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Hardcover
320 pages
ISBN 9780066620992 Published Oct. 2001
HarperBusiness
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Posted Aug. 10, 2007 8:13 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In History and Biographies - 800 CEO Read Blog
We took some time off this summer from our podcasts.
I am kicking off the fall season early with an interview I have been wanting to do for some time.
Chris Zook is the author of three books, his most recent being Unstoppable. I talked with him for almost an hour about how to achieve profitable growth through focusing on the core of your business.
I also asked him what books he would recommend to other books. He says there are three different kinds of books he is attracted to:
- The Classics - Chris says there are a handful of books that everyone should read. These are familiar titles: Comptetitive Strategy, Competing for The Future, and Good To Great.
- Business Histories - Chris says there is much to learn from how companies deal with challenges to their business models. He recommends Rising Tide: Lessons from 165 Years of Brand Building at Procter & Gamble.
- A Step or Two Away - sometimes you can learn alot by getting away from the business category. Chris is currently reading In Spite of The Gods, a wonderful history of India. Another title that Chris thinks fits this is James Gleick's Chaos, which took chaos theory research and showed how it applied to what folks deal with every day.
Jack Covert Selects Good to Great (again)
Posted July 16, 2007 7:45 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
"Good to Great" by Jim Collins, HarperCollins, 320 Pages, $27.50, Hardcover, October 2001, ISBN 9780066620992
Note: This Jack Covert Selects is from October of 2001. Not only has the book Good to Great emerged as a classic and a "breakthrough," cross-genre sensation, but the phrase itself has entered business jargon.
Seven years ago, Jerry Porras and Jim Collins published the bestselling classic Built to Last, which demolished a couple of deeply entrenched myths like this one: great companies start with a great product and/or a great leader. After completing that book, Jim Collins was nagged by the lingering question that he had been pondering since before Built to Last: are there any mediocre companies that became great? Once he had established his delimiters, he set out to collect data. Jim and his research team spent over five years and studied every company that made the Fortune 500 from 1965 until now--over 1400 companies--and found only eleven companies had truly gone from mediocre to being a long-term star. Then, they looked at why. Here's where it gets really interesting.
From studying these organizations, Collins and crew came up with some really mind-stretching conclusions. One of the most interesting: every good-to-great company has a "Level 5" leader during the transitional years. However, a Level 5 leader is unlike strong leaders of our imaginings. All Level 5 leaders have a mix of personal humility and professional will. Fanatically driven to produce results, they are ambitious, first and foremost, for the company--not for themselves. Ultimately, they do whatever it takes to make the company great. A few of the other most useful findings include something called The Hedgehog Concept, which advocates breaking out of mediocrity with a single terrific product or service; and Technology Accelerators, which encourages a fundamentally diverse attitude and approach to technology.
Simply put: this book is going to be talked about for years. It is so solid in its findings, but written so superbly, that you will practically learn just by holding it in your hand. But don't stop there: I guarantee that your copy will be as marked up with notes as mine.
Best Business Books via U.S. News and World Report
Posted May 18, 2007 9:06 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In Lists - 800 CEO Read Blog
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)
Note: I left a couple books off because the leaders were self-promoting themselves or others associated with them.
How to peel a banana
Posted May 14, 2007 6:00 a.m. by kate
In General Management - 800 CEO Read Blog
How do you peel a banana? If you're like me, you peel it the "wrong" way. That's the way we're taught. Pinching a banana from the other end is actually easier as we've learned from gorillas.
Why? It's hard to execute change whether in peeling bananas or reorganizing companies. According to Jim Collins, "fewer than 1% of companies ever make the leap" (from the May 2007 Business 2.0 article, Changing Minds).
And, while we're on the topic of bananas, did you know they are easily split into thirds?
Bad to Worse (Failure - Part One In A Series)
Posted April 19, 2007 6:53 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In General Business - 800 CEO Read Blog
There is no shortage of books written to explain the success of companies. In Search of Excellence and Good to Great are the best known for using this technique. There are not many books that do the opposite—look at why companies failed.
It is worth spending some time on the topic of failure. There are many more companies that fail than succeed. I am sure you have heard the comparison of the companies that were on the Dow Jones Industrials list in 1920 and the fact that General Electric is the only one that remains.
There is one possible constraint to think about. Phil Rosenwieg points out in The Halo Effect, it is hard to distinguish between success and what actually caused the success. There may be similar problems distinguishing failure and its causes. Let's just keep that in mind as we look at a few books that examine the difficulty of keeping businesses going.
This is going to be a series that will run over the next couple of weeks.
