EntreLeadership – Book Review

Dave Ramsey

Elevator Pitch -

What it means to be an entrepreneur on a practical level mixed with a little how to practically lead and manage a small business from day 1.

Favorite Quotes –

1. “You hit what you aim at, and if you aim at nothing you will hit it ever time.” – Zig Ziglar

2. “When you have momentum in any area of your life you look better than you are. When your star is shining everyone thinks you are smarter and prettier than you really are.”

3. “Proper hiring creates a good team, and a good team lowers turnover. Turnover is very expensive…”

4. “Your business is a party. You have invited your team to the party… Communication in a business is the map to the party. If you have a great map, expect to have a great party.”

5. “…46% [of employees] say a lack of transparent communication from their organization’s leadership is the main point of dissatisfaction at work.”

Thoughts –

I guess you could say I am a new comer to the Dave Ramsey tribe. I honestly didn’t think that he would have much advice on running a business outside of don’t go into debt, but I will admit that he knows his stuff. Obviously he has built quite a successful business, and has done so because he knows what he is talking about.

For the right audience, this might be the only business book that you need to read. This is a very practical book that gives a lot of great ideas for the owner or main leader of a small, startup business. The great thing about this book is that it doesn’t stop at talking about principles of how to be a “good leader”, but covers how to think about the finances, marketing strategy, sales process, hiring/firing of staff, leading the organization’s culture, and how to set a personal and business goals.

If you have ever read E-Myth, and are familiar with the “on the business” vs “in the business” view of leading a company, this is definitely the “on the business” guide, which is to say, this book won’t tell you how to bake good bread, but how to think about growing a bakery. It is a great introduction for the young entrepreneur who needs a guide for specific areas of their business that they might not be the expert in yet.

Buy it. Read it. Mark all over it. Then when you encounter a specific problem with your business, you will know where to go to get a quick answer.

Amazon link

The Lean Startup – Book Review

9/10

Eric Reis

Elevator Pitch – How to successfully build a innovative and successful business through thinking through normal business applications but with a focus feedback for better decision making.

Favorite Quotes –

1. New customers come from the actions of past customers.

2. If you cannot fail, you cannot learn.

3. Remember, if we’re building something that nobody wants, it doesn’t much matter if we’re doing it on time and on budget.

4. The problem with most entrepreneurs’ plans is generally not that they don’t follow sound strategic principles but that the facts upon which they are based are wrong.

5. It does not matter how fast we can build. It does not matter how fast we can measure. What matters is how fast we can get through the entire loop.

Thoughts –

This book was really good. This is another book for the entrepreneur or the head of a department in charge of product development. The main idea is that you HAVE to have feedback to build the product the right way. Innovation, or product development, is a consistent march of learning, building, and then measuring, repeated at infinitum.The more feedback and more systematically you can develop the product by changing the unit of measurement to the right one, the better your decisions, and the more sustainable your growth.

Eric does a great job of leveraging his experience to give examples of how this looks in the “real world”. If I had a complaint for this book though, it is that it is too long. (almost 300 pages) If you skim the examples, you can get the point, without getting bogged down. (My favorite chapter was on growth, and it is all the way in the back… keep pushing through to get there)

Hope you enjoy!

#leanstartup

Brains On Fire

Brains on Fire

8/10

Phillips, Cordell, Church, Jones

Elevator Pitch – Word of mouth is the only way to build a brand by creating a community of loyal, passionate, and raving fans. Also, social media sucks.

Favorite Quotes -

“Your ultimate goal should be to ignite something so powerful that if your marketing and PR departments or, God forbid, even your entire company got hit by a busy, your fans would pick up the banner and march forward with it.”

“Participation does not equal engagement.”

“Listen closely to what we’re about to say: 90% of word of mouth interactions happen off-line.”

“Companies are made up of people, and people are fallible. The ones that admit this win.”

Thoughts –

This book is brilliant. It is a very convicting book to read because it makes you feel really dumb for any attempt to build a brand or market your product, in a way that is even the slightest bit authentic. The stories they tell about creating, mobilizing and unleashing movements is so inspiring, and yet completely daunting.

You should read this book and immediately realize the huge difference between marketing/advertising your company, and having a product that is remarkable enough to the point where your fans do all of that for you. They can’t help it. It is a similar idea to Godin’s Purple Cow, but with more focus on how to start, build, and maintain a movement of your raving fans, where Godin focuses more on innovating and building a truly remarkable product.

Pick this up if you have any control in the story telling process in your organization. It will hone your skills, and hopefully inspire you to do something bigger than just push your message louder and to more people. It will help you inspire your fans.

And big thanks to @bretttrapp – his blog for allowing me to pillage his bookshelf to borrow this one.

Also, if you don’t follow @spikejones, you should…

enjoy

Photo Cred – Brains On Fire Website

Classic Drucker

7/10

Peter Drucker

“Classic Drucker”

Favorite Quotes:

“knowledge workers must, effectively, be their own chief executive officers.”

“The key to greatness is to look for people’s potential and spend time developing it.”

Thoughts:

I decided to start reading some of the “old school” books on business and management. I feel like I have been reading a lot of new thoughts on how to manage in the new world, and to pay the old fellers their proper due, I thought it would be good to understand what got us to where we are now. Hopefully this trend will continue a bit longer. It has been valuable perspective.

Classic Drucker is a great book if you are in the business world, inside a medium to large organization, or do any work consulting with them. This is not a great book for an entrepreneur since the perspective is written for larger organizations. It spends a lot of time discussing how to make your departments, and people more productive, and help them develop into highly skilled executives. Very useful information if you are in that position, but for the rest of us.. not so much.

If you are at the executive level of a small business and looking for a highly technical resource to get you thinking about how to improve your organization, this is a good one. Just make sure you are ready for small type, lots of pages, and prepare yourself with plenty of caffeine. This was a tough book to work through on the beach this summer. (hence I am just now posting about it)

Check it out at Amazon

the War of Art – Book Review

9/10

Author: Steven Pressfield

Title: The War of Art

Elevator Pitch: What most people call procrastination is really a invisible force called resistance that stands against you in accomplishing anything. It causes fear, insecurity and even arrogance. It cares nothing about you, only that you don’t succeed.

Favorite Quotes:

“In short, if the Muse exists, she does not whisper to the untalented.”

“When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul’s call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We’re doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification, and hard world, we simply consume a product.”

“The professional… does his work out of love. He has to love it. Otherwise he wouldn’t devote his life to it of his own free will.”

Thoughts:

I almost hate to give this book such a high score. But, at the same time I don’t at all. I would give it a perfect 10 because it is that good, but it just doesn’t feel right to give a book that you can read in one sitting a 10. Sorry Steve.

This book she really be read by everyone. Such a kick in the butt to get started. It goes hand in hand with my all time favorite quote.. “Whatever you can do or dream, begin it now.”

PS. Check this out…

The Great Reset

7/10

Favorite Quote:

“Too much of what led up to the crisis in the old bubble days – the conspicuous consumption, the latter-day Gatsbyism- was fueled by a need to fill a huge emotional and psychological void left by the absence of meaningful work. When people cease to find meaning in work, when work is boring, alienating, and dehumanizing, the only option becomes the urge to consume – to buy happiness off the shelf, a phenomenon we now know cannot suffice in the long term.”

Elevator Pitch:

Your college macroeconomics professor meets Seth Godin.

Overview: This is a good read to remind you that the rules that we operate under haven’t always been around. While this book mainly chronicles changes in our current culture based on the years that followed the two major economic crashes in US history, it .  I am a big fan of books that talk on a macroeconomic level.

Making Ideas Happen – Book Review

9/10

Elevator Pitch: Having ideas can be a lot more fun than executing them. Because of this, we have a lot of work to actually make ideas happen.

Overview: I am a big fan of this book, and a bigger fan of the system of productivity that it suggests. Without giving away the book, the author makes the argument that not everything in life is “actionable”, but by focusing on the things that are, we will be more productive, and therefore more likely to actually make those genius ideas that we all have come true.

Ideas are cheap. The real world influencers and changers are actually making their ideas happen. Disciplined thought and behavior leads to progress and progress begets progress.

Favorite quotes:

“Creativity X Organization = Impact”

“History is made by passionate, creative people and organizations with the rate ability to lead others – and themselves.”

“I always try to hire people with a high level of intrinsic motivation…”

“Feeling progress is an important part of execution.”

Thoughts:

I had the pleasure of attending a conference led by Belsky while I was reading this book, and even though all of his examples, illustations, and outline came straight from the book, I highly recommend finding his next talk and buying a ticket. He is a great communicator with a very simple challenge, get stuff done.

One Page Talent Management – Book Review

7/10

Elevator Pitch -

If you lead the HR department, or are a small enough company to where as a business owner, you lead the people, then you must read this book.

Favorite Quotes -

“…remove any extra features and complexity, while simultaneously trying to add value into each to make the practices more effective.”

“There seems to be a gap between our knowledge of how to develop talent and our ability to actually do it.”

“Few managers enjoy having tough conversations with their employees. Giving feedback about subpar performance or explaining that a career goal will never be achieved significantly increases most managers’ heart rates. But transparent conversations like these drive higher performance.”

Overview:

This is a very good book, that tries to make one compelling argument, make your employee development systems fit on page. If it is longer or more complicated than that, then it won’t be effective. If you are in the people managing business, you should read this. If not, it might not be very applicable to what you do.

Without giving anything away, the book’s overall thought process is three steps:

1. Start with the science (facts)

2. Eliminate the complexity while adding value

3. Create transparency and accountability

That is great framework for just about any part of running a business, but especially when creating a system that will be reproduced throughout a company. Make sure it is backed up with the facts, make it simple but effective, and then track it honestly.

In our company we talk a lot about a scoreboard and a clock, and try to create one for every person. People are more likely to hit there goal if they know what they are aiming at. This book takes it a step further and adds that if you can’t fit the goal on one page, then it is too much.

Keep it simple stupid. So true. Hurts my feelings every time.

Where Have All the Leaders Gone? – Book Review

6/10

Elevator Pitch – A call for Washington to stop playing games and lead. Written in 2007.

Overall: This might be the most interesting book that I won’t ever recommend to anyone. There are some great stories and lessons to learn from his obviously very interesting career and relationships. It is an extremely political book, so if you are at all a fan of George W, then you will be offended. Majorly. I was a little disappointed by how much time he spent bashing people.

That said, it was very interesting, and had it moments of grandeur. I didn’t have any favorite quotes, but the whole conversation about whether or not capitalism/democracy  is actually working, and his trips to Cuba to spend time with Castro were my favorites. Very interesting to hear a man of his stature  tell the story of his very casual, yet impacting conversations with the former leader of the closest communist country to our own.

Not a bad summer read, which is what is was for me. Not sure that it will be what you are looking for, but if you like political, and you like listening to old men talk about the way it was, and they way it should be, then this is about as good as it gets.

Books Update

If you remember my “I’m not a mutltitasker” post. I tried to read more than one at a time, and this is what happened. It took me too long to finish books. So here is my update. From the past month of reading or so…

Supefreakonomics

9/10 – Remarkable book really. That is the best thing to say about it. As a man that loves to throw out random info to make me sound smart, this is the perfect book for that.

A Whole New Mind

7/10 – Great academic read about how the brain works. One of the best takes on right brain left brain that I have found. Love how much it ties in with what I do for a living.

Culture Making

8/10 – Great Christian/Business Book. I put the disclaimer on it, because I was naive to the fact that it was a Christian book. That said, it is easily the best “Business” style book that I have read that is Christian. Andy Crouch is leading the thought on what Culture is, and more importantly, how culture is influenced. This is ground zero for understanding and managing a culture.

Other notable books in the past month:

-Well Being – Tom Rath

-Small is the new big – Seth Godin

-One Page Talent Management – Effron – More on this one soon…