Subtitled: A Little Book That Teaches You When To Quit (and When to Stick) One of the many things I love about Amazon.com is how they recommend books to me based on what I've purchased, or perused, in the past. That's one good reason I buy my books there. So this book recommendation actually came to me as an email one evening. Sounds pretty unremarkable up to this point, except it was a few days after I quit my job of five years in a company that I had been affiliated with for most of the last 20 years. I saw it as a "sign." And now that I've read the book, I'm even more convinced that some cosmic force out there was sending me a well timed message about the virtues - yes I said virtues - of quitting.
Culturally, quitters are not held in high esteem. It comes back to the old Vince Lombardi axiom about "Winners never quit, and quitters never win." It's a valid point, but he left out an important bit of information. A footnote about making certain you are pursuing something worthwhile. The Heath brothers (Made to Stick) would call this a "knowledge gap." Coach Lombardi presumed that we universally understand that not all things we pursue are created equally - that not everything we do is worthy of our time, talent and passion. He was talking about not quitting at those things we decide are worth winning. That's what this book is about.
Seth Godin is an accomplished writer and he hits his target again with a much needed work on why quitters do in fact win. It's important to evaluate what the long term benefits are of what we do, versus the short term pain of working through a "dip." Dips actually create value by eliminating competitors who don't stay the course to make it to the upside. Work through a dip, and you are on your way to being "the best in the world."
Cul-de-Sacs (French for "dead end") are another matter entirely. Staying the course is not going to bring us out on any upside. We get stuck in a place where we cannot move forward. As Godin points out, coping and muddling through, rationalizing a decision to stay in a cul-de-sac leads to mediocrity. That so struck a chord with me. He writes: "The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, realize that you have only two good choices: Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers."
I have always had a reputation for being persistent, and creative, and for working hard at what I do. There was never a shortage of passion or belief in the value of what I did every day, or in the company that I worked for. But at some point, I realized that it was a dead end. Godin points out, "Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can't see it. At the same time, the smartest people are realistic about not imagining light when there isn't any." And that's when it's time to quit that pursuit, and pour your energy into one worth pursuing. Coach Lombardi was talking about working through a dip, not floundering in a cul-de-sac, or going off a cliff.
This is a great little book. A very quick read and just the right investment of a Saturday afternoon that probably should have been spent pruning shrubs. The shrubs will be there tomorrow. I highly recommend this book. Godin has added his trademark uniqueness to the very last pages with his personal "best in the world" list, and a page that allows you to pass this book along to someone else who can pass it along to someone else, with everyone jotting their name on the list of those who have read it and passed it along. I love his Purple Cow thinking which is one of the reasons that Seth Godin is one of the best authors in the world!
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Monday, June 04, 2007
The Starbucks Experience - Joseph Michelli
Subtitled: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary. What a great read! I'm not even sure where to start. I was hooked from the first page to the last, and there are post-it flags in every chapter. Starbucks is a phenomenon. On that I think we can all agree. But they may well have created core business practices that could be a blueprint for companies in many other industries as well.
For those who love numbers, the numbers are impressive. The value of Starbucks has grown 5,000% since 1992. They have over 100,000 employees worldwide in over 37 countries, and their employees report an 82% job satisfaction rate. Starbucks opens five new stores a day, 365 days a year. Their employees who work 20 hours a week or more are entitled to health insurance.
None of that should be a surprise really. What is surprising is how this company set out to create a win-win-win for everyone whose world they touch. Corporately, they are committed to the well being and care of their employees (called "partners"), their partners are trained to focus on delivering the best possible experience (along with the coffee) to their customers. Starbucks gives to each local community in which they do business through their own charitable foundation and from the many volunteer hours their partners put into community based projects. They are committed to Fair Trade Certified coffee. They have a C.A.F.E. program that encourages the growers they do business with to work on sustaining their farming long term through good agricultural practices and taking care of their own people right down to the coffee pickers. They have a senior vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility. How many companies have that on their org chart?
The book is just completely engaging. Probably more so if you actually go to Starbucks, which I do. I don't have one particular Starbucks I frequent on a regular basis, although part of their business model is that they are part of many people's daily routine and provide a "third place." In other words, people go to work, they go home, and they go to Starbucks. I'm not quite that committed to the product, but I consider it a treat to myself to spend that kind of money on a cup of coffee, and I'm generally never disappointed - not in the product or the experience that is delivered along with it. More and more, it's a great "experience" that people are looking for in their transactions with companies they've chosen to do business with. Starbucks has come up with a method to train their employees to deliver a consistently outstanding product along with a highly personalized and genuine experience to their customers. This is certainly not beyond the reach of other businesses - no matter what the industry.
I truly believe the principles they have developed in making Starbucks such a phenomenal success can be applied to any business. Perhaps not in exactly the same way, but the principles are fairly basic. At the very least, after reading the book you will notice a whole lot more the next time you go into a Starbucks. I'm in Georgia at the moment and for the last two mornings have gone to Starbucks for coffee at a store that opened only a month ago. Watching the baristas and partners take my order, handle the drive-thru window, and interact with the other customers in the store has taken on a great deal of interest to me. It is a bit different from my experience with stores in Northern Virginia, but all my experiences have been consistently good ones no matter what Starbucks I've stopped in. And that is the true magic behind the business they have created - consistent quality with a personal touch. This book is well worth the time invested and should be required reading for all CEOs and corporate management. I would love to work for an organization like this one, and I'm sure I'm only one of thousands who feel the same way.
For those who love numbers, the numbers are impressive. The value of Starbucks has grown 5,000% since 1992. They have over 100,000 employees worldwide in over 37 countries, and their employees report an 82% job satisfaction rate. Starbucks opens five new stores a day, 365 days a year. Their employees who work 20 hours a week or more are entitled to health insurance.
None of that should be a surprise really. What is surprising is how this company set out to create a win-win-win for everyone whose world they touch. Corporately, they are committed to the well being and care of their employees (called "partners"), their partners are trained to focus on delivering the best possible experience (along with the coffee) to their customers. Starbucks gives to each local community in which they do business through their own charitable foundation and from the many volunteer hours their partners put into community based projects. They are committed to Fair Trade Certified coffee. They have a C.A.F.E. program that encourages the growers they do business with to work on sustaining their farming long term through good agricultural practices and taking care of their own people right down to the coffee pickers. They have a senior vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility. How many companies have that on their org chart?
The book is just completely engaging. Probably more so if you actually go to Starbucks, which I do. I don't have one particular Starbucks I frequent on a regular basis, although part of their business model is that they are part of many people's daily routine and provide a "third place." In other words, people go to work, they go home, and they go to Starbucks. I'm not quite that committed to the product, but I consider it a treat to myself to spend that kind of money on a cup of coffee, and I'm generally never disappointed - not in the product or the experience that is delivered along with it. More and more, it's a great "experience" that people are looking for in their transactions with companies they've chosen to do business with. Starbucks has come up with a method to train their employees to deliver a consistently outstanding product along with a highly personalized and genuine experience to their customers. This is certainly not beyond the reach of other businesses - no matter what the industry.
I truly believe the principles they have developed in making Starbucks such a phenomenal success can be applied to any business. Perhaps not in exactly the same way, but the principles are fairly basic. At the very least, after reading the book you will notice a whole lot more the next time you go into a Starbucks. I'm in Georgia at the moment and for the last two mornings have gone to Starbucks for coffee at a store that opened only a month ago. Watching the baristas and partners take my order, handle the drive-thru window, and interact with the other customers in the store has taken on a great deal of interest to me. It is a bit different from my experience with stores in Northern Virginia, but all my experiences have been consistently good ones no matter what Starbucks I've stopped in. And that is the true magic behind the business they have created - consistent quality with a personal touch. This book is well worth the time invested and should be required reading for all CEOs and corporate management. I would love to work for an organization like this one, and I'm sure I'm only one of thousands who feel the same way.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Setting the Table - Danny Meyer
Subtitled The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business. I first knew about Danny Meyer from Bo Burlingham's book Small Giants (reviewed here in March 2006.) He was profiled as one of those entrepreneurs who had made the decision to control the growth of his business in order to maintain the true integrity, culture and value of the company he started. Shortly after that, Meyer was profiled in FastCompany Magazine just as his book was hitting the shelves in 2006.
Unfortunately for me, I have never set foot in any of the ten restaurants that Meyer has established in New York City, but feel as if I know him and his restaurants intimately after reading this book. The book is just such an enjoyable read, truly one of the most interesting and engaging business books ever! I could happily read it all over again - it's just that good. It's part autobiography, part coming of age story, with a great deal of story telling and shared wisdom from his mentors thrown in for good measure. His writing style is so very warm and personal, that it's easy to see how he has created restaurants that have exactly that same feel. And of course, that's the whole point of the book. Businesses can use the basic principles of hospitality throughout their organizations, internally and externally, to create an environment where employees thrive and consumers want to maintain their relationship.
I've got post flags stuck all over this book! One of my favorite concepts, and one I will carry with me always, is what he calls "The 51 Percent Solution." It's basically the idea that you can teach someone almost any skill necessary to do their job, you can't teach them to care about doing their job well. You have to hire for that. So his equation is that you hire based on 49 percent skill set, and 51 percent emotional intelligence. He put it like this: "It's not hard to teach anyone the proper way to set a beautiful table. What is impossible to teach is how to care deeply about setting the table beautifully." Not a hard concept to grasp: you hire for character - which is the one thing you can't teach someone. But how many of us try to grasp character traits from a resume or an interview? Is it even possible to do that? I believe absolutely that he has got this right, but it is a way of looking at employee hiring and management that is outside the mainstream.
There are so many wonderful analogies he uses, and the stories he tells are so absorbing I sometimes felt like I was reading a novel. His chapter on leadership, entitled "Constant, Gentle Pressure" is just excellent. He tells how one of his unlikely mentors, Pat Cetta who was himself an veteran restaurateur in NYC, gave him the example of a salt shaker in the center of an otherwise empty table. He explained that every day his employees and guests were going to move that salt shaker off the center of the table, and it was up to him as the leader to keep moving it back to the center. His center. That it was his job to let his people know what excellence looks like to him and what the core value of the business is. And so through a system of what he has termed constant, gentle pressure, Meyer learned to maintain the high standards of his business by continually leading his managers and employees back to the core values of the company. I thought that was a brilliant explanation of a basic leadership fundamental.
The whole book is like that. I have quoted parts of it in two different newsletter editions I put out earlier this year. If you are looking for something to take to the beach that isn't total fluff but is still thoroughly enjoyable, this book would be the one. I could happily start reading it all over again.
Unfortunately for me, I have never set foot in any of the ten restaurants that Meyer has established in New York City, but feel as if I know him and his restaurants intimately after reading this book. The book is just such an enjoyable read, truly one of the most interesting and engaging business books ever! I could happily read it all over again - it's just that good. It's part autobiography, part coming of age story, with a great deal of story telling and shared wisdom from his mentors thrown in for good measure. His writing style is so very warm and personal, that it's easy to see how he has created restaurants that have exactly that same feel. And of course, that's the whole point of the book. Businesses can use the basic principles of hospitality throughout their organizations, internally and externally, to create an environment where employees thrive and consumers want to maintain their relationship.
I've got post flags stuck all over this book! One of my favorite concepts, and one I will carry with me always, is what he calls "The 51 Percent Solution." It's basically the idea that you can teach someone almost any skill necessary to do their job, you can't teach them to care about doing their job well. You have to hire for that. So his equation is that you hire based on 49 percent skill set, and 51 percent emotional intelligence. He put it like this: "It's not hard to teach anyone the proper way to set a beautiful table. What is impossible to teach is how to care deeply about setting the table beautifully." Not a hard concept to grasp: you hire for character - which is the one thing you can't teach someone. But how many of us try to grasp character traits from a resume or an interview? Is it even possible to do that? I believe absolutely that he has got this right, but it is a way of looking at employee hiring and management that is outside the mainstream.
There are so many wonderful analogies he uses, and the stories he tells are so absorbing I sometimes felt like I was reading a novel. His chapter on leadership, entitled "Constant, Gentle Pressure" is just excellent. He tells how one of his unlikely mentors, Pat Cetta who was himself an veteran restaurateur in NYC, gave him the example of a salt shaker in the center of an otherwise empty table. He explained that every day his employees and guests were going to move that salt shaker off the center of the table, and it was up to him as the leader to keep moving it back to the center. His center. That it was his job to let his people know what excellence looks like to him and what the core value of the business is. And so through a system of what he has termed constant, gentle pressure, Meyer learned to maintain the high standards of his business by continually leading his managers and employees back to the core values of the company. I thought that was a brilliant explanation of a basic leadership fundamental.
The whole book is like that. I have quoted parts of it in two different newsletter editions I put out earlier this year. If you are looking for something to take to the beach that isn't total fluff but is still thoroughly enjoyable, this book would be the one. I could happily start reading it all over again.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
What Got You Here, Won't Get You There - Marshall Goldsmith
This book proposes to help us "Discover the 20 Workplace Habits You Need to Break." And I discovered I have quite a few of the 20. I listened to this as an audiobook, and then wanted to quote something out of it for a newsletter I was writing, so I ended up buying the actual book as well. I discovered that listening to books can be an excellent way of absorbing new ideas and an enjoyable way to add dimension to my daily walks with my dog. But it's hard to go back and "look things up." As a person who marks interesting passages with post-it flags, the audiobook experience has presented some challenges for me as a "reader." I was so excited about finding Execution on this little iPod like device that I had to show it to my 19-year-old daughter, who rolled her eyes in exasperation and pointed out that I could just buy an iPod and download whatever books I wanted to. (Educating old people exhausts and frustrates her.) Okay, so DUH! I got an iPod and started downloading books! It's technology stupid.
This book is so enjoyable and very practical. We all have habits that need improvement, and he points out in this book that not everyone has issues so severe they need to be fixed by an executive coach of his caliber. Nevertheless, there are things we can all improve, and making some minor adjustments in habits, attitude and perspective can net very big returns in the workplace and at home. He gives real life stories and case studies from his many years of experience coaching and training corporate executives. He also uses his own issues to illustrate how even an executive coach can fall prey to bad habits. There were things that made me laugh out loud. Like his discussion about office suck-ups. He gives a very funny example of how the family dog is the ultimate suck-up and we train them to be that way. It's the same for the suck-ups at the office.
The one idea that made the biggest impression on me was the idea of an informal accountability coach. Goldsmith has a longtime friend who calls him every night, no matter where he is in the world, and asks him a list of questions that he put together for himself. These questions are designed to help him stay accountable to his own goals: did he exercise, did he eat high fat foods, did he write that day, did he say something nice to his wife and to his kids? He goes over the list of his own questions and explains that his friend Jim only asks the questions. No commentary or criticism is allowed by the questioner. He said this book would never have been written without Jim calling daily to ask, "Did you write today?" I really loved this idea and told my mother that she could be my accountability coach. I talk to her every evening anyway and I think this will help her feel like she is playing a greater role in helping me be successful. Which is in fact the case. But I had to tell her that she cannot criticize or comment no matter what the answer is to the question: How many glasses of wine did you have tonight?" I'm working on making sure the answer is always "one."
This book is one that I will listen to more than once. Mainly because now that it's on my iPod, I just have to select it and it's there. And beyond getting the concepts the first time around, I think it's important to continually reinforce those concepts. How we get along with those around us impacts our ability to be successful - in our careers and in every other relationship we have. This book was an excellent investment of my time and I would highly recommend it.
This book is so enjoyable and very practical. We all have habits that need improvement, and he points out in this book that not everyone has issues so severe they need to be fixed by an executive coach of his caliber. Nevertheless, there are things we can all improve, and making some minor adjustments in habits, attitude and perspective can net very big returns in the workplace and at home. He gives real life stories and case studies from his many years of experience coaching and training corporate executives. He also uses his own issues to illustrate how even an executive coach can fall prey to bad habits. There were things that made me laugh out loud. Like his discussion about office suck-ups. He gives a very funny example of how the family dog is the ultimate suck-up and we train them to be that way. It's the same for the suck-ups at the office.
The one idea that made the biggest impression on me was the idea of an informal accountability coach. Goldsmith has a longtime friend who calls him every night, no matter where he is in the world, and asks him a list of questions that he put together for himself. These questions are designed to help him stay accountable to his own goals: did he exercise, did he eat high fat foods, did he write that day, did he say something nice to his wife and to his kids? He goes over the list of his own questions and explains that his friend Jim only asks the questions. No commentary or criticism is allowed by the questioner. He said this book would never have been written without Jim calling daily to ask, "Did you write today?" I really loved this idea and told my mother that she could be my accountability coach. I talk to her every evening anyway and I think this will help her feel like she is playing a greater role in helping me be successful. Which is in fact the case. But I had to tell her that she cannot criticize or comment no matter what the answer is to the question: How many glasses of wine did you have tonight?" I'm working on making sure the answer is always "one."
This book is one that I will listen to more than once. Mainly because now that it's on my iPod, I just have to select it and it's there. And beyond getting the concepts the first time around, I think it's important to continually reinforce those concepts. How we get along with those around us impacts our ability to be successful - in our careers and in every other relationship we have. This book was an excellent investment of my time and I would highly recommend it.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
I didn't actually read this book, I listened to it. I found this neat little device at the bookstore, sort of like an iPod only smaller, that had the whole book on it. I believe this was a stroke of good fortune for me because the book is full of fairly weighty material. Listening to it as read by the authors - Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan and their collaborator Charles Burck - made it much easier to digest I think. I started listening to it after Christmas while walking my dog in the early pre-dawn hours of the morning. Walking in the dark listening to this book was actually a wonderful experience. I enjoyed every minute of it.
The reviews on Amazon.com for this book tackle the concepts in wonderful depth and I have no desire to repeat what has already been written there. If you want several great summaries about the book, I suggest that site as an excellent resource.
Here's what I came away with: dysfunction in organizations is not unique. This is something my new boss at the time kept telling me. Dave assured me that it was not any worse than many other privately owned large organizations he was familiar with. But I can tell you that when it's your own organization, it just feels like it has to be worse than average.
Larry Bossidy was formerly from General Electric and Allied Signal, and came out of retirement to take the helm of Honeywell when their merger with GE failed to gel. He has a career's worth of stories to tell. I really enjoy books that give lots of case studies, stories and examples to illustrate their points and theories. That is definitely a strength in this book. To listen to the authors is tell it themselves adds a great deal as well - they own their words and convey the message in a very compelling way. They clearly articulated the why, how and who of strategy execution - both well done and poorly done.
One of the reviewers on Amazon said this was a book that needed to be read more than once to really absorb it all, and I agree. I'm no longer with a large company and ponder whether I would ever choose to work for one again. It's very frustrating to be in a position where I can see what needs to be done, but know that it's not within my purview to affect change in a positive way. And that's certainly something they cover very well in the book - having the right people in the right positions and aligning all aspects of a company's strategy so that each supports the overall goals of the company. Execution is indeed a discipline and managers and corporate leadership need to excel in this regard. This book is an excellent primer on the subject.
The reviews on Amazon.com for this book tackle the concepts in wonderful depth and I have no desire to repeat what has already been written there. If you want several great summaries about the book, I suggest that site as an excellent resource.
Here's what I came away with: dysfunction in organizations is not unique. This is something my new boss at the time kept telling me. Dave assured me that it was not any worse than many other privately owned large organizations he was familiar with. But I can tell you that when it's your own organization, it just feels like it has to be worse than average.
Larry Bossidy was formerly from General Electric and Allied Signal, and came out of retirement to take the helm of Honeywell when their merger with GE failed to gel. He has a career's worth of stories to tell. I really enjoy books that give lots of case studies, stories and examples to illustrate their points and theories. That is definitely a strength in this book. To listen to the authors is tell it themselves adds a great deal as well - they own their words and convey the message in a very compelling way. They clearly articulated the why, how and who of strategy execution - both well done and poorly done.
One of the reviewers on Amazon said this was a book that needed to be read more than once to really absorb it all, and I agree. I'm no longer with a large company and ponder whether I would ever choose to work for one again. It's very frustrating to be in a position where I can see what needs to be done, but know that it's not within my purview to affect change in a positive way. And that's certainly something they cover very well in the book - having the right people in the right positions and aligning all aspects of a company's strategy so that each supports the overall goals of the company. Execution is indeed a discipline and managers and corporate leadership need to excel in this regard. This book is an excellent primer on the subject.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Field Notes on the Compassionate Life - Marc Ian Barasch
Subtitled: A Search for the Soul of Kindness. I don't know too many people who would automatically think that "compassion" and "business" go hand in hand. (Take a breath and visualize Starbucks.) It would be convenient to think we could truly compartmentalize our lives into neat boxes and sort out feelings and beliefs according which feelings are appropriate for which box. Like it's okay to be compassionate in dealing with children, the elderly and the ill. And it's equally okay to be ruthless, hard edged and self-serving in business. How many would argue with that? It's just not so simple.
There were echoes in this book of many principles set out in two other books I previously reviewed here (November 2005): Leadership and Self Deception and The Bonds That Free Us, both by the Arbinger Institute. Who we are doesn't change from one location and situation to another. Our behavior might change, and the choices we make might depend heavily on the context in which we make them, but we take who we are everywhere we go and what we give out affects what we get back - at home, at the office and in the community.
I could spend a great deal of time talking about this particular book because I found it so profoundly affecting for me. I will put it into some kind of context for you. I read the book in the cold winter month of December '06 just after Christmas. I was walking my dog for an hour every morning in the pitch dark listening to the audiobook Execution:The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan and Charles Burck and read by the authors. (More on that later.) The book was highly recommended by my brand new boss, and it was indeed a good read that touched very much on the types of challenges (and dysfunction) all large companies face - including ours. So I would listen to Larry & Ram talk about corporate alignment first thing every morning for a over a week, go to the office to deal with the very things they were addressing, and then I would come home in the evenings and read Field Notes for about an hour before going to bed. My whole day was full of changing perspectives and valuable insights.
Shortly after finishing Execution and while I was still finishing Field Notes, I went to spend a week with my mother in Georgia for New Years. She is battling lung cancer and had fallen and fractured her arm making her almost immobile. I read the book on my flight there and finished it the first morning I was with her, reading while she napped in her chair. I spent most of that first afternoon reading parts of it aloud to her. It's that kind of book - one that you want to share with other people. It is full of wisdom and hard truths about the choices we make based on how we see the world. Compassion is not something that comes easily to most people - including me. I consider myself kind, I believe that I am, but true compassion and those who practice the deepest type of giving and forgiveness are well out of my league.
The one concept from this book that I will always carry with me is this: "Hate is like drinking poison, and expecting it to kill the other guy. But it doesn't kill them, it kills us." It is one of the most profound concepts I have ever come across. And I know that it's true. Not just hate either, but all that is negative, hurtful, base and unkind. It doesn't have to be hate to be poisonous. Pay attention to the newscasts, the reality TV shows, the celebrity gossip, how people in the office talk about one another, how people in general treat one another. Increasingly, we are surrounded by so much that is negative and hurtful. And when we choose to embrace that focus on negativity - personally, professionally or culturally- we are planting the seeds of our own self destruction.
Shortly after returning from Georgia, I heard the Christina Aguilera song on the radio Hurt. The very first time I heard that song, it made me think of my father - deceased now for two years. And when I went out to YouTube.com to search for it, I found that the music video for Hurt was indeed about a father and daughter. My sister says it's sad that this song reminds me of him, but I don't think it's sad at all. I don't feel sad. It reminds me that hard lessons are better learned late, than never learned at all. We don't hurt other people without hurting ourselves in the process. Which is why compassion matters in all aspects of our life, which includes our business life as well.
There were echoes in this book of many principles set out in two other books I previously reviewed here (November 2005): Leadership and Self Deception and The Bonds That Free Us, both by the Arbinger Institute. Who we are doesn't change from one location and situation to another. Our behavior might change, and the choices we make might depend heavily on the context in which we make them, but we take who we are everywhere we go and what we give out affects what we get back - at home, at the office and in the community.
I could spend a great deal of time talking about this particular book because I found it so profoundly affecting for me. I will put it into some kind of context for you. I read the book in the cold winter month of December '06 just after Christmas. I was walking my dog for an hour every morning in the pitch dark listening to the audiobook Execution:The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan and Charles Burck and read by the authors. (More on that later.) The book was highly recommended by my brand new boss, and it was indeed a good read that touched very much on the types of challenges (and dysfunction) all large companies face - including ours. So I would listen to Larry & Ram talk about corporate alignment first thing every morning for a over a week, go to the office to deal with the very things they were addressing, and then I would come home in the evenings and read Field Notes for about an hour before going to bed. My whole day was full of changing perspectives and valuable insights.
Shortly after finishing Execution and while I was still finishing Field Notes, I went to spend a week with my mother in Georgia for New Years. She is battling lung cancer and had fallen and fractured her arm making her almost immobile. I read the book on my flight there and finished it the first morning I was with her, reading while she napped in her chair. I spent most of that first afternoon reading parts of it aloud to her. It's that kind of book - one that you want to share with other people. It is full of wisdom and hard truths about the choices we make based on how we see the world. Compassion is not something that comes easily to most people - including me. I consider myself kind, I believe that I am, but true compassion and those who practice the deepest type of giving and forgiveness are well out of my league.
The one concept from this book that I will always carry with me is this: "Hate is like drinking poison, and expecting it to kill the other guy. But it doesn't kill them, it kills us." It is one of the most profound concepts I have ever come across. And I know that it's true. Not just hate either, but all that is negative, hurtful, base and unkind. It doesn't have to be hate to be poisonous. Pay attention to the newscasts, the reality TV shows, the celebrity gossip, how people in the office talk about one another, how people in general treat one another. Increasingly, we are surrounded by so much that is negative and hurtful. And when we choose to embrace that focus on negativity - personally, professionally or culturally- we are planting the seeds of our own self destruction.
Shortly after returning from Georgia, I heard the Christina Aguilera song on the radio Hurt. The very first time I heard that song, it made me think of my father - deceased now for two years. And when I went out to YouTube.com to search for it, I found that the music video for Hurt was indeed about a father and daughter. My sister says it's sad that this song reminds me of him, but I don't think it's sad at all. I don't feel sad. It reminds me that hard lessons are better learned late, than never learned at all. We don't hurt other people without hurting ourselves in the process. Which is why compassion matters in all aspects of our life, which includes our business life as well.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Little Red Book of Selling - Jeffrey Gitomer
Subtitled 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness: How to make sales FOREVER, it delivers what the title promises. For many people, this book is certainly not new at all having been published in 2004, but it was a gift to me the last week I worked for my previous employer, and so I sat down and read it again. Jeffrey Gitomer knows how to communicate. His book is the closest thing to an interactive experience I think that it's possible to have in a printed work. The content is simple and to the point. He didn't invent the successful sales process. He communicates it well and ties the book back to his website by offering additional information for each chapter. In addition to being a successful author, his syndicated weekly column is published widely throughout the U.S. and he is a much-in-demand speaker and trainer. But his writing style is very forthright, engaging and pretty much in-your-face. He doesn't mince words, and while the cartoons and format give the content some punch, humor and interest, you find that it's the ideas and principles are solid as rock.
Gitomer gives credit to all those who came before him and their classic works that are still relevant today - Earl Nightengale, Edward de Bono, Dale Carnegie. He has endeavored here to synthesize volumes of valuable information into a handbook that he fully expects to be read regularly and often. There is no question that he is a product of his own research and practice, he lives his own philosophies quite successfully.
The book is a modern classic and should be the handbook he intended it to be for anyone who is in sales. It's not a difficult read and well worth the time invested.
Gitomer gives credit to all those who came before him and their classic works that are still relevant today - Earl Nightengale, Edward de Bono, Dale Carnegie. He has endeavored here to synthesize volumes of valuable information into a handbook that he fully expects to be read regularly and often. There is no question that he is a product of his own research and practice, he lives his own philosophies quite successfully.
The book is a modern classic and should be the handbook he intended it to be for anyone who is in sales. It's not a difficult read and well worth the time invested.
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