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Posted Jan. 11, 2011 7:53 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
In another installment from the annual review of business books we produced last year, we have an article from friend and former president of the company, Todd Sattersten. In it, he discusses the meta-themes in business thought that he and Jack uncovered as they spent 18 months compiling, reading, choosing and writing The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.
The Five Universal Themes in Business BY TODD SATTERSTEN
What happens when you spend 18 months reading the best in business literature? In our case, two things happened—one expected, the other quite unexpected.
The expected was the creation of a list of the 100 best business books of all time, which led to a book by the same name. The unexpected came as we uncovered a number of meta-themes the books share that exist beyond any predictable grouping by subject matter. For example, Michael Useem’s The Leadership Moment has surprising connections with as Taiichi Ohno’s Toyota Production System and Gary Klein’s The Power of Intuition. Ultimately, we found five persistent meta-themes across our selection of the 100 best business books. Each meta-theme appears horizontally across traditional publishing categories, bridging such divisions as sales, management, narrative, and finance. Each meta-theme also scales in a vertical sense, applying to individuals, teams and organizations equally. So profound are these meta-themes, we argue, that these five universal insights act as the foundation for a leader dealing with any aspect of business, whether starting a new job or developing the next year’s corporate strategy.
1. Clarity of Purpose
Purpose provides direction and brings clarity to all work. For the individual in pursuit of purpose, author Po Bronson asks the ultimate question in his book, What Should I Do with My Life? Organizations struggle with the same kind of question when they craft their mission statements and massage their marketing slogans.
2. Wisdom in Decision Making
The process of making decisions is often overly deliberate or completely unconscious. In both cases, we base our decisions on past experience and judge the success of those decisions only on the success rate of the outcomes. In Influence, Robert Cialdini alerts us to how we use unconscious routine to make even the smallest decision, while in The Power of Intuition, Gary Klein provides a map to some of that scripting and shows how we can improve our gut instinct.
3. Bias for Action
Tom Peters and Bob Waterman pointed out in In Search of Excellence that a quality of excellent companies was “the bias for action.” This assertion that action trumps all appears in many great books, so what keeps us from taking action? Author David Allen (Getting Things Done) would say a person’s focus is misplaced on time and priority, rather than action. Authors Jeffery Pfeffer and Bob Sutton (The Knowing-Doing Gap) would say organizations suffer from a gap between knowing and doing.
4. Openness to Change
Understanding change is essential because change affects individuals and organizations constantly. Sales is about change. Marketing is about change. Corporate strategy about is about change. Lou Gerstner says it was changing IBM’s entitlement culture that was his biggest challenge. In The First 90 Days, new job guru Michael Watkins describes the waves of change that new managers must instigate. In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffery Moore shows how products are adopted and what different constituents need to accept change.
5. Giving and Getting
Feedback Imagine throwing a baseball in a dark room. You would miss seeing the trajectory the ball took or where it landed. Our success depends on feed-back. Did we make the right choice? Did the action have the intended effect? Are things changing? Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) says self-reflection is a form of feedback and an essential piece of emotional intelligence. Engineering professor Henry Petroski, author of To Engineer is Human, says failure is a critical part of learning. And in Secrets of Closing the Sale, Zig Ziglar says listening is the most important part of selling.
These themes are likely to persist as business and business literature evolves further, because companies continually fail to absorb the simple lessons: Find a clear purpose. Be aware that past experience and a mass of information can interfere with wise decisions. Maintain a bias toward action. Be open to change. Seek feedback. These behaviors link together: Clarity of purpose provides wisdom in decision making, which informs action, which in turn, creates change, while feedback informs them all.
PREVIOUS POSTS FROM IN THE BOOKS
- I: Financial Markets: Their Promise and Failure (and Promise) BY DYLAN SCHLEICHER
- II: When Ecology and Economy Meet BY KATE MYTTY
- III: Why We Love Business Books More Than Ever BY ERIKA ANDERSEN
- IV: Odd Intersections: Fiction Captures the Complexities of Business BY REBECCA SCHLEI HARTMAN
- V: Explorations Into the Human Psyche BY ROBBIE HARTMAN
- VI: For Women Only? A Look at Trends in Business Books Written by Women BY SALLY HALDORSON
- VII: Real-World Lessons in Leadership BY ROBERT MORRIS
- VIII: We the Internet BY DYLAN SCHLEICHER
- IX: The Shifting Landscape of Moving Ideas: The Art of Publishing in a Socially Empowered World BY JON MUELLER
- X: The Information Age
- XI: Finding Opportunities: Re-examining Personal and Organizational Strength in Challenging Times BY JON MUELLER
Internet Algorithm Arrives at Top 100 Business Books
Posted Aug. 31, 2009 7:59 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In Lists - 800 CEO Read Blog
Jurgen Appelo at Noop.nl has created and algorithm that takes the number of Amazon reviews, average Amazon ranking, and number of hits on Google to create the Top 100 Best Books for Managers, Leaders & Humans. In talking about some of the analysis Appelo says:
The book with the largest number of Amazon reviews is Freakonomics (#53, by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner). And the book with the largest number of Google hits is The World Is Flat (#56, by Thomas L. Friedman). However, both books scored a somewhat low average rating, which means they didn't end up among the top 10. The book with the best average rating is Love 'Em or Lose 'Em (#36, by Beverly Kaye, Sharon Jordan-Evans), though this book scored only a moderate number of reviews and Google hits.Any experiment of this nature produces interesting results. You'll find a mixture of old and new, common and uncommon. I have pulled over the top 10 off the list:
- The Success Principles by Jack Canfield, Janet Switzer
- The Elements of Style by William Strunk, E. B. White
- How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Made to Stick by Chip Heath, Dan Heath
- Peopleware by Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister (out of print)
- Influence by Robert B. Cialdini
- What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith, Mark Reiter
- Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras
- Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
- Getting Things Done by David Allen
The First Five Books for Those New To Business
Posted Jan. 23, 2009 5:38 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In 100 Best - 800 CEO Read Blog
There was a post in Twitter last week with someone asking what five business books should be recommended to someone entering the workforce. I wasn't able to go back and find the post, but the question has been lingering with me as we approach the launch of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.
Where to start? It depends on so many things. What newcomers to the world of business lack is not knowledge, but experience. That can makes books a problematic choice for green, just out of the gate graduates, brimming with academic theory.
As I think about it though, the best business books relate stories and through those stories the experiences of others. The good ones also provide context, putting the pieces together in a different way or providing narrative that helps us see the things we already know in a new light.
The five books below provide wisdom for those starting their careers in business. They may also be a good reminder for the rest of us:
- Financial Intelligence - The authors describe financial information as the nervous system of any business and newly minted grads understand debits and credits, while missing the broader point of the matching principle. Financial Intelligence is the book to help anyone understand accounting and its implications on business, much needed context for anyone who wants to be successful.
- What The CEO Wants You To Know by Ram Charan - This books covers some of the same ground but at a much higher level. You may even want to read it before Financial Intelligence for its 50,000 foot view of the really big ideas in business. The book is also small and short, making for a quick accessible read. Jack recommends two handouts for new employees: the company manual and What The CEO Wants You To Know.
- StrengthFinder 2.0 - Focus on what you are good at, says the folks at Gallup. The book comes with a code for the online test that assesses you and provides your top five strengths with descriptions of what you can further do to improve and embrace them. I think this is a great step toward finding your personal purpose.
- Influence and Made To Stick - You are always trying to convince someone of something in business, whether its the hiring manager or customer who just isn't sure. Both of these books are required reading. I will say no more.
- Six Thinking Hats - Have you ever been in a conversation and realize that the other person is not have the same conversation you are? The both of you arrive at that point with different concerns. Edward De Bono is good at showing us new ways to look at things and he says there are six ways of thinking. And if you are in a team meeting, you need to all be in the same mode. The basis of everything is communication and if it is not happening, nothing is happening.
Recommended Reading From The First 90 Days
Posted Jan. 21, 2009 3:10 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In 100 Best - 800 CEO Read Blog
In the book The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins talks about how the President of the United States gets 100 days to prove himself, but you are given 90 days in your new job. He states that the first three months can be a make or break time. Watching the inaugural yesterday led me back to this book.
I want to share the list of recommended readings listed in the book.
Crafting Strategy
Designing Organization
Managing Change
Negotiating and Persuading
Leading and Team Building
*=in The 100 Best Business Books of All Time
Reviewing Reviews
Posted Sept. 26, 2008 6:30 a.m. by dylan
In Uncategorized - 800 CEO Read Blog
Heather Green has written a wonderful review of Jeff Howe's Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business for the September 29 issue of BusinessWeek. After observing that "Books about the crowd are becoming a crowd unto themselves," Green writes:
What sets Howe's book apart is his focus on business, an examination of different crowdsourcing models, and a deep dive into academic research to explain why people work together. It's a welcome and well-written corporate playbook for confusing times...
In his most recent article for Portfolio, "In Praise of Big Brother," Roger Lowenstein casts a somewhat leery eye at Stephen Baker's The Numerati. He begins:
Stephen Baker envisions a world in which our email and blog postings, our credit-card and grocery purchases, our pulse rates and facial expressions, and even our physical movements (handily tracked by our cell phones) will be fed to a new Brahmin class of math geeks devoted to sending us customized shopping choices, targeted political ads, real-time medical alerts, and the names of potential dating partners, not to mention (lest we be shirking on the job or hiding an illness) alerts to our bosses and insurance companies.
While that sounds awfully scary to me, the author is of the mind that this technology will one day empower us. Regardless of how you feel about these issues, the book does seem very informative and worth a read. Lowenstein describes Baker a "charming writer," and ends the review by calling the book "eye-popping and chilling."
David K. Hurst reveiws four books in the Autumn issue of strategy + business's Books in Brief. The first, Richard Bookstaber's Demon of Our Own Design, was awarded the top spot in the Finance & Economics category of our first annual book awards. The other three books are Stall Points: Most Companies Stop Growing--Yours Doesn't Have To by Matthew Olson and Derek Van Bever, Michael O'Leary: A Life In Full Flight by Alan Ruddock, and Tad Waddington's Lasting Contribution: How to Think, Plan, and Act to Accomplish Meaningful Work.
Fortune's Jia Lynn Yang has picked "eight volumes [that] belong in everyone's briefcase." Of course, Fortune doesn't make this list available online, but the chosen titles are:
Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America by Walter A. Friedman
Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story by Jerry Weissman
Hug Your Customers: The Proven Way to Personalize Sales and Achieve Astounding Results by Jack Mitchell
Selling to Big Companies by Jill Konrath
The New Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by the World's Best Companies by Robert B. Miller & Stephen E. Heiman
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher & William Ury
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Rich Karlgaard has written an update to his "Books to Get Rich By" for Forbes. (You can find the original list of 53 books here.) The lists are broken up into six categories: History and Heroes, How Capitalism Works Today, Instructional Tips, Management Secrets, Food for the Soul, and Useful Entertainment. While the list is too long to list all of the titles, I have listed the entire "Management Secrets" section below.
Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company by Andrew S. Grove
Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths That Are Destroying Your Property by Garret B. Gunderson
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William Ury & Bruce Patton
What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith
Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi
The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything by Stephen M.R. Covey with Rebecca M. Merrill
Did you notice that Stephen Covey picked up an initial sometime between 7 Habits and Speed of Trust? (edit: As the brilliant Seth Godin has pointed out in the comment section, Stephen M.R. Covey is the eldest son of Stephen R. Covey. I had not known this previously. Don't let it be said business books aren't a family business.) Notable titles from other sections are John Kao's Innovation Nation and Fareed Zakaria's Post American World from "How Capitalism Works Today," Dan Pink's Adventures of Johnny Bunko from "Instructional Tipps," Randy Pausch's Last Lecture form "Food for the Soul," and Michael Lewis's Blind Side from "Useful Entertainment."
