This provocative clip gives you some data to chew on if you are wondering about the ROE and ROI of Social Media. Thanks Socialnomics – Social Media Blog.
Comprehensive List of Best Business Books
January 25, 2009Once again, friend and author, Dan Coughlin does his research and puts together a very comprehensive list of some of the best business books through the ages. I hope you find this list helpful. If you see some you have not read, I recommend adding it to your library this year. Enjoy!
By Dan Coughlin
In her terrific book, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Alice Schroeder wrote, “Benjamin Graham’s book, The Intelligent Investor had mesmerized Warren. For years, he had been going down to the library and checking out every book available on stocks and investing. Warren wanted a system, something that would work reliably. Warren more or less memorized the course textbook, Security Analysis, by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. Buffett says, ‘The truth was I knew the book even better than Dodd. At that time, literally, almost in those seven or eight hundred pages, I could quote from any part of it. I had just sopped it up.’”
Through intense reading and experimentation, Warren Buffett became the world’s greatest investor and one of the richest individuals in the world. Imagine what such in-depth reading can do for your career.
Here are a variety of books I’ve read that I encourage you to consider. My hope is you will scan this list of more than 100 recommended titles, purchase two books for yourself, and read them. I really believe that business leaders are readers, and that one way you can improve your performance is by reading. But don’t just read your two books. Read them, capture a few key ideas that you want to implement, and move those ideas into action.
Here are my recommendations, which have been organized by topics:
Productivity
Less is More by Jason Jennings
Think Big, Act Small by Jason Jennings
It’s Not the Big that Eat the Small, It’s the Fast that Eat the Slow by Jason Jennings
Leadership
On Leadership by John Gardner
Personal History by Katherine Graham
My American Journey by Colin Powell
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. edited by Clayborne Carson
My Experiments with Truth by Mohandas Gandhi
Walt Disney by Neal Gabler
Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton
They Call Me Coach by John Wooden
Wooden by John Wooden
Leading with the Heart by Mike Krzyzewski
Leadership & Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute
The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam
Gifted Hands by Ben Carson and Cecil Murphey
Think Big by Ben Carson and Cecil Murphey
Leadership is an Art by Max Depree
The Gettysburg Gospel by Gabor Boritt
Abraham Lincoln Great Speeches unabridged by Abraham Lincoln, John Grafton, and Roy Basler
Management
Inside Steve’s Brain by Leander Kahney
The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
The Practice of Management by Peter Drucker
The Unofficial Guide to Power Managing by Alan Weiss
Winning by Jack Welch and Suzy Welch
Setting the Table by Danny Meyer
The Spirit to Serve by Bill Marriott
Teamwork
Organizing Genius by Warren Bennis and Patricia Biedermann
Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson
Gung Ho! by Ken Blanchard
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Russell Rules by Bill Russell
The Winner Within by Pat Riley
A World Waiting to be Born by Scott Peck
Strategy
Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove
Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
The Discipline of Market Leaders by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema
Profit from the Core by Chris Zook
Beyond the Core by Chris Zook
Top Management Strategy by Ben Tregoe and John Zimmerman
Marketing/Branding
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin
Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout
Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy
Innovation
The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley
The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley
The Elegant Solution by Matthew May
Organizational Performance
Built to Last by Jim Collins
Good to Great by Jim Collins
The Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker
The Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed
Leading By Design by Ingvar Kamprad and Bertil Torekull
The Pixar Touch by David Price
The HP Way by David Packard
The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
Personal Effectiveness
Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Living a Life that Matters by Harold Kushner
Raising the Bar by Tim Rosaforte
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
It’s Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong
The Dip by Seth Godin
Big Russ and Me by Tim Russert
Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman
From Promise to Power by David Mendell
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
The Other Side of Me by Sidney Sheldon
Secrets for Success and Happiness by Og Mandino
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
I Dare You by William Danforth
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
First Things First by Stephen Covey
The Essence of Success by Earl Nightingale
The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale
Law of Success by Napoleon Hill
Success through a Positive Mental Attitude by Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
A Treasury of Albert Schweitzer edited by Thomas Kiernan
Investing
The Snowball by Alice Schroeder
Warren Buffett Speaks by Janet Lowe
Sales
The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino
Inspiration
The Greatest Miracle in the World by Og Mandino
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
Consulting
Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss
Getting Started in Consulting by Alan Weiss
Physical Fitness
The Best Life Diet by Bob Greene
Problem Solving
The New Rational Manager by Ben Tregoe and Charles Kepner
Presentations/Writing
Pop! Stand Out in Any Crowd by Sam Horn
Presenting with Pizzazz by Sharon Bowman
Ask Not by Thurston Clarke
The Dream by Drew Hansen
Global Trends
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman
The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan
Management Lessons from Auto Racing
One Helluva Ride by Liz Clarke
At the Altar of Speed by Leigh Montville
The Enzo Ferrari Story by Enzo Ferrari
Winners are Driven by Bobby Unser
Racing to Win by Joe Gibbs
McLaren Formula 1 Racing Team by Alan Henry
Racing Back to the Front by Jeff Gordon
Michael Schumacher by Christopher Hilton
Management Lessons from the American Revolution
A Leap in the Dark by John Ferling
1776 by David McCullough
The Summer of 1787 by David Stewart
American Creation by Joseph Ellis
Thomas Paine by Craig Nelson
Thomas Jefferson by R.B. Bernstein
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
About Dan Coughlin
Dan Coughlin works with large and mid-size companies to improve their business momentum. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, and author of ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum. He speaks on leadership, branding, sales, and innovation. His next book, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success is due to be published in May 2009.
International Peer Pressure Got Me To Join Twitter
November 10, 2008By E. Brown
Who would think a friend half-way around the world would talk me into joining Twitter? Well, Justin did, but I admit I am still skeptical. I have been tweeting for a coupe days and only have 7 followers…hmmm. Could be my original conclusions were right (See Related Articles).
I’ll give it some time and try several different environments. Who knows, I might like it.
Also, let me know if you’re on Twitter too! You can find me at eweirdguy.
Related Articles
- Jeffrey Veen Taps Into eLearning Via Twitter
- Blogging Is Dead, Long Live Twitter!
- Twitter Is For The ADD Generation – Part 1
- Twitter Is For The ADD Generation – Part 2
- Twitter For The ADD Generation – Response
- Now, Some Possible Value In Using Twitter
Experience – A Critical Business Driver
October 30, 2008By Dan Coughlin
Woke up the other day and found out I’m middle-aged. Here’s what happened. A friend of mine said, “Dan, now that you’re middle-aged, how do you feel about such-and-such a topic?” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “I’m serious, I want to know your thoughts on this topic.” I said, “I’m not talking about that part. I’m talking about that crack about being middle-aged.” He said, “Dan, how old are you?” I said, “I’m 46.” He said, “Dan, I have bad news for you. Not only are you middle-aged, you’ve been middle-aged for several years now.”
Well I’ll be darned. The whole thing happened so fast I didn’t even know it. Guess I have to order the Corvette now. Barb is not going to be too excited to hear about that. Now that I’ve come to grips with being middle-aged I have a few thoughts on experience.
Define What Words Mean
I’ve learned that definitions matter and we should never assume what people mean by a certain word or phrase. For example, when I say I “coach” someone, I mean I observe, ask questions, discuss ideas, and offer suggestions. However, when some managers say they need to “coach” an employee, they mean they need to tell the person what to do and how to do it. We’re using the same word but we have two totally different meanings. If I suggest to a manager to be more of a coach with her employees that can mean two different things, so I need to define what I mean by that word.
To me, “experience” means “extracting lessons from one set of circumstances and applying them successfully in another set of circumstances.” Consequently, experience is a function of being able to step back, reflect on what has been learned, and determine how that lesson can best be applied in future situations.
Experience is Not a Function of Age
The most experienced person in a group is not the one who has gone through the most situations or is the oldest, but rather the person who is the most effective at extracting lessons from one life situation and successfully applying them in another life situation.
I used to get jealous of people who achieved amazing results at a far younger age than I was at. I used to think they were just lucky. However, I’ve learned to dig for the truth behind their success, and I’ve found that experience can be gained at all age levels.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, Inc., became millionaires in their 20s and billionaires by the age of 31. Recently they ranked in the top five of the Forbes 400 richest people in the U.S. They were just lucky, right? Well, let’s look at their life experiences and how they extracted lessons from one set of life circumstances and applied them to another. Eugenia Brin, Sergey’s mother, is an accomplished scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Michael Brin, Sergey’s father, teaches math at the University of Maryland. He has published a number of academic papers on complex mathematical systems. Carl Page, Larry’s father, was a world authority on computer science and artificial intelligence and a professor at Michigan State University. Gloria Page taught computer programming as a professor at Michigan State.
Growing up Sergey Brin and Larry Page spent endless hours studying and debating a host of intellectual topics within their families. When they met at Stanford in the spring of 1995 at the ages of 21 and 22, they almost immediately immersed themselves into intense arguments about a wide variety of topics. Through these arguments a great friendship emerged. Shortly after that they became intensely focused on organizing information on the world wide web in a way that a reader could get the content he or she wanted as fast as possible. They wanted to democratize information. With this single clear goal in mind, they applied lessons they had learned from earlier in life and began to develop a mathematical system for gathering content on the web and organizing it in a way that was useful to the viewer. Thus, Google was born in 1997. And as they learned more about how to improve their search engine, they applied those lessons back to their business. Today they are 35 years old and are two of the most influential business people on the planet.
Katey Charles started her own business at the age of 34 in February 2003 in e-marketing. She wanted to help organizations clearly communicate their messages in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Within two years, Katey Charles Communications was sending out over 13,000 e-newsletters a month. By 2008, her organization was sending out over 850,000 e-newsletters a month. This year alone her company has sent out over 5,000,000 e-newsletters. She was just lucky, right? Prior to launching Katey Charles Communications, Katey was head of communications and public relations for world-renowned artist Mary Engelbreit, where she developed Mary’s first e-newsletter in 2000. She invested 14 years as an Internet marketer, writer, managing editor (IPI Report magazine, now Global Journalist), graphic artist, art director (Missouri Life magazine), and overall communications manager. Katey extracted lessons from three critical areas, writing, media, and computer technology, and then compiled them together into an extraordinarily successful e-marketing business.
Jason Jennings wrote his first book, It’s Not the BIG that Eat the Small…it’s the FAST that eat the SLOW, at the age of 44. Within a few weeks that book went to number one on amazon.com and hit the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and New York Times Bestsellers Lists. Published in 32 languages, USA Today named it one of the top 25 books of the year. How lucky can a person get? First book and it became an instant bestseller. He seemed lucky until I dug into the details.
In his 20s, he was the youngest radio station group owner in the world. Later, he founded Jennings-McGlothlin & Company, a consulting firm that, within three years, became the largest media consultancy in the world. Jason combined lessons he learned on how to interview top performers, craft their ideas together in meaningful ways, and communicate those powerful messages in ways that could make a huge difference for the readers of his books. His purpose was to search for the very best companies in the world on a given topic, interview the executives responsible for running those companies, and then artfully combine the best of the best ideas for readers to be able to use in their organizations. He has since followed that book with two more bestsellers: Less is More and Think Big, Act Small. His fourth book, Hit the Ground Running, will be in bookstores soon. He has spent more than 25 years extracting lessons from one set of circumstances and applying them to others. It’s really not luck. It’s a proactive approach to improving one’s level of experience.
Ed Catmull didn’t really taste great business success until the age of 50. In 1970 at the age of 25, Catmull established a clear dream: to create a feature-length computer animated film. The only problem was that in 1970 you could barely get a computer to put out a still image. Over the next 25 years Catmull worked with a variety of investors, computer technologists, and animators to steadily extract lessons at each point in the journey and apply them to furthering the dream. In the end, he built Pixar Animation Studios and created the first ever computer animated feature-length film, Toy Story, in 1995. That film went to number one at the box office. Over the next 13 years, Pixar made eight more films and each of them went to number one at the box office.
At 62, Alan Weiss is today the world’s leading guru on how independent management consultants can build their own business. He has written more than a dozen books on this topic including his classic book, Million-Dollar Consulting, and his most recent book, The Global Consultant. How did he do it? Essentially, he extracted lessons from more than 30 years of experience as a consultant and taught them to other people wanting to start and grow their own independent professional services firms. Have you ever met a person who did something for more than 30 years and yet never extracted any lessons from the experience that they could apply to another set of circumstances? The key to Alan’s success is he stepped back on a regular basis, identified what lessons he had learned, applied the lessons in his future work, and shared those lessons with other people. That’s how experience becomes a business driver.
Experience Can Be Strengthened Like a Muscle
Regardless of your age, you can strengthen your level of business experience level right now. Here’s the process:
The Process for Gaining Experience
1. Recall a situation you have been in at any point in your life.
2. Identify the lesson you learned from that situation.
3. Clarify how you can use that lesson in your current work situation.
I know, it seems so simple, and that may be why so few folks do it. You’re busy doing your job and you have a ton of responsibilities, and I’m asking you to take out a sheet of paper and start proactively writing down memories, extracting lessons, and applying them to your work. Ok, we’ve established that this seems a little crazy. Now do it. Give it a try. Actually give it about ten tries. Within 60 minutes I believe you will land on a powerful insight that can improve your performance. And you will dramatically improve your level of experience.
The difference between investing time and gaining experience occurs when you step back from a situation, extract a lesson, and apply that learning in another situation. Going forward, I encourage you to pause after each situation you find yourself in, and ask, “What lesson can I take away from this event, and how can I apply it to improve results in another area of my life?”
“Good things come to those who wait.”
My dad’s not doing well right now. He’s been living in a nursing home for the past few months. When I visit him, I push him in his wheelchair all over the campus. When I put my arms around my dad and tell him I love him, memories of growing up with him start to flood back to me.
My dad’s favorite saying was, “Good things come to those who wait.” When I was about five years old, my dad bought our first electric typewriter. I can picture him sitting there writing, “Good things come to those who wait.” When I was 16 and wanted to borrow his car, he said, “Good things come to those who wait.” That was code for, “You’re not getting my car.” When I wanted to buy my own car at 18, he explained that waiting was better because my money could be used to help pay my way through school. Just now I’m starting to realize the true economic brilliance of my dad’s advice. Here are a few paraphrases of my dad’s philosophy:
Good things come to those who wait to buy a house or a bigger house until they can realistically afford the loan.
Good things come to those who wait to give out a loan until they find a person who can realistically afford to pay it back over time.
Good things come to those who wait to buy something until they can pay cash for it.
Good things come to those who patiently invest in improving their craft and not worry about how well other people are doing.
Really, really good things come to those who clarify a purpose and sustain their focus within that purpose for long, long periods of time.
As you read the examples above you may have noticed a pattern. Whether the story was about Google or Pixar or Katey Charles or Jason Jennings or Alan Weiss, they all had one thing in common. They clarified a purpose in terms of adding value to other people and then they stayed focused within that purpose for a very long period. Over the course of many years, their experience level for that particular purpose grew and grew and grew until one day they had each separated themselves from all the others in terms of the value they could contribute.
My purpose is to help people achieve remarkable results by explaining simple, practical processes of two to seven steps that they can use to improve their performance regardless of their title, function, education, industry, or age. It sounds so simple when I write that, but it’s really the challenge of a lifetime. Each process has to be so simple that any person can understand it, but so useful that every person who wants to improve his or her performance will gain value by giving it a try. Now the key for me is to continually gain more experience at crafting and honing the content and delivery of these practical processes.
Whether you own a business, run a business, or manage a part of a business, what is the purpose you are going to operate within for a very, very long period of time? After you identify that purpose, then stick with it. Someday you will have more experience within that area of focus than any other person in the world. And that will be your ultimate business driver. Find your purpose, stay patient, and gain experience. That’s how to generate extraordinary results.
Book Recommendations
The Pixar Touch by David Price. This is a remarkably well-researched book that supports my point about experience both with Ed Catmull and John Lasseter. I found these stories to be enormously useful and inspiring.
The Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed. This is another useful corporate biography from which you will be able to extract lessons for your job and your organization.
Dan Coughlin is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, and author of ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum. He speaks on leadership, branding, sales, and innovation.
5 More Reasons To Love Your Mac (PC Magazine)
October 7, 2008I saw this nice little article on PC Mag.com and had to share. Some of these I knew and some are now favorites. Enjoy!
Everyone has secrets—even your Mac. And your Mac may be your friend, your best friend, or even your only friend, but there are still a few things it’s not going to share with you no matter how close the two of you are. Did you know that your Mac can proofread—out loud? That it can help you create new keyboard shortcuts in most apps? Are you familiar with its security tricks? Its productivity skills? Come along as we uncover some of your Mac’s more exotic capabilities. Some you probably already know about. But we’re willing to wager that most will be new to you, though they’ve all been around at least since Panther (OS 10.3) and some have been a part of the Mac experience for as long as we can remember. Let’s get started.
(Image Credit – PC Mag.com)
Need A Blogging Strategy For Your Business?
October 3, 2008My friend, Justin, published a nice little article on strategies he has been developing for clients. Many companies have Marketing Strategies, PR Strategies, Technology Strategies, Business Strategies, and Learning Strategies, but I do not know any that have Blogging Strategies. This would fit nicely within a Learning Strategy… don’t you think, Justin?
Recently I have been turning my attention to blogging strategy for business. And there are some interesting things to observe out of the process that are a tweak on good old fashioned communications planning.
- If multiple blogs are a part of the strategy, you must decide on who the audience is for each one.
- Decide who the author/s should be
- Determine the appropriate tone of voice
- Provide a guide to general direction of the posts and content. If you can outline 50 potential posts before you start you might be onto something – if not, rethink
- Consider frequency and quality of posts
- Integrity of the blog is very important
In Learning Strategies we often talk about leveraging Web 2.0 technologies. We often recommend using Blogs, Wikis, Message boards, Chat sessions, and Social Networking. Yet, the idea of a complete strategy around blogging is intriguing.
What do you think?
10 Tips For Global Communication
September 16, 2008NOTE: This was posted on Communication Nation a little while back, but I loved the drawings and had to share.
By Dave Gray
The difference between local and global markets is like the difference between the fishbowl and the ocean. To understand and engage successfully requires a shift in perspective. Here are a few tips to help you get the most from your global communications efforts:
1. Get outside your fishbowl.
To go global you’ve got to get out from behind your desk. Your culture surrounds you like the air you breathe, and you can’t understand it until you get outside it. Spend some time – an extended period, if possible – completely immersed in another culture. When you return, you’ll be surprised how many things you notice that were previously invisible.
2. Be authentic.
Being global doesn’t mean losing your identity. If you’re a global company that was started in Germany and is headquartered in Germany, it’s perfectly ok to be German. It’s a multicultural world and you are a part of it too. The key is to be respectful of other cultures while being true to your own unique identity.
3. Remember that you are a guest.
When you are visiting another country, or when you open an office there, you are a guest. The same rules apply that would apply if you were visiting a friend’s house. Be polite, respectful, and thoughtful in your communications.
4. Think visually.
There’s a reason why TV is booming while newspapers are going out of business. People understand pictures faster and more easily than words. With pictures you can communicate complex ideas instantly, and virtually nothing is lost in translation. And words need to be translated, while pictures are a universal form of communication.
5. Ask for feedback.
Share your ideas with global teams early, when they are in the napkin-sketch stage, and ask for feedback. When you ask people to participate in defining the message, you build trust. If you build your message globally, then deployment becomes much easier.
See the remaining 5 tips at Communication Nation…
Eclipse di Luna – Tapas Bar
August 25, 2008
By E. Brown
NOTE- Whenever I eat at an establishment I look at the following factors: quality of service, quality of food, price of meal, portion sizes, and the restaurant ambiance.
I just got back this evening from a networking event at Eclipse di Luna, the Tapas Bar in the Dunwoody area of Atlanta. I must say I am definitely a fan of the food.
Tapas are snacks, canapés or finger foods. Tapas can be anything from a chunk of tuna, cocktail onion, and an olive skewered on a long toothpick to meat with sauce served piping hot. They are served day in and day out in every bar and café in Spain. So much a part of the culture and social scene that the Spanish people invented the verb “tapear” which means, “to go and eat tapas!” (From spanishfood.about.com)
The service at Eclipse was good for the type of event I attended. The wait staff was accommodating and quick to assist with any needs. The side room we gathered in was spacious and would suit any large group or event of 20-30 people.
But is it the variety of foods that was most enjoyable. I personally like having numerous items to choose from and then having the ability to come back for the dishes I like or have not tried. The portions are a little larger than bite-size so you will not fill up quickly.
Most everything on the menu is in the $3-5 price range. The prices are low enough to allow you and a friend or spouse to buy three or four items. I recommend:
Pan Catalan
Toasted Ciabatta Bread Toppedwith Tomato, Garlic, & Thyme Purée
Costillas Espanolas
Spanish-style Ribs in Aged Balsamic Vinegar
Pollo con
Spicy Pressed Chicken Thighs with Almond Gazpacho
Queso Frito con Miel
Fried Goat Cheese with Caramelized Onions & Honey
Menestra
Mixed Roasted Vegtables with Olives & Spinach
As for the wine list – you will not be disappointed. Eclipse di Luna has a decent offering of wines that go well with the variety of tapas.
My only disappointment was the design of the restaurant. The high ceiling and tile floor make Eclipse di Luna extremely noisy. It was very hard to have a conversation without screaming. Also, the fact that music was blaring only hindered any decent attempts at meaningful communication. There was a patio outside that buffered the noisy inside, but most people retreated out there to smoke.
Overall, if you’re interested in relaxing to music and having a variety of foods to nibble on, Eclipse di Luna Tapas Bar in Dunwoody is for you.
Related Links
- Photos of menu items and restaurant
One Semester of Spanish Love Song (Video)
August 14, 2008Saw this the other day and had to share. I have to give them an “A” for originality and creativity. So, what does this have to do with WeirdGuy and learning? Well, it certainly fits the creativity bill and, as for learning, the guy should have spent more time learning Spanish if he wanted to woo his Señorita properly.
Watch it for yourself — it’s hilarious!
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