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Posted Aug. 19, 2009 4:10 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In 1988, newly out of college with a degree in nineteenth-century German philosophy, Matthew Stewart needed a job. During a game of pool in a pub, he heard about new graduates being hired by prestigious consulting firms for big bucks. To prepare for his first interview, the author spent two weeks reading the Financial Times and Tom Peters and Bob Waterman's In Search of Excellence in order to master "management speak." Despite his thin resume, he was hired and went on to guide corporations and CEOs in the ways of business management for years. In The Management Myth, Stewart—who wrote a 2006 article for The Atlantic with the same title—shines a critical light on the industry and suggests that, to succeed in management, it is often better to have a degree in the humanities than an MBA.
Stewart posits that management theory is simply an attempt to create a science out of something that is more variable—more human. And he contends that effort often results in platitudes and "no duh" moments of wisdom, and very little useful advice. He writes:
"I reopen Jim Collins' Good to Great to a random page and find, for example, that 'all good-to-great companies began a process of finding a path to greatness by confronting the brutal facts of their current reality.' So true! But then, what is the alternative? Achieving greatness by clinging to fanciful delusions about current reality?"
Other management mavericks, such as Frederick Winslow Taylor and Tom Peters, also get taken to task by Stewart.
There have been other books that have tried what Stewart does here—pointing out the lack of attire worn by the touted management emperors—but nobody, in my opinion, has come close to having this much fun poking holes in the esteemed category. More importantly, Stewart shows us that good management does not belong to an elite group, and instead, that we can learn management skills from the humanists and the philosophers all around us.
Posted Aug. 18, 2009 4:00 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
One of the first books I recommended when I started writing Jack Covert Selects reviews in 2000 was Emanuel Rosen's The Anatomy of Buzz. Ahead of his time, Rosen wrote the first book on word of mouth marketing, using the word “buzz” to describe people talking about the products and services they love. At the time, Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point had just come out and opened the floodgates of interest in how ideas spread. Rosen's The Anatomy of Buzz should be considered just as significant a publishing event.
For this new edition, Rosen went back and rewrote two-thirds of the book with updated research, theories, and anecdotes that have been developed over the last decade. The work of BzzAgents and Brains on Fire, standout word-of-mouth marketing agencies that didn't exist when Rosen wrote the first edition, now appear alongside his original discussions of the phenomenon of Birkenstocks and the African soap opera Soul City. The role of social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, and Yelp now appear as examples of the power of personal networks in word-of-mouth marketing.
Rosen's new information discusses primarily the nuances of word-of-mouth marketing. While he says that historically "most marketing research focuses on finding the right message that will persuade someone to buy a product," he explains that agencies like Proctor & Gamble offspring Tremor are now more intent on finding out what people will talk about. Or, in another example, rather than focusing on "what" people talk about, Andrea Wojnicki focused on "how often" people talk while earning her doctorate at Harvard,. She wanted to know what influenced the frequency with which people talk about their experiences. She discovered that while experts and non-experts shared bad experiences equally, experts told twice as many people about a good experience as non-experts did.
By reviewing The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited, I am doing something I haven't done before—recommending a book for the second time. But when it comes to understanding how and why ideas spread, there are just as many reasons to read Rosen now as there were almost ten years ago.
Posted Aug. 17, 2009 6:17 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
After the San Francisco 49ers went 2-14 in 1978, the owner went down the road to Stanford and hired Bill Walsh as GM and coach. During his tenure with San Francisco, the team went from the worst to first faster than any team in history. While his coaching skill is to be admired, it is his leadership skill that is on display here in The Score Takes Care of Itself.
When this book first landed on my desk, I looked at it with a cynical eye, figuring it was a book published simply to take advantage of the start of the football season. Instead, the author had been working with Bill Walsh on this book for some time before Walsh's death of leukemia in 2007, and it holds its own as a business book. Between his retirement from coaching and resuming front office responsibilities with the 49ers, Walsh taught classes in leadership at Stanford and, during that time, the two men worked on this book. When Walsh went back to the 49ers, the book was put on hold, but after his death, Walsh's surviving son continued the process and opened up the coach's archive. And those wishing to improve their leadership skills are better for it.
The first thing Walsh did when he took over the 49ers was install his "Standard of Performance." This document includes such requirements as:
"Exhibit a ferocious and intelligently applied work ethic directed at continual improvement; demonstrate respect for each person in the organization and the work he or she does; be deeply committed to learning and teaching ...; be fair; demonstrate character; honor the direct connection between details and improvement, and relentlessly seek the latter ..."
And that's only about half of the list's requirements. With standards such as these clearly laid out, everybody in the organization always knew where they stood, and Walsh's Standard of Performance greatly shaped the team that went on to win five Super Bowls and have a winning record of 102-63-1.
Walsh's leadership abilities, according to Joe Montana's foreword, were based in "... his ability to teach people how to think and play at a different and much higher, and, at times, perfect level." Within The Score Takes Care of Itself, Walsh and his co-writers unveil just how Walsh communicated his vision to the hundreds of people in the organization, and how he molded that vision into reality.
Posted Aug. 14, 2009 3:27 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
Communication is the foundation of relationships, whether personal or professional, and rarely are we trained in how to improve those skills. Instead, experience tends to be our guide. We use commands and requests, whatever has worked for us in the past. The Four Conversations shows that we may not be taking full advantage of the tools available to us.
Jeffrey and Laurie Ford believe conversation can be classified into four types. Initiative conversations set the vision and direction, like John F. Kennedy's 1961 speech that committed to putting men on the moon. If initiative conversations are about what, when, and why, understanding discussions answer the who and the how. These conversations ground individuals at the start of a project by laying out the roles they will play, and reinforce the value of the initiative. Understanding conversations do not create action, however. That's the purpose of performance conversations: asking that something be done and obtaining a promise for completion. Closure conversations mark an ending and create the opportunity for new beginnings.
The authors make a clear argument for just why it is so important to become more aware of our own tendencies toward how we use these types of conversations. Using the four conversations with a more balanced and/or intentional approach in the workplace leads to better productivity and results. Reducing tardiness on projects comes from using all four types effectively. Closure conversations heal wounds. Interrogating performance excuses can reveal whether individuals did everything they could. Altering the rate of progress toward a goal is as simple as increasing the frequency and the magnitude of what you ask for.
The Four Conversations is a generalist book that anyone can use to his or her advantage. The authors' holistic view of communication pulls together concepts commonly needed in the areas of leadership, management, and change initiatives. I like books that are applicable and can produce powerful results, and The Four Conversations meets both criteria. It provides an opportunity to improve yourself and your business by improving your communication skills.
