June 2nd, 2011
“And so I decided to join a populous, if largely ignored, tribe – the fifteen million Americans working in retail, one million of whom sell apparel”, writes renowned reporter and feature writer Caitlin Kelly, in her eye opening and engaging book Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail. The author describes her experiences behind the cash wrap as a retail sales associate for internationally known outdoor apparel retailer The North Face, and shares some important insights into the world of the retail employee.
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May 17th, 2011
“You don’t have to have a Harvard education to accomplish or even exceed your dreams”, writes self-taught real estate entrepreneur Mitch Stephen, in his straight talking and inspirational book My Life & 1,000 Houses: Failing Forward to Financial Freedom. The author describes his extraordinary journey, through the purchase and sale of over one thousand homes, and the often hard lessons he learned along the way.
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May 5th, 2011
“Strengths Based Selling is about your strengths and your personal approach to sales”, write consultants and Gallup executives Tony Rutigliano and Brian Brim, in their landmark and extensively research based book Strengths Based Selling: Based on Decades of Gallup’s Research Into High-Performing Salespeople. The authors describe how and why salespeople should focus on enhancing their strengths, rather than follow the conventional wisdom of repairing their weaknesses, or of seeking some elusive selling technique that allegedly assures more sales success.
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April 18th, 2011
“Back in the 1960s, trying to lead an environmentally conscious lifestyle, and especially integrating green into one’s shopping, was a very fringe phenomenon. But now it’s decidedly mainstream – and changing the rules of the marketing game in a very big way”, writes green marketing expert and pioneer Jacquelyn A. Ottman, in her revolutionary and very practical book The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding. The author describes the how the very essence of green marketing has transformed from an environmental emphasis to that of stressing the added value offered by green products.
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April 7th, 2011
“What connects each is a desire to do the impossible, every day: kill the giant in their industry”, writes strategist and marketing consultant Stephen Denny in his thought provoking and insightful book Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry. The author describes how a small player in any industry can topple the giant industry leader through a combination of brains, street smarts, and agility.
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March 21st, 2011
“But the biggest problem is that no one ever trained us how to be a good boss – or any sort of boss, for that matter”, writes deputy managing editor of Fortune, Hank Gilman, in his very entertaining and perceptive book You Can’t Fire Everyone: And Other Lessons from an Accidental Manager. The author describes, through acute observation and often bitter experience, how creative people are seldom taught how to be good managers; and the often questionable results speak for themselves.
You Can’t Fire Everyone
And Other Lessons from an Accidental Manager
By: Hank Gilman
Published: March 17,2011
Format: Hardcover, 224 pages
ISBN-10: 1591843782
ISBN-13: 978-1591843788
Publisher: Portfolio/Penguin
Hank Gilman recognizes that the same skills that made him a very successful journalist, failed to equip him to manage other journalists and support staff. The author provides in often hilarious detail how he received on the job training as a manager. In effect, Hank Gilman became a manager by accident and circumstance. The job was never his by design or desire. Hank Gilman points out that very qualities that make for a great journalist, are exactly the opposite of the skills essential to managing successfully. For the author, a good journalist is very often a loner. A manager must have strong interpersonal skills. This disconnect of skills and personality, with the requirements of the managerial role, are the source of many problems for the accidental manager.
Hank Gilman (photo left) understands the critical importance of providing training for new managers. For people in creative, artistic, or individualistic professions, the training is even more essential. All too often, people are simply promoted to managerial roles, without having sought them, or even having expressed an interest in the position. The results, as Hank Gilman’s humorous anecdotes illustrate, are not only ineffective managers, but tragically bad managers. Through his learning management skills by the seat of his pants, and through trial and error, Hank Gilman distills some valuable advice for any new manager, regardless of industry or profession:
* Moving from peer to boss is not an easy transition
* Firing a ill suited employee is often the best thing for the person
* How to manage the best employees successfully to keep them motivated
* Why it’s better to focus on employee strengths, and minimize their weaknesses
* Helping others succeed, helps the newly minted manager to succeed too
For me, the power of the book is how Hank Gilman pulls no delivers his hard earned wisdom in an engaging and memorable format. The information is packaged neatly into short chapters, with each story providing an important managerial lesson. The author admits that he was not an effective manager when he got the job, and his honesty is refreshing for a book on management. The fact that Hank Gilman never aspired to a managerial role gives him a unique perspective on a highly variable role. As the author points out so candidly, not all trained managers are effective with their staff either. By putting his employees first, and ensuring their success, Hank Gilman discovered one of the most timeless and important managerial lesson. People who are treated with respect and dignity will perform their jobs well and with engagement.
I highly recommend the delightful and wisdom filled book You Can’t Fire Everyone: And Other Lessons from an Accidental Manager by Hank Gilman, to any any first time or seasoned managers. The author’s straight talk on management skills can be read with profit by any business person. The author’s experiences strike a universal chord with all managers, and the ideas he shares are helpful to any supervisor, manager, or executive.
Read the engaging and hands on book You Can’t Fire Everyone: And Other Lessons from an Accidental Manager by Hank Gilman, and discover how to better work with employees, in any size organization. The advice offered is helpful to all managers at any stage of their careers. This is the ideal book for an accidental manager, who is given the sink or swim managerial training course. It can even be a real career saver for the inexperienced manager as well.
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March 7th, 2011
“By 2007, the Internet had become so much a part of our way of life that we were no longer conscious of the ways it was affecting us”, writes former Silicon Valley executive and successful entrepreneur William H. Davidow, in his thought provoking and insightful book OVERconnected: The Promise and Threat of the Internet. The author describes how the very ubiquitous nature of the Internet masks a myriad of dangers to both individuals and to society; along as providing its many benefits.
OVERconnected
The Promise and Threat of the Internet
By: William H. Davidow
Published: January 4, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1883285461
ISBN-13: 978-1883285463
Publisher: Delphinium Books
William Davidow recognizes the success of the Internet in creating connections that work toward making the world a much smaller place. The World Wide Web has made business and communications more efficient, effective, and wider reaching than ever before in history. The range and depth of the Internet connects people and business on a global scale that is unprecedented in the course of human endeavor. At the same time, William Davidow points to another potentially societal damaging side to the Internet. Paradoxically, the connections created and enabled through the Web can also become too deep and too wide in scope. The same effects that transformed the Internet into a link between people and organizations also sow the seeds of potentially devastating consequences.
William H. Davidow (photo left) deconstructs the form of the Internet as containing both strong and weak connections. Through the effective use of systems theory, the author presents the case that the massive web of connections creates excessive amounts of positive feedback. The result of this ever growing feedback loop is increasing levels of instability within the system at both the macro and micro levels. With so much additional instability, the entire system becomes prone to accidents and growing amounts of volatility. Using historical and modern examples of systems feedback, William Davidow demonstrates how the increases in volatility accelerates system breakdown. While the Internet connectedness didn’t cause the 2008 financial crisis, or cause the financial default in Iceland, the system did contribute the often overlooked aspects of speed and continual feedback. This positive feedback and information exchange efficiency can work rapidly to create more economic activity, but also works to leverage the damage to ever higher levels in a downturn.
For me, the power of the book is how William Davidow provides a powerful and passionate description of the Internet as positively reinforcing system, based on feedback and information efficiency. The author presents a balanced view of both the benefits and the inherent dangers of the modern connected world. As a pioneer of the Internet and its technology, William Davidow shares a perspective that understands how the system operates from the inside. Along with this systems knowledge is a deeper insight into the many ways that even the most seemingly successful systems. In the case of the Internet, its very success increases its vulnerability to systems failure. Along with this rich and rewarding theoretical background, the author offers some practical ideas to reduce the overall risk to the Internet as a system.
William Davidow points to the dangers to privacy of being connected in so many places simultaneously, and in real time. This loss of privacy is not only dangerous to the individual, but also presents another touch point of volatility to the system through efficient information exchange. When problems arise in the Internet, the entire system reproduces those issues, and magnifies their potential for disaster. In the case of the financial crisis, the efficient information exchange created feedback that multiplied the contagion of collapse. To prevent this problem recurring, the author offers some practical and common sense solutions. The author also bolsters his recommendations through placing the Internet system within a solid historical context. The examples given, ranging from the 1720 South Seas Bubble to the Iceland financial failure, show how the aspect of positive feedback loops increase system volatility, ending in collapse. Being overconnected through the Internet is the latest, and the most complete, feedback system in history.
I highly recommend the landmark and groundbreaking book OVERconnected: The Promise and Threat of the Internet by William H. Davidow, to anyone serious about understanding how the Internet operates as a volatile feedback system. The author provides an excellent dissection of the Internet from the inside out, and shares some very workable strategies to reduce the danger presented by being overconnected at the personal, organizational, and global levels.
Read the seminal and essential book OVERconnected: The Promise and Threat of the Internet by William H. Davidow, and learn how the Internet really works. The findings and conclusions will both surprise and shock you. The author points the way to utilizing the overall advantages of the Internet to modern society, while offering techniques to reduce the overall systemic, as well as the personal risk.
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