What's Your Next Move? - 10/07/2009Whether you’re going for that promotion, looking to jump ship, or change careers entirely, Michael Watkins’ Your Next Move is a book you’ll want to read. Any career change is a major event, and this is the kind of book that will prepare you for any kind of move, from dealing with exiting techniques, to international moves, to turnarounds, to working with new groups of people (who may, in fact, be ex-peers you are now supervising). This is a well-written, personal, and to-the-point guide that covers a lot of ground in a short time. Here’s part of the intro that describes what the book addresses:
“Dissect the CV of any successful executive, and you’ll see a series of high-stakes transitions into ever-more-challenging roles: from individual contributor all the way to general management. Through hard-won experience, the best and brightest get promoted and learn to lead others. They seek out greener pastures (and greater challenges) at new companies or business units–and learn to adapt to unfamiliar cultures. The path to still-greater corporate heights often leads them through international assignments or different functional areas of the business–and likely both. If all goes well, they win responsibility for whole businesses–and all that entails.”
It’s not just about ‘moving’ but about what happens when those actions are taken. Success or failure are the two options, and which option you emerge with will determine what happens going forward. Watkins’ book definitely has the research and insight to equip you for the better of the two paths. Another testimony to the author worth mentioning is that his previous book The First 90 Days, was included in Jack and Todd’s The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. That endorsement alone drew my attention to picking this one up, and after reading it, it’s clear that Watkins has another hit.
100 Best Makes ALA Top 10 List - 10/01/2009Each year, the American Library Association compiles a list of business books that libraries around the country use for guidance on quality books to include in their stock. This year, they’ve included 8cr’s Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten’s The 100 Best Business Books of All Time in their list of ten recommended business books for libraries to carry.
Also included in the list are Michael Lewis’, Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity, Julia Angwin’s, Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America, and others, including something I’m personally interested in seeking out, Greg Grandin’s, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City.
It’s an honor for us to see this book, that compiled the best business books, find it’s place in another such list, among fine company, and hopefully with the ability to reach an even wider range of people that can discover some of the greatest business thoughts ever put to paper.
Just Jack! at The Business Beat - 09/30/2009Our company founder, Jack Covert, talked with Penguin’s The Business Beat about the book The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind.
Jack had questioned whether or not to include the book in his 100 Best Business Books of All Time, co-authored with Todd Sattersten. However, after spending more time with the book, he realized how well the book was written, portraying the importance of vision and looking at the big picture. The themes in the book, though somewhat historical, are repeatable, and can be learned from again and again, especially through the narrative style of the writing. Click the Just Jack! link in the player below to listen to the conversation.
Collaboration - 09/28/2009A recent post by author Bob Sutton suggests that Jack and Todd may have a title to include in an updated edition of their 100 Best Book: Morten Hansen’s Collaboration.
Whether or not Jack and Todd agree, Sutton points out some great facets to the book – cost and benefits of collaboration, cultivating T-shaped management, and unifying people. Hansen’s book avoids ideology and theory and provides concrete evidence and data that support his ideas. Considering the topic of the book, it’s something everyone can benefit from, as we experience collaboration constantly in our working lives. But, to what degree do we use it to the best results? This book can change that.
National Boss's Day: October 16 - 09/16/2009Whether you love or hate your boss, October 16 is the day you can make your relationship with them a little better. And we at 8cr think you’ll be hard pressed to find a better way to do that than to give them a copy of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.
If things are cool between you and your boss, they’ll appreciate the knowledge you’ll share with them via the book. It’ll be a great conversation piece for the both of you, and might inspire discussions that lead you both to greater success. The flip side of the coin is that your boss will also learn a great deal of things by reading the book, which might take care of some of those things you don’t like about them. Either way, it’s a win-win scenario. Celebrate!
Butterfly in the Sky… - 08/28/2009When Geordi La Forge left his career as helmsman and chief engineer of the starship Enterprise , he found a new calling—as a champion of literacy to Earth’s children. Known to us as LeVar Burton, he took the helm of Reading Rainbow in 1983. (I know the television sequence of events runs backwards here, The Next Generation not premiering until 1987 and all, but the man was a chief engineer… I’m sure he found some ripple in the fabric of space-time to exploit. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Okay, yeah, you do.)
But, after 26 years on the air, nobody is putting up the cash to renew Reading Rainbow’s broadcasting rights (NPR story here), leaving a void in the world of peer-reviewed children’s literature. Having been on the air since before I was literate, I’ve taken it for granted that Reading Rainbow would always be around. Along with Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street—which, by the way, are the only two children’s series that ran for longer on PBS—Reading Rainbow was an integral part of my generation’s upbringing—being raised on television as we were. We would watch it at home and in school, and it was not an uncommon occurrence for everyone in a room to spontaneously break out in the theme-song, which everyone knew. Butterfly in the sky… Not since 3-2-1 Contact had a song took such a hold of our developing minds.
So, in remembrance of a fine show with a noble purpose, let’s join together in song one last time. I can go anywhere! And, Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (More on that below.)
We try to do our small part to support children’s books here as well. Jack and Todd chose Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! as one of The 100 best Business Books of All Time, and we recommended others in a sidebar of the book called Business Books for Kids of All Ages. I’ve excerpted that below.
Business Books for Kids of All Ages BY REBECCA SCHLEI HARTMAN
Sometimes to think outside the box you have to draw outside the lines. Draw inspiration, that is, from unlikely sources. “All grown-ups were children first,” wrote Antoine De Saint-Exupéry. Whether it’s time to reevaluate, rejuvenate, or simply escape the demands of our busy lives, we recommend returning to the stories and lessons that were most impressive to us as children. The truths you’ll find there are timeless. Here are a few stories in which we find inspiration again and again.
Le petit prince, or The Little Prince, is Antoine De Saint-Exupéry’s classic novella about a small, extraterrestrial boy who changes a grown man’s life by reminding him of simple truths too often forgotten with age: Children learn by asking questions. Flowers bloom when they are nurtured. Work is futile when it lacks purpose. You must experience the world to appreciate it. There is still time to make friends. And, perhaps most profoundly, On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur, l’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux—”One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes” (63). The Little Prince will put you in a renewed frame of mind; you might even look up at the stars tonight.
Based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy, Jon J. Muth’s The Three Questions follows a small boy, Nikolai, as he searches for answers to three questions: “When is the best time to do things?” “Who is the most important one?” and “What is the right thing to do?” As Nikolai visits his animal friends and helps a few in need, he learns—with a little help from an old turtle named Leo—that he already possesses the answers. Jon J. Muth’s concise prose and serene watercolors make The Three Questions a contemplative read for children and adults alike.
Kevin Carroll’s Rules of the Red Rubber Ball is a creative little book with a big message for people of all ages: no matter what you do, pursue that which makes you most happy…and pursue it with abandon. For the young Carroll growing up on the streets of Philadelphia, the playground was his refuge and passion. Rules of the Red Rubber Ball is both his remarkable story of chasing that red rubber ball for the rest of his life, and also a powerful charge to dream big, take chances, and make time for play in everything you do.
In Walk On! A Guide for Babies of All Ages, Marla Frazee uses Baby’s experience of learning to walk as a metaphor for knowing how to get out of a rut, take chances, overcome obstacles, and determine who and what to trust. It’s the earliest “try, try again” experience we have as humans. “See how different everything looks from here?” Walk On! reminds us that sometimes you have to stand on your own two feet to find a new perspective on the world.
My Favorite Business Book by You - 08/06/2009Earlier this year, we released The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.
In making such a bold statement, we received both congratulatory notes and outright condemnation of our selections. As you can imagine, hard decisions had to be made. There was simply no way around the fact that there were going to be deserving books and authors left out.
We launched My Favorite Business Book in March of 2009 to remedy that numerical constraint and open the selection process to more people than just two booksellers from Milwaukee. The site allows anyone to share the story of their favorite book and make the case for why others should read it.
This document is just a sampling of the stories that readers have shared with us. With enough participation, we believe we can build a resource that will provide a book recommendation for most any problem, a peer-generated bibliography of the best and most useful business resources bound in covers.
The process only takes a few minutes to complete. If you’d like to participate, or simply read more stories, head on over to myfavoritebizbook.com.
100 Best Bonus Industry Chapter on Scribd.com - 07/27/2009Today, I posted the Industry Books Bonus Chapter on Scribd.com. This is long overdue, but combination of Chris Anderson’s Free promotions and a BEA podcast I listened to on the way into work convinced me it was time to stop dragging me feet. So, enjoy it here, on scribd.com or you can still download the pdf from us.
Who doesn’t love embedding?
The 100 Best Business Books of All Time – Bonus Chapter on Industry Books
Monday Dots Describes Christensen's Disruptive Innovation - 07/24/2009Jeff Monday at Monday Dots has focused his latest video on the process of disruptive innovation. Jeff’s source material is Harvard Business School Professor Clay Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma (a 100 Best selection) and The Innovator’s Solution.
Using his unique dots approach, the video below quickly summarizes Christensen’s theories:
At the end of the video, Jeff goes even further and suggests an improvement:
While I think this is good solution, I see it as highly reactive. I think an organization should do as Toyota did and implement a clear and hold strategy similar to what the Marines do in their counterinsurgency operations. When competition, demanding customers, and profit mazimazation drive a company to innovate up market, a company should establish an autonomous business unit to move up market much like Toyota did with the creation of Lexus. And even though they were proactive in creating Lexus, sometimes a disruption redifines the market by turning non consumers into customers, forcing an incumbent to be reactive. Ultimately Toyota had to establish Scion to compete with disruptors like Hyundai and Kia.
All of the Monday Dots videos are interesting and worth a look, and in this case, a extremely compelling way to present the original disruptive innovation concepts using a visual, viral medium.
Bob's Slice of The 100 Best - 07/23/2009Bob Adams at 27 gen has written a series of posts on books he liked from The 100 Best Business Books of All Time and how they apply to church leadership. His first post is about our book and Drucker’s Effective Executive.
His other books include:
- Purple Cow – blog post / book link
- Six Thinking Hats – blog post / book link
- Leading Change – blog post / book link
- Why We Buy – blog post (with additional here , here, and here) / book link
- Little Red Book of Selling – blog post / book link
He ends his last post by saying:
That’s my quick look at “The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.” Check it out of your local library, or pick up a copy for your own library. There’s a wealth of wisdom inside from the business world that you can make applications in your world today.
Thanks Bob!
