden their perceptions of where we've been, where we are now and where we're going. Take a look at these from the University of Illinois Press:

Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens by Bill C. Malone and Hazel Dickens - Tells the life of one of the most influential leaders of folk feminism whose roots reach far into Appalachia and the working poor of America.

Voting the Gender Gap by Lois Duke Whitaker - How gender affects people's voting habits, taking examples as far back as the 1980s.

The Making of "Mammy Pleasant": A Black Entrepreneur in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco by Lynn M. Hudson - Examination America's folklore and the complete lack of historical records of black women's lives through Mary Ellen Pleasant.

The Workers' Union by Flora Tristan (translated by Beverly Livingston) - The story Flora Tristan and her integral part in women's rights and the working-class reformation of the early nineteenth century.

Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession by Kathryn H Anthony - Once considered a predominately 'good ol'boy' institution, architectural firms all over are experiencing a surge in not only women architects, but co-workers from different cultures as well. This examination of the architectural business and the need for change will strike a cord with many people experiencing this in their own jobs and lives as well.

Andrea Learned reviews "What Men Don't Tell Women About Business"

Exposed: The Alpha Businessman's Non-Feminine Ways by Andrea Learned

I'm not sure I've ever come across a guy as "alpha" as Christopher V. Flett, the author of What Men Don't Tell Women About Business. He just doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd be capable of casually enjoying a happy hour beer. Still, his book definitely shed some light toward my better understanding of male-female interactions in the business world.

What caught my attention first was Flett's discussion of how men measure other men in business. It was like reading an anthropological case study--I really had no idea men might seriously be thinking this way. (And, I did unscientific research with some male friends who confirmed it.) His measurements list includes three things--visibility, credibility and profitability--all of which fit right into the research of sociolinguist Deborah Tannen, who found that men communicate asymmetrically around status or positioning as opposed to the more symmetrical, common ground-finding communication style of women (see her classic book, You Just Don't Understand, for more).

This drive for apparent comparative success derives from the fact that men still, as he puts it: "are judged by society by our ability to generate wealth." Depressing as that may sound, isn't it true? Wishing men were judged by their good citizen/husband/father attributes in our culture is akin to wishing women were judged by their brains and management (household and business) savvy, first and foremost.

I could see how such a founding point of view (subconscious as it may be) might affect male-female workplace inter-personal relationships. Picture this scenario: A man's female colleague wants to chat about her kid's soccer game. Meanwhile, his thought balloon reads like this: "No time for this! Must - make - money to stay visible, credible and profitable!"

Now, women are certainly plenty focused on making money in this day and age, but they have been socialized to go about it differently and often tend up settling for less. Something Flett would seem to think that a lot of men just wouldn't do. All told, he seems to believe that alpha male motivation and molding in the workplace is pretty diametrically opposed to a typically female (or even "beta" male) perspective. Given this, it is actually a bit of a wonder that so much business has been conducted successfully over the years.

Flett seems to get a teensy bit more personal (or maybe that's just my female opinion?) when he comments on how women don't support one another in down times, while men do tend to support other men when in their down times. I'm not so sure that's a fair generalization. However, when he discusses the way women tend to give up power, it seemed dead on to me. He shares the way his wife once called in sick to her boss and rather than just saying, "I'll be in at 11 am," she went into major detail about how she hadn't been feeling well all morning etc... As Flett points out--women are known to be better communicators than men, but sometimes their sharing is so process-focused that the goal gets lost. The Alpha male, on the other hand, never loses sight of that goal.

Another apparent self-sabotage mechanism for women is the way they tend to compare failures more than they compare successes (as men are so much more likely to do). Flett writes: "When one talks about how bad her life is, the rest of her support group jumps in to talk about how their experience is worse." Perhaps, just as positioning and status games can seem like obstacles to getting anything done, a woman's tendency to seek common ground in all situations may also get in the way.

At one point, Flett discusses men's discomfort with, or fear of, women in the workplace. A litigious society will do that. Men realize that bawdy humor or "I can beat that" stories make some women feel uncomfortable, but men are uncomfortable with what they think are more typically "female" topics too. What to do? As he writes about men, "When we are acting weird, it is because our default switch is now set to clam up when there is a situation that could be misconstrued." Thus the sudden end of many a conversation (about anything) when a woman comes within earshot of a gathering of men. Eggshells abound.

There's a chapter in What Men Don't Tell Women About Business that very thoroughly outlines what men consider to be currency and what the various levels are, including salary ranges (freshmen level - <$50,00/year, to graduate level- $100,000/month), watches and cars. I really just skimmed over those details, and then, a few weeks later happened to be in a roomful of men in a very male-dominated industry. I couldn't help but notice the "levels" of watches and smart phone gadgets displayed. Fascinating.

Later in the book, Flett offers up specific examples of questions women may have (from a database he's compiled from his years coaching them, I assume) and how he'd suggest the situations be handled. The questions vary in their seriousness (from whether or not to go drinking with the gang all the time to what to do if a male counterpart takes credit for your work) While I don't doubt that he's had women ask him about such things, I am still astounded to think that "in this day and age" they still need to be addressed. Sigh.

It is worth noting: In What Men Don't Tell Women About Business, Flett seems to be writing about an intensely and somewhat old-fashioned sounding (to me) corporate environment. Much of what he covers may not be relevant to the many of us who no longer work within such structures, or who mainly correspond with colleagues via email with only the occasional on-site meeting. There may also be cultural (Flett is Canadian) and generational differences to consider in the mix.

And, while what Flett covers may well be true in a number of corporations today, I have to believe that the younger men I've seen coming up in the business ranks will be better able to communicate with/work among female associates (and vice versa) than the Alpha male he represents. Call me Pollyanna.

There is something to be said for calling a spade a spade, and whether or not we love his approach or agree with everything he writes--Flett did that with this book. We have seen the enemy and it is actually ourselves. Men and women alike continue to perpetuate the workplace gender roles and stereotypes we've lazily gotten used to over the years.

The hope would be that What Men Don't Tell Women About Business will raise the awareness of female readers who will then decide for themselves how to use his insights and impressions, or not. If women would then also talk about this with their male colleagues, that would be the bonus--but then Flett wouldn't have needed to write it.

Andrea Learned is the co-author of Don't Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy-and How to Increase Your Share of the Market, and sole author of 9 Minds on Marketing, a free eBook in which she took on the task of reading nine marketing books, interviewing the authors, and writing an essay on each to elucidate the points that she found most provocative.

New Excerpt up - from The Breakthrough Imperative

Head over to our Excerpts Blog to find an excerpt from the book The Breakthrough Imperative: The Strategies That Drive the World's Best Managers by Mark Gottfredson and Steve Schaubert.

As a general manager, your job is to devise a strategy for performance improvement. Insight into your customers' preferences and behaviors, and into how those preferences and behaviors might change over time, is essential. It can help you take full advantage of your competitive position. It may even give you the ability to counteract the advantages of leaders who are farther down the experience curve and thus move up (or over) the ROA/RMS band.

Here's a direct link to the excerpt: http://800ceoread.com/excerpts/archives/007896.html

And, if you missed it, here's a link to the excerpt Dylan put up yesterday, from The Quest for Global Dominance:
http://800ceoread.com/excerpts/archives/007892.html

Is Paradise Lost?

It's that time of year again.... no vacation in sight for awhile, the kids are in school waiting for summer, the hours at work may seem endless, the book you're writing is an uphill battle, reports need attention and you may be a little stressed out. Rightfully so, but how do you manage during awkward times like a Spring slump, the Winter doldrums or even the long days of Summer? How do you find 'Paradise' that you once had?

Vicki Hess is the author of a neat little book called SHIFT to Professional Paradise: 5 Steps to Less Stress, More Energy and Remarkable Results at Work. In the book she helps guide those that may have lost focus and drive in their current position in life and work. She offers up the 5 steps:

Stop and breath

Harness harmful knee-jerk reactions

Identify and manage negative emotions

Find new options

Take one positive action

Get it? Yep, they all spell SHIFT and hopefully Hess' words of wisdom will help those in need of some Paradise! We don't have to love our job, but we should at least like it!

Check out the book for yourself HERE!!