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Hardcover
220 pages
ISBN 9780470941522 Published March 2012
Jossey-Bass
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Posted Jan. 23, 2013 6:43 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
When I got in my car, the temperature gauge on the dashboard read negative four degrees. It was sunny out, but it was the kind of sunlight that seems reluctant—like a lone light in a walk-in freezer—struggling through the cold air to get to you.
So when I backed out of the driveway yesterday morning, I thought to myself, "there is no way we get a good crowd this morning, on the coldest day of winter. There's no way people leave the warmth of their beds an hour early and head out into sub-zero temperatures just to discuss ideas and business books for two hours before they head off to their actual jobs for the day." I underestimated the drive and gumption of the business book readers of Milwaukee, and the ability of the good folks at Translator to get them there. They showed up.
You can tell by the winter light, and the heavy winter coats and scarves in the pictures, that it was well below freezing. But Translator had good, hot coffee, and a really great group of people, and our [general] manager Jon Mueller curated an engaging conversation around the ideas and stories from each of this year's 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards category winners.
It was an excellent crowd. It was not a gathering of people looking for a way to escape their current circumstances, but of those that knew they have a lot more they can contribute to their current circumstances—whether their work, home, or hobby—and were searching for new ways to meet that challenge. All those that spoke seemed happy and effective in their life and work, but they also seemed to know that they can get even more out of life, and that they have more to offer their world. And instead of being bitter, they were all striving for ways to be just a little bit better. So they came, and they discussed, and they went back out into the cold morning fortified with new ideas and insight.
Thanks so much to those that showed up, to Translator for organizing and hosting the event, and of course to all the authors that wrote the books and provided the ideas and inspiration that continue to get us up, excited, and out the door early. We'll have some video of the event for all of you in the not-too-distant future.
The 800-CEO-READ Bestsellers of 2012
Posted Dec. 31, 2012 5:41 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
We move a whole lot of business books around the world from our humble offices here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Each and every month, we compile our sales numbers and release a bestseller list to recognize the books that are heading out to businesspeople, business schools, and entrepreneurs to help spread ideas, solve problems, promote change, and inspire leadership in the business community. We’ve now compiled those numbers for the entire year, giving weight to both total sales numbers and how long each book stayed on the list (and at what number) and are happy to announce
the bestsellers of 2012.
- From Values to Action: The Four Principles of Values-Based Leadership by Harry M Jansen Kraemer, Jossey-Bass
- What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful (Revised) by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter, Hyperion Books
- New Power Base Selling: Master the Politics, Create Unexpected Value and Higher Margins, and Outsmart the Competition by Jim Holden & Ryan Kubacki, John Wiley & Sons
- Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business by Frances Frei & Anne Morriss, Harvard Business Review Press
- End of Business as Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution by Brian Solis, John Wiley & Sons
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick M Lencioni, Jossey-Bass
- Taking People with You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen by David Novak, Portfolio
- Stewardship: Lessons Learned from the Lost Culture of Wall Street by John Taft, John Wiley & Sons
- Relationship Economics: Transform Your Most Valuable Business Contacts Into Personal and Professional Success (Revised, Updated) by David Nour, John Wiley & Sons
- Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath, Gallup Press
- 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, & Jim Huling, Free Press
- Conversations That Win the Complex Sale: Using POWER MESSAGING to Create More Opportunities, Differentiate Your Solutions, and Close More Deals by Erik Peterson & Timothy Riesterer, McGraw-Hill
- Own Your Success: The Power to Choose Greatness and Make Every Day Victorious by Ben Newman, John Wiley & Sons
- Business of Being the Best: Inside the World of Go-Getters and Game Changers by Molly Fletcher with Justin Spizman, Jossey-Bass
- The $10 Trillion Prize: Captivating the Newly Affluent in China and India by By Michael J Silverstein, Abheek Singhi, Carol Liao, & David Michael, Harvard Business Review Press
- The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy by Jon Gordon, John Wiley & Sons
- Engagement Marketing: How Small Business Wins in a Socially Connected World by Gail F. Goodman, John Wiley & Sons
- The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg, John David Mann, Portfolio
- Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins, Morten T. Hansen, HarperBusiness
- Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Greatest Companies by Jim Stengel, Crown Business
- The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World by Daniel Yergin, The Penguin Press
- The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money by Carl Richards, Portfolio
- How We Lead Matters: Reflections on a Life of Leadership by Marilyn Carlson Nelson with Deborah Cundy, McGraw-Hill
- Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired--And Secretive--Company Really Works by Adam Lashinsky, Business Plus
- How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything (Expanded) by Dov Seidman, John Wiley & Sons
To see what thought leaders and business people are digesting and suggesting every month, you can follow The 800-CEO-READ Business Book Bestseller List on our website.
The 2012 Business Book of the Year!
Posted Dec. 19, 2012 6:50 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
The Advantage is a smart, quiet book. The valedictorian of the business book class of 2012 whose extracurricular is the chess club rather than debate or pep. The title and cover are straightforward. The message isn't about making millions of dollars, turning the ship around, inspiring innovative excellence, breaking all the rules. Instead, the message is about prevention, about laying a solid groundwork of internal health to avoid the extremes mentioned above. To venture into a different metaphor, The Advantage is about eating your veggies, sharing a dessert rather than eating the entire slice, and taking a walk around the neighborhood each morning, rather than auditioning for The Biggest Loser to make a drastic and last-ditch change.
The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health. Yet it is ignored by most leaders even though it is simple, free, and available to anyone who wants it.
Despite its sensible qualities, or rather because of them, we are passionate about the importance of this book and recommend it to every manager or business owner who wishes to prevent organizational disease, rather than treat the symptoms when it's already too late to stop the spread. We love it's prime message of attending to the little things, so there aren't so many BIG things to contend with. And Patrick Lencioni, one of the biggest names in business books, is the right person to show you how to attain organizational health--nay, organizational excellence--and prevent the dysfunctions that come from such internal parasites as politics, unresolved conflict, confusion. Like anything that's valuable, an organization's health takes some working at. The payoff? Transformation.
An organization has integrity--is healthy--when it is whole, consistent, and complete, that is, when its management, operations, strategy, and culture fit together and make sense.
Lencioni values management and so he begins his thesis with this foundational truth: management affects every aspect of a company. He explains that he learned from an early age "that some of the things that took place in the organization where I worked made sense, that others didn't, and that it all had a very real impact on my colleagues and the customers we served." And management's contribution to the welfare of every person connected to the company intrigued him, leading him down the career path of writing books that offer practical solutions to solving persistent management problems.
An organization doesn't become healthy in a linear, tidy fashion. Like building a strong marriage or family, it's a messy process that involves doing a few things at once, and it must be maintained on an ongoing basis in order to be preserved.
The first thing companies must do to attain organizational health is decide that organizational health is worthy of their attention. Leaders "must humble themselves enough to overcome the three biases that prevent them from embracing it."
- The Sophistication Bias: sometimes the practical is the most valuable
- The Adrenaline Bias: it's not always the urgent that is the most critical
- The Quantification Bias: the measurable isn't the only thing justifiable
Managers must then commit to practicing the 4 Disciplines:
- Build a Cohesive Team by building trust, mastering conflict; achieving commitment; embracing accountability; focusing on results.
- Create Clarityand achieve alignment by answering six critical questions (see the book for just what these questions are.)
- Overcommunicate Clarity through repetition of those answers to inspire belief.
- Reinforce Clarity by building systems that reinforce the answers without institutionalizing them.
Lencioni closes the book by spending some time with one of his favored topics (see his bestselling Death by Meeting): the meeting. Meetings cannot and should not be eliminated, Lencioni asserts, but they can be regulated. He suggests establishing four types of meetings--administrative, tactical, strategic, developmental--that are held at specific times or to solve specific problems. Both employees and leaders then know exactly what they are getting into and what is expected of them.
As dreaded as the "m" word is, as maligned as it has become, there is no better way to have a fundamental impact on an organization than by changing the way it does meetings.
As may now be apparent, with The Advantage Lencioni leaves his preference for fable writing (e.g. The Five Dysfuntions of a Team, The Five Temptations of a CEO, and one of our favorites, Getting Naked) behind. There are no fictional characters and narrative this time around, and while we'll miss Lencioni's talent for telling engaging tales, The Advantage still sings with the tenor of Lencioni's accessible and generous voice. The book is well-stocked with straight-forward advice about getting things right in your organization before they become wrong. Because if, or rather, when, things do go wrong as they are apt to in the life of a company, the organization's health will be strong enough to withstand and endure the assault. Therein lies The Advantage, and why we chose this book as our 2012 Book of the Year.
(To revisit this year's book awards, as well as those from previous years, click here.)
The Elite Eight: Our Picks for the Top Business Books of 2012
Posted Dec. 18, 2012 6:40 a.m. by sally-haldorson
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
In anticipation of announcing the winner of the 2012 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year tomorrow, here's a recap of the category winners. Click on the links below to read more about these top books of 2012.
Which book is *your* pick for the top book of the year?
~General Business: PRIVATE EMPIRE | Steve Coll
~Leadership: THE COMMITMENT ENGINE | John Jansch
~Management: THE ADVANTAGE | Pat Lencioni
~Innovation & Creativity: THE ICARUS DECEPTION | Seth Godin
~Small Business & Entrepreneurship: THE $100 STARTUP | Chris Guillibeau
~Sales & Marketing: TO SELL IS HUMAN | Dan Pink
~Personal Development: SO GOOD THEY CAN'T IGNORE YOU | Cal Newport
~Finance & Economics: FINANCE & THE GOOD SOCIETY | Robert Shiller
The 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, Management
Posted Dec. 17, 2012 6:43 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
Management Theory came a long way in the 20th Century, but it's always best when rooted in the basics. As the legendary early management theorist Mary Parker Follett put it, management is simply "the art of getting things done through people." As we enter an age of increasing complexity in the 21st century it's good to remember this axiom, and the best Management book of the year, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni (published by Jossey-Bass), is deeply rooted in it.
“The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health. Yet it is ignored by most leaders even though it is simple, free, and available to anyone who wants it.”
The Advantage, page 1
View our Management shortlist to see more great books in the category.
