800-CEO-READ Blog

The Wall Street Journal Business Gurus List

The Wall Street Journal yesterday had a major feature titled "New Breed of Business Gurus Rises." The article provides a ranking of the thought leaders in business today. The ranking system is based on the 2003 book What's the Big Idea? : Creating and Capitalizing on the Best New Management Thinking by Thomas Davenport. Davenport compiled the rankings using data from Google mentions, Lexus-Nexus media hits, and academic citations.

The methodology creates a systematic way of measuring popularity, but it seems problematic. Take the case of Bill Gates at #3 on the list. For the man who created Microsoft, people are constantly talking about him in the media, online, and in academia. It seems a stretch that business people look to Gates for advice.

Outside of Gates, the folks at the top are no huge surprise to folks who follow business books. Gary Hamel, Tom Friedman, Gates, Malcolm Galdwell, and Howard Gardner round out the top five. Below is a list of the gurus with their 2008 rankings and one of their noteworthy books:

There are some gurus listed here who we have not given much attention to. Anybody read much on Hofstede or Nonaka? We will do some research as well.

P.S. Rebecca also has a post on the side conversation going on at wsj.com about the lack of women on the list.

Non-Business Books For Business

Daniel at Pit Bulls and Labradors is wondering out loud about "certain books that are not at all about public relations, business, management or marketing per se [and] can offer insights into how we can do our jobs better."

I added my thoughts. Jump over and add yours.

800-CEO-READ 2007 Best Sellers

Below you'll find the list of our top 25 bestsellers for 2007. Congratulations and thanks to everyone on the list!

1. The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything
   by Stephen M.R. Covey, Rebecca R. Merrill; Free Press.
   
   Leadership expert Stephen Covey uncovers why trust is vital in professional and personal relationships.
2. True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership
   by Bill George and Peter Sims; Jossey-Bass.
   
   Former Medtronic CEO Bill George and coauthor Peter Sims share the wisdom of 125 outstanding leaders of today and describe how you can develop as an authentic leader.
3. It's Your Ship
   by D. Michael Abrashoff; Warner Business Books.
   
   Business managers will benefit from Abrashoff's guiding belief that focus should be on empowering your people rather than on chain of command.
4. Blueprint to a Billion: 7 Essentials to Achieve Exponential Growth
   by David Thomson; John Wiley & Sons.
   
   Follow this blueprint to turn your idea into the next multi-billion dollar company.
5. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
   by Chip Heath, Dan Heath; Random House.
   
   The brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier.
6. Unlock Behavior, Unleash Profits: Developing Leadership Behavior That Drives Profitability in Your Organization
   by Leslie Wilk Braksick; McGraw-Hill.
   
   Fortune 500 thought leader Leslie Braksick provides powerful tools to help you, whether you're an executive, entrepreneur, or manager, in any field, to unlock behavior and unleash unprecedented profits.
7. Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message
   by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba; Kaplan.
   
   A provocative new exploration of the ramifications of today's burgeoning social media.
8. What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
   by Marshall Goldsmith, Mark Reiter; Hyperion.
   
   One of the nation's most sought-after executive coaches shows how subtle changes can make all the difference when climbing those last few rungs of the corporate ladder.
9. The Power of Nice
   by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval; Currency.
   
   In business, nice guys (and gals) really do finish first.
10. Inside Every Woman: Using the 10 Strengths You Didn't Know You Had to Get the Career and Life You Want Now
    by Vickie L. Milazzo; John Wiley & Sons.
    
    Discover and use your strengths to pursue your dreams.
11. The Long Tail
    by Chris Anderson; Hyperion.
    
    The Long Tail was coined by Chris Anderson to describe the recent development of endless niche markets.
12. Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace With Today's Nontraditional Workforce
    by Cathleen Benko, Anne Weisberg; Harvard Business School Press.
    
    This book is centered on the powerful insight that career options in today’s economy need to accommodate the rising and falling phases of employee engagement as it changes over time.
13. The Millionaire Maker's Guide to Creating a Cash Machine for Life
    by Loral Langemeier; McGraw-Hill.
    
    Whether you want to partner with others or create your own team to start, fix, or buy a business, Langemeier shows you how to turn it into a Cash Machine that makes money from Day One.
14. The Flip Side: Break Free of the Behaviors That Hold You Back
    by Flip Flippen; Springboard Press.
    
    Flippen presents a simple process for learning how to identify our personal constraints and take the necessary steps to correct self-limiting behaviors. He shows that we will experience a dramatic surge in productivity, achieve things we have only dreamed of, and find greater happiness overall.
15. Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience
    by Jonathan M. Tisch, Karl Weber; Wiley.
    
    Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough will show you how to improve every customer touch point; understand what customers really want and need; and design organizational structures to meet those needs.
16. Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation
    by James P. Andrew, Harold L. Sirkin, John Butman; Harvard Business School Press.
    
    Payback offers a new way to think about and manage innovation.
17. Finding the Next Starbucks: How to Identify and Invest in the Hot Stocks of Tomorrow
    by Michael Moe; Portfolio.
    
    Learn how winners like Dell, eBay, and Home Depot could have been spotted in their start-up phase and how you can find Wall Street’s future giants.
18. The Strategy Paradox: Why committing to success leads to failure (and what to do about it)
    by Michael E. Raynor; Currency.
    
    Raynor sheds light on the collision between commitment and uncertainty that many managers face in the pursuit for success. He presents a concrete framework for strategic action that allows companies to seize today’s opportunities while preparing for an uncertain future.
19. The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life
    by Tommy Newberry; Tyndale House Publishers.
    
    Whether you are at a low point or a high point in your life, the authors assert that The 4:8 Principle can help you experience joy by design--God's design.
20. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
    by W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne; Harvard Business School Press.
    
    The authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors, but from creating blue oceans--untapped new market spaces ripe for growth.
21. Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
    by Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams; Portfolio.
    
    Smart firms can harness the collective capability and genius of online communities to spur innovation, growth, and success.
22. StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths
    by Tom Rath; Gallup Press.
    
    This strengths reference, accompanied by a code for an online assessment test, is an extension of the original StrengthsFinder, now updated with a customized version of your top 5 strengths and a guide for applying your strengths in the world.
23. QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability in Work and in Life
    by John G. Miller; Putnam Publishing Group.
    
    QBQ! The Question Behind the Question, already a phenomenon in its self-published edition, addresses the most important issue in business and society today: personal accountability.
24. I Didn't See it Coming: The Only Book You'll Ever Need to Avoid Being Blindsided in Business
    by Nancy C. Widmann, Elaine J. Eisenman, Amy Dorn Kopelan; Wiley.
    
    The authors provide critical counsel and keen observation on how all employees can develop strategic insights, effective tools, and sharp instincts for reading the room and controlling their own career destiny.
25. The Starbucks Experience
    by Joseph Michelli; McGraw-Hill.
    
    Michelli reveals how you can follow the Starbucks way to...reach out to entire communities, listen to individual workers and consumers, seize growth opportunities in every market, and custom-design a truly satisfying experience that benefits everyone involved.

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If you'd like a PDF of our 2007 bestseller list, click here. If you're interested, we publish a monthly bestseller list here.

500 votes and counting...

If you haven't voted for your favorite books yet, jump over to our Reader's Poll and click a few buttons.

Vote For the Best Business Books Of All Time

Jack and I have been a little quiet on the blog lately. We are pushing to finish the manuscript for our book, which comes out next year.

Our book will feature the 100 books everyone in business should read. There will be many titles that you would expect and more than a few that will be surprising.

We'd like to get your help. Tell us what you think the best business books of all time are. We have set-up a poll for all of you to vote on. If you see something missing, drop kate a note (kate {at} 800ceoread [dot] com).

We are going to feature your favorites in the book, alongside ours. So, get voting!

Thanks for your help and spread the word!

http://800ceoread.com/bookvote/

Business book columnist posts his best-of list.

FYI. Over at Words on Words, Richard Pachter has his list of favorite 2007 business books posted. Pachter has been the business books columnist at The Miami Herald since 2000.

Pachter's list echoes various other lists we've posted this year. If we haven't said it already, welcome to '08!

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!

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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

Publisher's Weekly Best of Everything (But Business Books) 2007

Publisher's Weekly released this morning their Best of 2007 list. They pulled 150 titles from the 6,000 they reviewed this year and declared the worthiest reads. There is not a single business book on the list, so it's best to enjoy the compilation as a book lover or as a gift guide this holiday season.

Booklist's Business Top 10 for 2007

It has begun.

In a matter of weeks, we will start seeing a stream of "best of" lists. We'll report them as we see them and make a few of our own.

Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association, is the first out of the gate. As you read down through the list, understand The Business Top 10 is meant to act as a guide for what librarians should add to their permanent collections.

• Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses. By Stacy Mitchell
• Boeing versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business. By John Newhouse.
• Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. By Bill McKibben.
• Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge. By Jean-Noel Jeanneney.
• How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live like Everyone Else. By Michael Gates Gill.
• Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit, and the Era of Predatory Lenders. By James D. Scurlock.
• Mellon: An American Life. By David Cannadine.
• On the Wealth of Nations. By P. J. O'Rourke.
• Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business. By Robert B. Reich.
• Where Have All the Leaders Gone? By Lee Iacocca and Catherine Whitney.

Best Books To Make Best Workplaces

Last week, The Wall Street Journal announced their Top Small Workplaces 2007 winners.

The Journal asked the folks who run those places what books they would recommend to others trying to create first-class workplaces. Here the alphabetical list of their selections. Click through on the link above to read the winners' comments:

• "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu
• "The Best of Jack Falvey on Management" by Jack Falvey (out of print)
• "The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It" by Michael E. Gerber
• "Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done" by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan and Charles Burck
• "First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently" by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
• "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable" by Patrick Lencioni
• "Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise" by Peter Block
• "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don't" by Jim Collins
• "Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great" by Jim Collins
• "The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America" by David Whyte
• "The New Pay: Linking Employee and Organizational Performance" by Jay R. Schuster and Patricia K. Zingheim (out of print)
• "Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future" by Joel Arthur Barker
• "Strategic Planning: What Every Manager Must Know" by George A. Steiner (out of print)
• "Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life" by Spencer Johnson
• "A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age" by Daniel H. Pink

Reading For Firm Founders

The Small Business Special Section of Monday's Wall Street Journal featured recommended reading from Nitzan Shaer, entrepreneur-in-residence with IDG Ventures in Boston. The focus of his recommendations was to show entrepreneurs where they might look for inspiration to stay focused and preserve.

Here are the books and resources he recommended. Click through on the WSJ link to read Shaer's comments.

• Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
• The Lessons of History by Will Durant and Ariel Durant
• The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
• Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
• The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone: 1932-1940 by William Manchester
• Shackleton's Way by Margot Morrell and Stephanine Capparell
• Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin
• TechCrunch
• Apollo 13 (the movie)
• An Inconvenient Truth (the movie and the book)

Take 'em to the beach.

If you're looking for a paperback to peruse on the beach, BusinessWeek suggests:

• The Poker Face of Wall Street by Aaron Brown (due out late July) -- how gambling fits in with finance.
• The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences by Louis Uchitelle -- the ugly side of layoffs.
• Mr. Gladwell's Blink
• Spoiling For A Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer by Brooke A. Masters -- learn about the roots of the NY governor.
• Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand by New York Times reporter James Barron -- "Follow a single piano, No. K0862, on its yearlong journey through Steinway & Sons' New York City factory and on to the company's storied concert division, where instruments are earmarked for loans to artists and institutions."
• Toxic Emotions at Work and What You Can Do About Them by Peter E. Frost
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann -- an insight into what Native American life was like before Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.
• Iacocca: An Autobiography -- No need to find the paperback from 1984; Lee's autobiography was recently re-published.
• Weird Ideas That Work: How to Build a Creative Company by Bob Sutton -- Here's what Jack had to say about Weird Ideas. You may also know Bob from his recent book The No Asshole Rule.
• Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky -- on life in France during WWII. The author died in Auschwitz before finishing the book.

This came from this BusinessWeek article.

Best Business Books via U.S. News and World Report

U.S. News and World Report has a huge special report on the Best Business Books. Their opening says:

Hundreds of business books are published each year. Chances are at least one has the answers you're looking for. But how to find it? U.S. News spoke with 14 leaders from all walks of business life—from academics to entrepreneurs to corporate execs—about the five books they consider indispensable reading for managers.

When magazines do these lists we always create a summary so people can see the picks in one quick view. The commentary that each leader gives is always interesting, so make sure you click through on the author's name if you see something that interests you.

Good To Great made four appearances on the list and Collins is one of leaders providing reading recommendations. Porter's Competitive Strategy appears twice. Otherwise, the picks are unique. I personally like Jeff Pfeffer's picks and reasons the best.

Best Business Books

Chris Anderson (editor-in-chief of Wired, author of The Long Tail)

• Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2001)
• The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger (2000)
• Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World by Kevin Kelly (1995)
• Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology by George Gilder (1989)
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell (2000)

Jack Brennan (CEO of Vanguard)

• Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company by Andrew S. Grove (1996)
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't by Jim Collins (2001)
• Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors by Michael Porter (1980)
• Economics by Paul Samuelson (1948)
• Leadership Is an Art by Max DePree (1989)

Robert Bruner (Dean of Darden School of Business, University of Virginia)

• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957)
• On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt (2005)
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't by Jim Collins (2001)
• Leading Change by John Kotter (1996)
• The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker (1967)

Jim Buckmaster (CEO of craigslist)

• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
• The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil (2005)
• Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman (1988)
• The Discourses by Epictetus (second century B.C.)
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric Raymond (1999)

Jim Collins (author of Good to Great)

• In Love and War: The Story of a Family's Ordeal and Sacrifice During the Vietnam Years by Jim and Sybil Stockdale (1984, out of print, ISBN 0870213083)
• The Second World War (six volumes) by Winston Churchill (1948–1953)
• Personal History by Katharine Graham (1997)
• Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers (1962)
• The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History by Stephen J. Gould (1980)

Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks)

• The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie (1889)
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943)
• The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton Christensen (1997)
• The Only Investment Guide You Will Ever Need by Andrew Tobias (1978)
• Cold Calling Techniques (That Really Work!) by Stephan Schiffman (1987)

Thomas Donaldson (professor at Wharton School of Business)

• The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (fifth century B.C.)
• Concept of the Corporation by Peter Drucker (1946)
• Modern Corporation and Private Property by Adolf Berle and Gardinar Means (1932)
• Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy by Joseph Schumpeter (1942)
• The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776)

Carly Fiorina (former CEO of Hewlett-Packard)

• Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan (2002)
• The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Friedman (2005)
• Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise by Alfred Chandler (1962)
• Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age by Tom Peters (2003)

Jackie Fouse (CFO of Alcon)

• Blindness by José Saramago (1995)
• The Quest for Value by G. Bennett Stewart III (1991)
• Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald (2005)
• The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas Friedman (1999)
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott (1994)

Robert Joss (dean of Stanford Graduate School of Business)

• The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (1981)
• The Practice of Management by Peter Drucker (1954)
• My Years With General Motors by Alfred P. Sloan Jr. (1963)
• Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jerry Porras and Jim Collins (1994)
• Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society by John Gardner (1964)

Jeffery Pfeffer (professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business)

• Competing for the Future by Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad (1994)
• The Human Side of Enterprise by Douglas McGregor (1960)
• Influence: How and Why People Agree to Things by Robert Cialdini (1984)
• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (1946)
• Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets by Robert Kuttner (1997)

John W. Rogers Jr. (chairman and CEO of Ariel Capital Management)

• The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro (1974)
• Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63 by Taylor Branch (1988)
• Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein (1995)
• Succeeding Against the Odds by John H. Johnson with Lerone Bennett Jr. (1989, out of print, ISBN 1567430023)
• The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1) by Robert A. Caro (1982)

Hector Ruiz (chairman and CEO of AMD)

• A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard (1899)
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't by Jim Collins (2001)
• The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits by C. K. Prahalad (2005)
• Dilbert by Scott Adams (ongoing)

Deborah Wright (CEO of Carver Bancorp)

• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't by Jim Collins (2001)
• Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors by Michael Porter (1980)
• I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother by Allison Pearson (2002)
• Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman (1953)

Vince Thompson Recommends Management Books

First time author Vince Thompson last month released Ignited: Managers Light Up Your Company and Career for More Power More Purpose and More Success. This afternoon, I posted a podcast I did with Vince.

After the interview, I asked him to follow-up with list of books he would recommend to middle managers:

• Love is the Killer App – Tim Sanders
• Never Eat Alone – Keith Ferrazzi
• 7 Habits To Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey
• Less is More – Jason Jennings
• Think Big Act Small – Jason Jennings
• How to be CEO – Jeffrey Fox
• The Articulate Executive – Granville Toogood
• Networking with the Affluent – Thomas Stanley
• Leading at a Higher Level - Ken Blanchard

Books To Make Your Go Faster

ChangeThis has a number of great pieces this month. Dan Coughlin was one of the authors featured there and he has a new book called Accelerate: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum.

Coughlin starts his manifesto with this:

Great businesses are defined by their ability to accelerate.

My definition of “accelerate� is “to increase the rate of achieving desired outcomes in a sustainable manner.� The objective of every business should ultimately be to create a great business. This manifesto is a call to action to accelerate your business and your career.

I asked him to recommend some other books around this topic of business acceleration. The first three are listed below and the remainder can be found if you click through to the extended entry.

Dan Coughlin Recommends 10 Great Books on Business Acceleration

Less Is More by Jason Jennings

Jason Jennings is the preeminent business researcher working today. He combed through the world’s corporations to find the most productive companies. In Less Is More he explains in minute detail how focus and concentrated effort over an extended period can dramatically improve productivity in any business.

The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman

This is the most comprehensive book on the market today that explains the modern business situation. It shows very clearly that the forces of digitization, globalization, open sourcing, the Internet, and Google represent a two-sided coin. On the one side, products and services are becoming commodities and profit margins are shrinking for American manufacturers. On the other side, it shows how companies can leverage technology, create massive networks of value, and provide high margin, customized solutions for a host of new customers.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Business politics is the act of trying to gain support to advance a cause, an initiative, or a career. Team of Rivals is a masterful example of how to gain support from your competitors and rally the group around the advancement of a cause. Business managers of today would be wise to apply Lincoln’s methods and approaches to other people in their organizations.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

This book provides rich insights into the power of ideas that become epidemics. Seth Godin provides even greater depth on this concept in his book, Unleashing the Ideavirus. We’re no longer selling products or services. We’re selling ideas which incorporate a wide variety of products and services. That’s the real new economy.

Thomas Paine by Craig Nelson

Thomas Paine was the first, and possibly the greatest, American manifesto writer. His book, Common Sense, written in 1776 became an instant best seller, clarified the cause of the colonies, and had a direct impact on accelerating the birth of the United States of America. Nelson does a magnificent job of explaining the impact a person can have through powerful and clear writing in any situation. Read it, and then write a manifesto for your organization.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. edited by Clayborne Carson

This is the greatest book I’ve ever read on leadership. It shows how King influenced others through eloquent speeches, handwritten letters, and the building of coalitions. This book is an extraordinary example of how to influence other people even when you have no power or authority over them.

Pop! Stand Out in Any Crowd by Sam Horn

This book literally stands out on this list. It shows a wide variety of techniques to craft powerful, pithy messages. The tools in this book can be applied to enhance advertising messages, meeting agendas, speech titles, branding campaigns, conference themes, and much more. It’s not just what you’re talking about that matters, but also the way in which you talk about it.

Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy

This book is more than 40 years old and is still powerfully relevant today. Ogilvy provides insights on how to attract clients, build a brand, establish an organization, attract talent, and end bad client relationships. It’s a fast read that is packed with practical insights.

The Capitalist Philosophers by Andrea Gabor

In one book, Gabor guides the reader through the development of management ideas throughout the 20th Century. You can literally trace every “new� management fad to a specific business philosopher in this book. By reading it, you will have a much greater understanding of the breadth and depth of management ideas that are present today. It is the foundation that you can build your management philosophy upon.

Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss

A relatively recent phenomenon has been the explosion of independent business consultants who advise executives in every conceivable industry. Million Dollar Consulting for independent consultants was what The Practice of Management by Peter Drucker was for managers. Weiss explains in great detail how to market, manage your business, deliver value, and charge for the value you deliver.

Publisher's Weekly 2006 Bestsellers - The Business Slice

Every year, Publisher Weekly runs lists of the bestsellers from various genre (fiction, non-fiction, paperback). What is different about this list is you can see the number of copies sold.

I ran down through the non-fiction list to pull out all the business titles that sold more than 100,000 copies. You often see personal finance books show up on the bestsellers lists so I included those, as well as, a couple of crossover titles they I thought you might be interested in.

9. The World Is Flat (Friedman) - 869,610 copies
12. Freakonomics (Levitt/Dubner) - 697,848 copies
21. Why We Want You To Be Rich (Trump/Kiyosaki) - 490,000 copies
31. Jim Cramer's Mad Money (Cramer) - 360,000 copies(#)
38. Blink (Gladwell) - 317,303 copies
48. Jim Cramers' Real Money (Cramer) - 262,000 copies(#)
63. Rule #1 (Town) - 203,512 copies
66. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind (Eker) - 199,000 copies
72. The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner (Bach) - 178,000 copies
88. The Blind Side (Lewis) - 148,000 copies
100. The Long Tail (Anderson) - 130,427 copies
101. Social Intelligence (Goleman) - 130,000 copies(#)
109. The 360 Degree Leader (Maxwell) - 119,339 copies
120. Our Iceberg Is Melting (Kotter) - 107,621 copies
126. Everyday Greatness (Covey) - 102,438 copies
127. War on the Middle Class (Dobbs) - 102,248 copies
132. Stumbling on Happiness (Gilbert) - 100,000 copies(#)

The only title that caught my attention on the paperback list was The Tipping Point which sold 611,797 copies in 2006.

Other items of note:

• Da Vinci Code sold 7.5 million copies in trade and mass market paperback.
• For One More Day (Mitch Albom) led the fiction list with 2,735,000 copies sold.
• The Innocent Man (the first nonfiction book for John Grisham) came in the number one spot with 2,192,00 copies sold.

(#) - Sales figures were submitted to PW in confidence, for use in placing titles on the lists. Numbers shown are rounded down to indicate relationships to sales figures for other titles.

2006 Bestsellers (a little late)

Some folks started asking us for the 2006 bestsellers. Some how we forgot to do this right after the New Year, and I know many of you are dying to hear the results.

One note on methodology: We award points to a book's position on our monthly list, as well as the number of months it appears on our lists.

Without further ado...

800-CEO-READ's 2006 Best-Selling Books

1. It's Your Ship by Michael Abrashoff (Warner Business)
2. The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld (Harvard Business School Press)
3. Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne (Harvard Business School Press)
4. Dealing With Darwin by Geoffrey Moore (Portfolio)
5. The Ice Cream Maker by Subir Chowdhury (Currency)
6. Blueprint To A Billion by David Thomson (Wiley)
7. I've Seen A Lot Of Famous People Naked, And They've Got Nothing On You! by Jake Steinfeld (AMACOM)
8. If Harry Potter Ran General Electric by Tom Morris (Currency)
9. One Billion Customers by James MacGregor (Free Press)
10. Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble (Harvard Business School Press)
11. Satisfaction by Chris Denove and James D. Power IV (Portfolio)
12. Treasure Hunt by Michael Silverstein and John Butman (Portfolio)
13. Redefining Healthcare by Michael Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg (Harvard Business School Press)
14. The Power to Predict by Vivek Ranadive (McGraw-Hill)
15. The Millionaire Real Estate Mindset by Russ Whitney (Currency)
16. More Than 85 Broads by Janet Hanson (McGraw-Hill)
17. Don't Retire, Rewire by Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners (Alpha Books)
18. Make Money, Not Excuses by Jeam Chatzky (Crown)
19. Inside Every Woman by Vickie Milazzo (Wiley)
20. The Cycle of Leadership by Noel Tichy with Nancy Cardwell (Collins)
21. The Big Moo by The Group of 33, edited by Seth Godin (Portfolio)
22. Small Is The New Big by Seth Godin (Portfolio)
23. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson (Hyperion)
24. Breaking The Bamboo Ceiling by Jane Hyun (Collins)
25. Seven Secrets of Great Entrepreneurial Masters by Allen Fishman (McGraw-Hill)

Everyone wants to be a bestseller.

What does it mean to be a best-selling author? Like everything else, there are various definitions. This particular WSJ article is speaking of the online bestseller lists like those of Amazon and Barnes and Noble. To get on the top of these lists, you can buy placement (for around $10 - 15 grand) in an email called the "Best-seller Blast" that is sent out by big-time authors.

What's interesting is the fluctation of these lists.

Outside the top 1% or so of books, few sell multiple copies a day, so little separates books with rankings tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, apart. Morris Rosenthal, an author and publisher based in Springfield, Mass., who has studied the Amazon charts, says a day without a sale can send a book ranked 10,000 to as low as 50,000.

Fittingly, the WSJ's question of the day is, What influences your book choices? I'd follow up with the question: if it's a bestseller list, what makes for a good list?

Five Best from Ken Roman, Former Advertising Executive

Saturday's Wall Street Journal had a list of the five blue-chip business management books. The list was compiled by Ken Roman, a former advertising executive. I think it is one of the best lists I have seen.

1> The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
2> Management and Machiavelli (out of print) by Antony Jay
3> What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School By Mark McCormick
4> Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy
5> Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? by Lou Gerstner

A brilliant list.

Last year's tallies brought to you by Feltron

Have you heard of Nicholas Feltron?

He lives in NYC.
He's 29 years old.
Has a cat named King.
Runs the company Megafone.
And when the weather calls for it, wears a sweater.

He's a graphic designer who records each detail of his life down to the number of book pages read by book (noted below each book title), magazines read, text messages sent and received, animals eaten, cities visited, and on and on. This is his third annual report. Check out the design. It's a great depiction of numbers and data.

Inside he notes that he read 3761 book pages in 2006. On his list of books were:

1. The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
   233 pages


2. See No Evil by Robert Baer
   279 pages


3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon *Best fiction
   221 pages


4. The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
   304 pages


5. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
   207 pages


6. JPod by Douglas Copeland
   448 pages


7. It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden
   127 pages


8. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan *Best Non-Fiction
   411 pages


9. A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
   160 of 209 pages


10. Exquisite Pain by Sophie Calle
    112 of 281 pages


11. The Works by Kate Ascher
    215 pages


12. Heat by Bill Buford
    315 pages


13. The Disappointment Artist by Jonathan Lethem
    149 pages


14. The Looming Tower by Lawerence Wright
    144 of 373 pages


15. Universal Principles of Design by Lidwell, Holden and Butler
    63 of 211 pages

Find out more here.

Most Influential (Business) People Who NEVER Lived

Aren't you getting tired of all these lists? People's Most Beautiful People. Forbes Richest People. The Fortune 500.

Here is one that really matters though - The 101 Most influential People Who Never Lived. Never lived? These are characters from books, movies, and companies that have shaped the world we live in. I have pulled out the ones businesses created, ones the created a lot of money for business, or ones that were reflections of business.

Numero Uno on the list is the Marlboro Man. The authors write:

Previously marketed by Phillip Morris tobacco as a ladies brand of cigarette called Mild as May. Marlboro's new image boosted sales from $5 billion in 1955 to $20 billion by 1957, and by 1972 it had become the top cigarette brand both in the nation and the world. In 2000, its market share was 35 percent of U.S. sales, outselling the six next most popular brands combined.

On the rest of the list, you'll find:

#43 - Barbie
#44 - Buffy The Vampire Slayer
#60 - Batman
#64 - Superman
#67 - Kermit the Frog
#78 - Joe Camel
#85 - Luke Skywalker
#93 - The Great Gatsby
#95 - Willy Loman

Harvard Business Review's Big Ideas for 2007

Harvard Business Review publishes a list of breakthrough ideas each year. Bob Sutton doesn't think breakthrough is the right word for them, but I think there are a few definitely worth paying attention to this year.

Duncan Watts' piece on Accidental Influentials is going to create interesting discussions with the word of mouth marketing community. Watts says "Our work shows that the principal requirement for what we call "global cascades"—the widespread propagation of influence through networks—is the presence not of a few influential but, rather, of a critical mass of easily influenced people, each of whom adopts, say, a look or a brand after being exposed to a single adopting neighbor."

Geoffrey West from the Santa Fe Institute says size matters when it comes to innovation. Read the piece. There is too much there to try and summarize. He talks about power-laws, metabolic rates of cities, and theoretically unbounded creative growth for large organizations.

And I am not sure I agree with Philip Longman's conclusions of a continued rise in patriarchal families and conservative thought. He basically says conservatives are the ones having larger families and they in turn are going to produce more children who will grow up to care about these issues.

There are a total of 20 ideas. You might find some others that work for you.

Top 5 Bestselling Books of All-Time

I know I promised no more "Best of" lists, but Good Magazine (which is really good by the way) has a sidebar on the bestselling books of all time. I couldn't resist.

1. The Bible - 6,000,000,000 copies
2. Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung - 900,000,000 copies
3. American Spelling Book - 100,000,000 copies
4. Guinness World Records - 90,000,000 copies
5. The World Almanac - 73,500,000 copies

[their source: The Top Ten of Everything]

Business Books for January: Intro

January is a big month for business books. There are at least a dozen books that have come out in January (or late December) that are worthy of consideration. The list below is a starting point. Which ones you will end up reading will clearly depend on your time and preferences. We have covered some of these titles in Jack Covert Selects and I plan to write about others as the month progresses.

Business books for January 2007:

• Running With The Bulls Without Getting Trampled by Tim Irwin
• The Three Tensions: Winning the Struggle to Perform Without Compromise by Dominic Dodd and Ken Favaro
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Other Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• 12: The Elements of Great Managing by Rodd and James Harter
• Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform From Those Who Don't by Ram Charan
• Payback: Reaping The Reward of Innovation by James Andrew and Harold Sirkin
• Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear by Frank Lutz
• Accelerants: 12 Strategies to Sell Faster, Close Deals and Grow Your Business Faster by Michael Boylan
• Ego Check: Why Executives Hubris is Wrecking Companies and Careers and How To Avoid The Trap by Matthew Hayward
• Greating Great Employees: Turning Ordinary People Into Extraordinary Performers by Erika Andersen
• Exceeding Customer Expectations: What Enterprise, America's #1 Car Rental Company, Can Teach You About Creating Lifetime Customers by Kirk Kazanjian
• A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman
• The Mormon Way of Doing Business: Leadership and Success Through Faith and Family by Jeff Benedict
• What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith
• Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams

P.S. You can keep up with stuff like this on the 800ceoread New Releases Blog.

What's Left of The Best Of

This should be the end of it. I promise no more Best Of 2006 Lists. I thought these were worth of the one last look back at the year.

Richard Pachter of The Miami Herald - The Best Business Books of 2006

Richard Florida - Best of '06

Tom Peters - Tom's Notable Books 2006

Tim Sanders - Read These Ten Books Next Year

LifeHacks - 50 Best Hacks For Your Life

Coolhunting - Read More Books

ZDNet's Best in Business and Technology 2006

Mitch Ratcliffe of ZDNet has complied his list of favorite business and technology books in 2006. He says:

This year's crop of business books, as usual, included a lot of me-too titles that were easily put down and forgotten after a few pages or chapters, because they contained little new, nothing thought-provoking. Downright crazy ideas are better than none, and challenges to the status quo invaluable, so don't shy away from shaking your colleagues' mental trees with a good book.

Here are the books that worked for Mitch:

• Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
• WorldChanging edited by Alex Steffen
• The Elements of Influence by Alan Kelly
• The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
• Small Is The New Big by Seth Godin
• The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
• The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurweil
• Beautiful Evidence by Edward Tutfe
• Against The Day by Thomas Pynchon
• The Immortal Game by David Shenk

Economist Books of the Year 2006

Behind their firewall, The Economist has quite a list of books for 2006. The categories include history, biography, fiction, politics, fiction and science. In the Economics and Business category (notice the order):

• The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman
• Myself and Other More Important Matters by Charles Handy
• Joe Wilson and the Creation of Xerox by Charles Ellis
• Mavericks At Work by Bill Taylor and Polly LaBarre

The Best of Best of Business Books

Using Squidoo's new Plexo technology, I have created a list of favorite business books from many of the 2006 lists. You can vote on your favorites as well as add titles that you think are missing.

RSS Readers: Click-through to see and vote with the widget.

Stephen King's "2006: My Top 10 Books"

Seeing as we at 8cr are in list frenzy mode, here is another Best of 2006. As Stephen King states in his column

“Here are the best ones I read in 2006…and as always, please keep in mind that doesn’t mean they were published in 2006. This is just my list of the ones that best furnished my interior room this past year.�

This list is courtesy of December 15, 2006 Entertainment Weekly.

I accept the fact that these aren’t business books but "a person can’t live on bread alone."

BTW, two of the ten made my list.

Strategy+Business Best Business Books of 2006

Strategy+Business has published their Best Business Books: 2006. This list is one I look forward to each year (they are on their sixth). The books they choose require a deeper mediation on the study of management and the issues that face business. The feature is divided into 11 topics and each topic is accompanied by an essay.

I encourage you to read the essays. The magazine has recruited a great set of writers which include Howard Rheingold, Nikos Mourkogiannis, and James O'Toole. Each essay provides context for the book selections within the area of study. This year's list also includes a couple of special topics including The Business of Defense and Fiction (as inspired by business). The topic headings will take you to the essays and a starred (*) book means it was chosen as the best book in the category.

The Future by Howard Rheingold

• The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yocahi Benkler*
• Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins
• Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World by Robert Neuwirth
• The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy by AnnaLee Saxenian
• The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth by Tim Flannery

Economics by Michael Schrage

• Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery by David Warsh
• The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics by Eric D. Beinhocker
• More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places by Michael J. Mauboussin*

Marketing by Nick Wreden

• Marketing Metrics: 50+ Metrics Every Executive Should Master by Paul W. Farris, Neil T. Bendle, Phillip E. Pfeifer, and David J. Reibstein*
• Six Sigma for Marketing Processes: An Overview for Marketing Executives, Leaders, and Managers by Clyde M. Creveling, Lynne Hambleton, and Burke McCarthy
• The 50-Plus Market: Why the Future Is Age Neutral When It Comes to Marketing and Branding Strategies by Dick Stroud
• Brand Rejuvenation: How to Protect, Strengthen, and Add Value to Your Brand to Prevent It from Ageing by Jean-Marc Lehu
• Why Johnny Can’t Brand: Rediscovering the Lost Art of the Big Idea by Bill Schley and Carl Nichols Jr.
• Asian Brand Strategy: How Asia Builds Strong Brands by Martin Roll

Media by Neil Minow

• Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment, and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby
• An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths by Glenn Reynolds
• The Google Story: Inside the Hottest Business, Media, and Technology Success of Our Time by David A. Vise and Mark Malseed
• The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson*

Negotiation by Nikos Mourkogiannis

• Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People by G. Richard Shell
• Negotiate to Win: The 21 Rules for Successful Negotiating by Jim Thomas
• Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate by Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro*

Strategy by Chuck Lucier and Jan Dyer

• The Growth Gamble: When Leaders Should Bet Big on New Business — and How They Can Avoid Expensive Failures by Andrew Campbell and Robert Park
• 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble*
• The Core Value Proposition: Capture the Power of Your Business Building Ideas by Jack G. Hardy

Governance by Michelle Leder

• Tougher Boards for Tougher Times: Corporate Governance in the Post-Enron Era by William A. Dimma*
• Going South: An Inside Look at Corruption and Greed, and the Power of the HealthSouth Message Board by William Cast, M.D.
• Hedgehogging by Barton Biggs

Management by David Hurst

• From Resource Allocation to Strategy by Joseph L. Bower and Clark G. Gilbert, editors*
• The World’s Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century by Christopher D. McKenna
• The Hare and the Tortoise: An Informal Guide to Business Strategy by John Kay
• Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton
• The G Quotient: Why Gay Executives Are Excelling as Leaders…and What Every Manager Needs to Know by Kirk Snyder

The Business of Defense by Dov S. Zakheim

• A Bloody Business: America’s War Zone Contractors and the Occupation of Iraq by Colonel Gerald Schumacher
• Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror by Robert Young Pelton*
• Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies by Christopher Kinsey

Fiction by Jonathan Weber

• Company: A Novel by Max Barry
• JPod: A Novel by Douglas Coupland
• Sex and the Single Zillionaire: A Novel by Tom Perkins
• Rome, Inc.: The Rise and Fall of the First Multinat
• ional Corporation by Stanley Bing*

Leadership by James O'Toole

• The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope by Jonathan Alter*
• Heroes: Saviors, Traitors, and Supermen. A History of Hero Worship by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
• Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies by Nikos Mourkogiannis
• Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World by Sharon Daloz Parks
• Why Should Anyone Be Led by YOU? What It Takes to Be an Authentic Leader by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones
• Leading through Conflict: How Successful Leaders Transform Differences into Opportunities by Mark Gerzon
• Reinventing Leadership: Strategies to Empower the Organization by Warren G. Bennis and Robert Townsend

The 2006 Best of the 800ceoread Blogs

I went back through 593 blogs posts, 34 books excerpts, and 28 author interviews. You know what? We published some really great stuff. Here are the ideas that caught my attention from 2006:

• Charles Fishman/Wal-Mart Effect Interview - I could talk with him for hours.
• Doing Business Globally - HOW Magazine ran a list of books about helping you do business overseas
• Design Books For Novices - DWELL Magazine asked notable designers and architects what books would be good for beginners
• Bo Burlingham/Small Giants Interview - Bo and I went on so long about his book I had to break the interview into three parts
• The Big Picture - Six questions Ram Charan says you should ask to get to The Big Picture
• The Whole New Mind Rap - Fan Wyatt Jackson write a ode to Dan Pink's latest book
• Does This Post Plug John Bogle's New Book? - Tom pokes fun at a Wall Street Journal criticism
• Will Wheaton Likes ChangeThis - He does. Listen to the clip.
• Peter Who? - Proof why people need to read more business classics
• Toddcast #1 - Todd Berman from Harvard Business School Press joins me for a BookExpo round-up
• Future of the Book - Pip Coburn gives his take
• Get Back In The Box - I wrote a five part series on useful nuggets from Doug Rushkoff's book (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)
• Banker To The Poor Excerpt - The book from this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner
• David Rock/Quiet Leadership Interview - Learn how to have more productive conversations in less time with those who work for you
• Listening To SH** - This is a sentiment that Jack and I identify with
• Mauboussin quoting Dr. Suess - a great way to start a book, using Suess as his hook
• Purpose: A Critical Biography - Short on things to read? Nikos provides thirty pages of bibliography in a very readable essay style.
• Tom's Essential Resources for Writers - This list came out of our Author Pow-wow in November

Globle and Mail's Top Ten of 2006

A couple of blogging business book authors pointed to Harvey Schachter's list in Toronto's Globe and Mail. You'll find this list has more of a management focus.

1. Hard Facts Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton
2. Managing the Dynamics of Change by Jerald Jellison
3. The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld
4. Questions of Character by Joesph Badaracco
5. Leading Leaders by Jeswald Salacuse
6. Get Them on Your Side by Samuel Bacharach
7. Working With You is Killing Me by Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster
8. Questions That Sell by Paul Sherry
9. A Leader's Legacy by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner
10. The Box by Marc Levinson

Honorable Mentions:

• The Emperor Has No Hard Hat by Alan Quilley
• Leading at a Higher Level by Ken Blanchard
• The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
• Hit the Ground Running by Liz Cornish
• Dish by Barbara Moses
• Focus Like a Laser Beam by Lisa Haneberg
• Leadership Can Be Taught by Sharon Daloz Parks and Ron Heifetz

Kirkus Review's Best Books of 2006

Kirkus Reviews publishes around 5,000 books reviews a year. You will sometimes see them as one of the reviews on Amazon. Libraries often use Kirkus reviews to select titles for their shelves.

Kirkus published a Best Books of 2006 report and starts by talking about how difficult it is to do best-of's:

Consider Mitch Albom: The literati line up to denounce his efforts as risible pabulum—and yet nearly 700,000 readers have snapped up his latest, For One More Day, in just the three months since it was published, according to Nielsen BookScan. So, there you go: The pages you hold in your hands are guaranteed to be full of wrong information, according to somebody. To Kirkus, however, this is the selection of the titles we’ve felt strongest about throughout the year.

Of the 30 titles they highlight, there are only three that apply directly or indirectly to this audience:

• Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems and Machines Inspired by Living Things by Robert Frenay (got alot of great press, the whole book is available online now)
• The Producer: John Hammond and the Soul of American Music by Dunstan Prial (this is for Jack, he talked about it earlier this year)
• Apex Hide The Hurt by Colson Whitehead (this a satirical tale of a nomenclature consultant hired to rename a town, it was a Fast Company pick)

Did I miss something?

On Wednesday, I posted my favorite books of 2006 and Tom McManus left a comment. He remembered us putting a lot of promotion behind Prepared Mind Of A Leader and was surprised the book had made Jack's list or mine.

Here was my response:

That is a fair question.

I liked the the book. I was a big fan because I knew it was not going to get the love it needed from the media.

It was on my list of 22 books.

It didn't meet my first critera of changing the way I viewed the world. Prepared Mind reinforced what I already believed about leadership. I think that was the reason I got excited about it.

For the honorable mentions, the books naturally fell into those three categories of firecrackers, companies, and big think. Prepared Mind didn't fit there either.

What I need to do is go back and add one more category on Nuts and Bolts. There are a couple of books that belong there.

Thanks for catching our glaring omission.

So, if you go back to my best of 2006 list, you will see a new category called Nuts and Bolts. These books are for those who need help keeping the organization running.

Kate's Best of 2006

For the last two weeks, I've been thinking about this blog post; well, maybe that's too specific. For the past two weeks, I've been thinking about 2006. It's been another great year full of new beginnings and changes. We started the year with our nose to the grindstone working on a print piece that describes everything we do. We found our core is that:

We sell books but we're really in the business of moving ideas.

Of those ideas, these are my best ofs 2006-- a lot of which you may have seen on Jack and Todd's best of lists).

Books

• Mavericks at Work

I read this book on vacation; it was that good. The best lesson is that it takes guts to be a maverick but as any finance major would say, the more risk, the greater chance of reward. This past October,Bill visited us.The energy shared by the audience was exhilarating. I think it's the only business event I've ever been to where people stayed for two hours afterwards just talking. Before he visited, Bill did an interview with one of our local media. I just looked through it again and thought this comment to be very appropriate for all those new year's resolutions:

I'd never suggest that my definition of success should be anyone else's definition, but here's how I think about it: Can I make use of my natural talents to do work that means something to me, that makes even a little bit of a positive impact in the world, and that creates something of value in the marketplace? I firmly believe that there is an iron-clad connection between the values you believe in and fight for -- as a company or as an individual -- and the economic value your create. That's how you do your best work -- and how material success also feels like "real" success.

Of course, there's also the ChangeThis manifestoBill and Polly did.

• Purpose

I have to admit that I haven't read the entire book yet. I keep peeling it apart bit by bit while juggling the multitude of other books lying near my nightstand. But I remember getting the first draft of the ChangeThis Manifesto; I dug right in. While I still cannot pronounce Nikos'