InBubbleWrap Offers

All Business is Local

InBubbleWrap — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:22:00 -0600

All Business Is Local: Why Place Matters More Than Ever in a Global, Virtual World draws us in with its the oxymoronic positioning of its theme, evident in the subtitle. Despite the amount of business that happens globally, despite the volume of customers on the Internet, place matters. In fact, authors John Quelch and Katherine Jocz assert, place matters even more because of the competition.

Why?

"[P]lace determines how consumers interact with a product or brand. From the arrangement of breakfast cereals on supermarket shelves to the ease of navigation and checkout in a digital store, place very powerfully and routinely influences our choice of brands--or whether to buy anything at all....Customer relationships to places profoundly affect the business of marketing--they are fundamental to the ways in which every one of us organizes our lives."

While the authors, as indicated above in reference to stores, do spend a chapter discussing place in the way we typically do, physically, they take a wide-angle-lens to the subject and also devote chapters to psychological, virtual, geographic, and global, place. Their aim is both to reassure and challenge: place has not been made irrelevant by technology. Instead, we must redefine place as something greater that encompasses "how brands may appeal to customers by associating themselves with evocative places, to "[t]he act of moving through the virtual spaces and places of the Internet" to "sophisticated global campaigns designed to promote nations as destinations for direct foreign investment down to smaller campaigns that seek to put individual towns on the map as tourist destinations."

All Business Is Local is an ambition book with that covers a lot of ground, and is a good primer for anyone looking to strongly orient their brand in the ephemera that is the new global economy.

Nothing to Lose

InBubbleWrap — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:14:00 -0600

Everyone seems to have an opinion about the best selling Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain, an autobiographical business book by Ryan Blair (with Don Yaeger) which recounts Blair's personal success story of How I Went from Gang Member to Multimillionaire Entrepreneur. It was by far the most commented upon book on our site in 2011; and not all of the comments were benevolent despite the book's best selling status and rave reviews. This bias is something Blair addresses upfront in his book:

Some of you reading this are judging me and saying, 'Why should I listen to him when he's made bad decisions in his life?' For those of you having a hard time getting over the fact that I haven't had a squeaky clean life, I say take any middle-class kid whose family is in shambles - torn apart by drug addiction and abuse - throw him into a gang-infested neighborhood when all he wants is a male role model, and he will find males to follow but they won't be role models. That's why I've made bad decisions, but that's also how I got my nothing-to-lose mind set. And those things you are judging - my poor decisions - those are my assets...But a mind-set isn't enough; you're going to need to get smart - book smart and street smart... Read on.

That is what Nothing to Lose has to offer: yes, it's a story of survival and success told in an unflinching manner, but it is also a lesson in turning negative circumstances into smart choices and positive action in the future. We are not our past selves, Blair's story assures us. And what a relief!

Amidst the story, Blair offers sound--also often unflinching--advice to entrepreneurs who are trying to find a niche of their product or service while facing often larger and more ruthless competitors. But the book isn't all aggression. Blair admirably commits to showing that respect and personal pride are elemental to success, not only as a businessman, but as a person.

"You can tell a lot about a person by his or her prized possession. Besides the artwork that I own, the items I collect are not what would fetch a fortune at Sotheby's. Rather than things intended to impress someone else, my collection reminds me of the people who taught me to be a better businessman, employer, philanthropist, and person. [....] These are the things I surround myself with. Their purpose is to remind me to ask myself daily whether or not I am living up to the lessons learned from each person along the way."

And as we said in an earlier review of Nothing to Lose in reply to Ryan's challenge in the quote toward the top of the page:

And "read on" is something we'd recommend. It's a compelling story from an interesting person who's seen more in his life, negative and positive, than most of us will ever see. And through his experiences, shared here, we too can learn.

We are giving away 20 copies of Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain this week on inBubbleWrap!

Shake the World

InBubbleWrap — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:07:00 -0600

"So how then, exactly, do you take a chance and invest in your own possibilities?"

There has been an influx of books in the past few years that have tried to answer this question. The advice has ranged from low-risk (keep your day job; get a hobby and start small) to high-risk (quit your job and sell your belongings; take over the world.) The case studies are usually of people who have struck it rich via the Internet or finding a unique space on the long tail for their Etsy product. I have often wondered if these types of books are truly inspiring for readers or if they set up some kind of barrier-to-entry because most people are linear thinkers with bills to pay and a limited amount of energy at the end of the day. Or rather, does it take a certain personality to unplug and dive in?

The quote at the top of the page is actually taken straight out of author James Marshall Reilly's book, Shake the World: It's Not About Finding a Job, It's About Creating a Life. Shake the World is a collection of stories about successful entrepreneurs with whom Reilly visited and conversed with in order to divine an answer to that question.

What is refreshing about Reilly's take on the problem is that while he is telling the stories of folks we have by now heard quite a bit about--Blake Mycoskie (TOMS); Jessica Jackley (Kiva); Tony Hsieh (Zappos)--, he is looking not so much at their decision-making or their ability to risk-take, though there is plenty of background that covers all that, but at their special talent for seeing the world as a multidisciplinary playground with fewer boundaries and more potential. And this, is something we too can do.

About Shawn Fanning (Napster): "Shawn's strength lies in his ability to see things differently. And how this manifests is in the disruption of established paradigms. He creates new opportunities by disrupting old models."

About Ellen Gustafson (FEED) and Bobby Chang (Incase): "As Ellen demonstrates in her own story, and as Bobby demonstrates in his analysis of challenges, if we deconstruct a problem or an opportunity to its component parts and then approach it from a new and unique angle, an equally new and unique solution is waiting to be unearthed."

To explain the idea further, Reilly writes:
"We have to understand that while rock smashes scissors, scissors cuts paper, and paper covers rock, the success algorithm itself is far more complicated--that a route to success may lie more in the application of the fresh perspective that is only possible when a mathematician looks at artistic technique, a systems expert looks at entrepreneurship and disease prevention, or perhaps when a musician sees an opportunity to great the environment, or a theologian finds a way to incubate start-up companies."

The lesson to be derived then seems to be that instead of limiting yourself by what you already know you can do ("I sell, therefore I am a salesperson"), use a wide lens to look at the opportunities that exist by combining your skill with your passion ("I sell, therefore when my paintings are hanging in a gallery, I will be my greatest advocate.")

We are giving away 20 copies of Shake the World this week on inBubbleWrap.

Screw Business As Usual

InBubbleWrap — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:42:00 -0600

This was the opening paragraph of our Jack Covert Selects review of Screw Business As Usual:

"By the time you get to page four of Richard Branson’s Screw Business as Usual, you will have already been treated to stories of Kate Winslett saving his mother from his burning home on Necker Island—literally carrying her soot-faced down the stairs as the fire rages behind them—and a discussion of the state of the world over dinner with the Queen and Barack Obama at Buckingham Palace. (And, to apologize for name-dropping, he shares a joke told to him by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.) So, right away, you’re under no illusion that Richard Branson lives a life similar to yours, but the book makes it very clear that we all live on the same planet."

All of this is true. Sir Richard Branson's life--or more applicable to our subject matter here, his business life--is unfamiliar to most of ours. But as is also true with all of Branson's books (one of which we chose for our 100 Best Business Books of All Time) amid the entertaining stories, the vibrant personality, the incredible experiences, there are plenty of valuable insights. And predominantly in this book, Screw Business As Usual, Branson is, I believe, advocating heart. Doing business with heart. And perhaps that is unusual, and maybe that's not how he would term it exactly, but...well, let's let him speak for himself:

"The world is full of extraordinary, heroic people doing heroic, extraordinary things. I think, however, that we can make the world better just by doing things differently, in a day-to-day, more or less ordinary ways. This book isn't just about 'doing good.' It's about doing better--and it's about having fun on the way."

Screw Business as Usual is a chronicle of those people--entrepreneurs and small businesspeople--who embrace the ideal that "doing good is good for business." Branson shares stories of small enterprises like food retailer Jempson’s and Finisterre clothing company—excellent examples in terms of what they’re doing in local food sourcing and fabric innovation respectively. These stories are fresh, accessible, and their successes seemingly achievable in part because most of us have never heard of them and it is reassuring that the good works of these good companies don't go unappreciated or unrewarded. He also describes his motives and approaches to Virgin Unite, the non-profit arm of the Virgin Group.

Screw Business As Usual demonstrates once again that Branson has a firm finger on the pulse of the entrepreneurial world. It also sends a singular message to entrepreneurs:damn it all, just get out there and do it! And, while you're at it? Care. It's not about having the money, fame, or options that Branson has; it's about having heart. Making choices that are good for the planet, the people, the future. His book is inspirational in its tone, message, and the stories it offers. If you’re looking for a kick in the ass, why not be a little old-fashioned and take it from the British upper crust? (Just a joke! Apparently watched too much Downton Abbey this weekend!)

We're giving away 20 copies of Screw Business As Usual on inBubbleWrap this week!

The Willpower Instinct

InBubbleWrap — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:04:00 -0600

The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It

Most people regard willpower as hard-core issue. You either have it or you don't. And if you don't, well then, you should try your darnedest to acquire some. After all, willpower is about having steely control over oneself and one's actions. Willpower is about not giving in. Willpower will make you put down a second cookie, toss that pack of cigarettes in the trash without every looking back, refuse the lure of surfing the Internet when your to-do list is a mile-long.

But willpower is as elusive as it is desirable. So, truth be told, the issue of willpower or the lack of it ends up stressing people out and seeing themselves as failures. So much so that we've seen a lot of books come through here in the last few years deeming willpower as mythical, the proverbial unicorn in our forest of self-improvement efforts.

If willpower is so hard-core, or even unattainable, for many of us, then why is the author of The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist and Stanford instructor whose concentration is on stress management, writing a book about the virtues of willpower? Because McGonigal would reasonably argue: the reason people fear willpower is because they misunderstand it. Her book works to set the record straight.

Willpower, McGonigal says, can improve your life. That is the reason so many people want the willpower to put down the cookie, stop smoking, get to work: because they know they will be happier, healthier, and more productive. So first, we must understand willpower, and to understand willpower, we must understand how our brains work. One aspect is how evolution plays a part in how we make decisions. "So as humans required new skills, our primitive brain was not replaced with some completely new model--the system of self- control was slapped on top of the old system of urges and instincts." To the point at which we are nearly two persons wanting distinctly different things. And of course the person who wants immediate gratification is often the part of us that wins.

But, McGonigal assures us, another important aspect of adding willpower to your self-betterment arsenal includes the need to treat willpower as a muscle that needs strengthening. Though it is also a muscle that will get fatigued. If you have already spent your day at work having to bite your tongue as your boss makes a big decision that you don't agree with, then you are more likely to eat that second cookie. Not, as many think, because you are looking for comfort from a bad day as much as you have already used up your reserve of willpower. The Willpower Instinct includes challenges to help you extend the limits of your self-control.

McGonigal also explains that using willpower to do good often gives us permission to do bad. If you allow your coworker to take the lead during a presentation that you know will garner him a lot of attention, you may later on be abrupt to a customer who asks for a little lenience on a deadline.

The Willpower Instinct is an excellent book to read when making your New Year's resolutions. Primarily because the most important lesson here is not to wait for "a future you with more willpower [to] show up." McGonigal uses an apt example: the longer you wait to go to the dentist, the more you will have to fear, and the more willpower it will take to go. She asks, "Why do we treat our future selves like different people?"

And, once you set yourself on the pathway of a new resolution, try saying "I will" to the correct behavior, as opposed to "I won't" to the behavior you are trying to avoid. Because "I won't" (and it's scary-nun-with-a-ruler-for-discipline-headmistress "I won't ever again" ) is the reason willpower gets the bad rap that it does. We think willpower is about restriction, rather than freedom, McGonigal is saying, and it is a lesson we all can use at this time of year.

We are giving away 20 copies of The Willpower Instinct this week on inBubbleWrap!

Why People Fail

InBubbleWrap — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:13:00 -0600

An oft-quoted study in 2002 reports some good news: People who make resolutions at the dawn of a new year have nearly a 50% chance of keeping them past 6 months. Now maybe that doesn't sound much like good news. After all, in a glass-half-empty way, you also have a 50% chance of failure. And that, I suppose, is why most people say they aren't inclined to make resolutions. For most people, resolutions inevitably equals failure despite the even odds.

But leadership coach and entrepreneur Siimon Reynolds tells us in his book, Why People Fail: The 16 Obstacles to Success and How You Can Overcome Them, that even "if you have experienced countless failures in your life, it doesn't mean you are destined to have success pass you by."

Despite the mood of the title, Why People Fail is an optimistic book. Reynolds himself reports that he spent much of his early life as a disorganized under-achiever, but determined to learn skills to turn his act around rather than lament that 'being better' just wasn't in his DNA. "We are super-beings, if we only knew it. But we need an instruction manual, a guide to how we can use our mind to create the most fulfilling life possible."

A little bit David Allen's Getting Things Done and a little bit Tom Rath's Well-Being, Why People Fail is indeed that instruction manual, and runs the self-improvement gamut from drinking green juice rather than coffee for energy to creating three rituals for your daily life to determining your big picture purpose.

Ready to rid yourself of "Destructive Thinking," "Low Productivity," a "Fixed Mindset," a "Poor Self-Image" by developing a "Formula for Change?" Then, sign up to win a copy of Siimon Reynolds' Why People Fail.

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time

InBubbleWrap — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:00:00 -0600

This week on inBubbleWrap, we are featuring The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. I can't even pretend to be objective about the book, since I've spent much of the last five years working on the book, it's promotion, and it's various iterations. Needless to say, I think every business reader needs a copy! Here's why:

Five years ago, Jack Covert, founder of 800-CEO-READ, and Todd Sattersten, then president of the company, chose and reviewed the 100 best business titles of all time--the ones that deliver the biggest payoff for today's busy readers. The resulting book, aptly named The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, puts each book in context so that readers can quickly find solutions to the business problems they face. Why is this important? As Todd explains in his closing essay included in the new updated paperback version, "How To Read a {Business} Book:"

Books are about context, the greater meaning. Being able to connect multiple books improves our ability to compare and contrast approaches and philosophies.

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time does just that. In addition to the book reviews, Jack and Todd "recommend other books (both inside and outside their top 100) that you should read next. Sprinkled throughout are sidebars that take you beyond business books to movies, novels, and children's books." It's an eclectic compendium to be sure, but the value in such a wide-lens approach is that The 100 Best will help you make connections, will present you with a map to help you wisely and efficiently explore the increasingly vast terrain of business thought.

In the updated paperback version of the book, the definitive list of the best business books remains the same; however, over the past five years, the business world has changed, so we felt this book too must change, so we expanded the book reviews we originally included in the final chapter of the hardcover called Takeaways, and moved those deserving books and their reviews into their respective chapters. We have updated the sidebars to keep them timely. And we have added new pieces of writing that include the answers to such questions as:

➻ why 1982 was such a critical year in business books
➻ which books will help you learn how to make better choices
➻ why pictures sometimes work better than words, and how to read a business book.
➻which books are the true crime novels of the business genre

Now is a great time to reintroduce yourself to some of the best business thought put in print over the past few decades. The rapid speed of change is unlikely to slow any time soon, and arming ourselves with knowledge is our best advantage.

We are giving away 20 copies of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time this week on inBubbleWrap.

You, Inc.

InBubbleWrap — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:29:00 -0600

Selling yourself.

That short phrase carries with it a lot of baggage. It comes off as self-serving, naturally. But also a little aggressive. A little desperate.(Maybe even a little illegal?)

But to marketing guru Harry Beckwith and his co-author Christine Clifford selling yourself is about putting your best self forward, and sometimes putting yourself in another person's shoes in order to best understand their needs. It's about professionalizing your actions. This paperback reissue of their "definitive guide to career and person success, You, Inc., touts the value of self-awareness as increased control over the choices you make and how you are perceived. Selling yourself is not about being a false version of yourself; Beckwith makes this clear in a short chapter titled, Be Yourself (There's No Alternative!)

You cannot be someone else. You can only pretend. The problem with pretending, however, is that you encounter only two types of people on earth. Those who see past the ruse, and those who do not.
[...]
Be yourself. It is easier to remember, for one thing, and works dramatically better.

You, Inc. is an efficient and engaging compendium of useful advice on, well, just about everything. It's a diverse gamut Beckwith runs within these two covers, but the result is that there is something useful and perspective-changing here for everyone, from the practical to the existential.

Making Yourself Clear:

"At least half of every document is clear. The problem? The other half. Cut every document in half.

Talking on a Phone:

"Talking on your cell phone for everyone to hear communicates that you do not care about anyone. What's worse, they know who you are and your business. Keep your phone calls private.

But I Am Uncomfortable:

"Good. What does comfort get us? That's a related idea from the world of ideas and innovation. We routinely say that if an idea doesn't make you at least a little uncomfortable, it's not an idea. Keep Going.

You, Inc. is quite the perfect book to prime you for the coming new year. Beckwith and Clifford's insights, profound yet easily consumable, will help you change things up, take a step forward in your career, or improve a couple of those nagging weaknesses you are all too well aware of. To do that, Beckwith advises,

Seek Change:

"Read this book, then act differently. Focus on a page a day, an idea a day. Act on it. Don't see reassurance. Seek change. Then Keep Seeking.

We are giving away 20 copies of You, Inc. this week on inBubbleWrap!

A Thanks(!)giving Grab Bag Giveaway!

InBubbleWrap — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 08:52:00 -0600

I apologize for the unannounced hiatus around these parts, but the
inBubbleWrap homestead, 800-CEO-READ, has been hopping with many deadlines.

The good news is that we've got a lot of exciting projects to announce before the new year: the release of the paperback version--with new and updated material--of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time (now available), an e-book celebrating the best 20 books of the past 5 years since we released The 100 Best (available soon), our Annual (think 'yearbook' but for business books), the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, and our newest and biggest project, Knowledge Blocks (which will be entering the beta-test phase next month. Whew! We've been busy, needless to say.

But I don't want to leave you hanging: so, it's an inBubbleWrap favorite this week: A Grab Bag Giveaway! Sign up to win two random, but excellent, recent business books that are sure to inspire you. We'll send out 20 of these surprise packages to the lucky winners.

Thank You for your time and attention in 2011!
Sally
inBubbleMe

How

InBubbleWrap — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:12:00 -0500

How.

Such a small but powerful word.

You only have to watch the evening news or to read headlines on the Internet to agree with Dov Seidman, who, in his 2007 book, How, dubbed this time in history as "the Age of Behavior," meaning that more and more, behavior matters. From OccupyWallStreet to BuyLocal, consumers and citizens are demanding better from companies and individuals, and protesting those that do not step up.

There is an endless amount of interesting material in this book--the subtitle hints at it's wide-range: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything--so much so that it's difficult to summarize.

The book's premise is this: It's now about how, not about how much; all behavior is rooted in values; and, how we act reflects those values. A substantial topic to say the least, and Seidman reveals his intention in his Introduction:

[T]his is a HOW book, not a how-to book.....I believe that a truly useful book must deliver something more--more lasting, more essential, and more applicable to the full range of life. Instead of rules, steps, or an instruction manual, this book offers an approach--a framework and a way of seeing--to help you navigate the globally interconnected and interdependent world in which we now live and work.

So if how matters to you--and it should--, this is a thought-provoking read that will make you look differently at current events, politics, belief systems, corporate policies, personal and professional transparency, and beyond because you will think more about the power of how work, and life, is done. Here are some examples of Seidman's provocative and well-written descriptions of an critical aspect of doing business in the 21st century: how.

In the Technology's Trespass section within the chapter titled, "How We Have Been, How We Have Changed," he writes:

Though we now work more cooperatively, like pieces on a chessboard, the electronic communication that passes between us is a game of incomplete information, more like poker than chess. In chess, both players can see complete information about the game. In poker, you can only see the cards that are face up.

In Dancing with Rules from "From Can to Should:"

If the law says we can, then we do. We're very good at can versus can't thinking. Our habits of mind are so strong in this area, in fact, that we've become muscle-bound, as over developed as a bodybuilder trying to touch his toes--strong, but inflexible.

And, in How We Behave from "Doing Transparency:"

Consumers, customers, regulators, judges, and juries have now begun to view companies from a characterological viewpoint. They pay more attention to, and care more about, the inner life and character of the companies with which they do business. They've begun to ask themselves whether the company has integrity. Does it have a character? In such an environment, programs and proxies alone no longer suffice.

This book is thoughtful, wide-ranging, and shows us just how critical integrity has once again become. Seidman explains that at one point humans commonly lived in small towns and villages where reputation was everything; then as we moved into cities, anonymity became possible; but now, connectivity requires more transparency, and that transparency empowers consumers.

For more on How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything, check out this video trailer for the book featuring the author.

How Expanded Edition Seidman 9781118106372 from Indy Graphics on Vimeo.

This week on inBubbleWrap, we're giving away 20 copies of the expanded and updated edition of How, expanded and updated from the previous 2007 edition.

Plan B

InBubbleWrap — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:02:00 -0500

If you were to open up David Kord Murray's Plan B to the Table of Contents and run your finger down the list of chapter inclusions, you'd scan such colorful teasers as these:

iTunes as a Can Opener
The Fat Man and Little Boy
Ten Thousand Empty Stores
Ernest Hemingway
Beginner's Sex

Intriguing, to say the least. And isn't it exciting to open up a new book, a book on strategy and management no less, and actually be curious not only about the information provided but also about how these teasers will be resolved, how the author's apparently quirky point of view will levitate the material? Murray did this same thing in his first book, Borrowing Brilliance too. It was a book that surprised and entertained while informing with great seriousness about its topic. And that pretty well describes Murray as well: watch this real-life rocket scientist talk about Borrowing Brilliance at one of our LeaveSmarter events here.

In Plan B, Murray also includes among that list of colorful inclusions the core principles of what he calls Adaptive Management, including:

The Principle of Problems
The Principle of Force
The Principle of Concurrent Thinking
The Principle of Cascading Objectives
The Principle of Multiple Futures
The Principle of Doubt

Yup. Still intrigued. Even the nitty-gritty has been melted into helpful, memorable nuggets of information.

For Murray, "...Plan B [is] the evolutionary descendant of your original plan, which is arrived at through a fusion if strategic and tactical execution."

This isn't too far off his thesis for his first book which is that all innovation is built off someone else's good idea. But here Murray calls for you to build off your first good idea in a way, because that first idea, the one you drew up a business plan for, plotted and pitched, may never going to be the one (emphasis on one) that succeeds, and if it does, it won't for long. That's not the world, especially this fast, fast, fast world, works. This world calls for flexibility, but flexibility with intention: aka adaptive management.

"The sixth principle, The Principle of Paper Plans, states that the plan itself is worthless. The act of planning is important, not the plan, because it educates you and your field managers and allows you to make intelligent adjustments during the implementation."

Successfully intertwining lessons of war and history with lessons from contemporary business innovation and evolution, Murray has put together a book that maximizes all that a business book can be. Plan B is practical: you can sit right now and follow the principles and hammer out your business plan and how it can remain flexible; Plan B is theoretical: you can read his theory on adaptive management and scrutinize your own ability to make your plans "more like water"; and Plan B is engaging: you can let the stories and anecdotes carry you along as you ingest both application and theory.

We're giving away 20 copies of Plan B today on inBubbleWrap!

Break Your Own Rules

InBubbleWrap — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:00:00 -0500

A new book by executive coaches Jill Flynn, Kathryn Heath, and Mary Davis Holt, Break Your Own Rules, will be an incredible help to those women who want to take their progress into their own hands. Flynn, Heath and Holt aren't interested in playing Quixote and charging the familiar windmill that is the male-centric corporate culture. Nor are they interested in women becoming men and denying the traits that make them good managers and leaders. Nor are they advocating for women to find their success outside the corporation. Instead, they are interested in empowering women to think differently, so that they can act differently. This book isn't about blame: it's about banishing bad habits, habits that are obstacles to success.

We get in our own way when we buy into limiting beliefs. But we don't have to continue repeating the same pattern. We have it within our power to change our own thinking and therefore change our future. We can nurture the beliefs that will sustain us and help us grow. Women have been taught as children, in school, and on the job to behave in certain ways. In contrast, our research and years of experience coaching women executives on the rise tell us that what we really need to do to succeed at the hightest levels in business is to think differently.

Their book centers around 6 "old rules" that women have been trained to uphold and the converse habits that should be practiced and employed. [Their ChangeThis manifesto will give you a comprehensive overview of the 6 rules.]

Take Center Stage
Proceed Until Apprehended
Project Personal Power
Be Politically Saavy
Play to Win
It's Both-And

In the chapter, "Proceed Until Apprehended, the authors caution, "Asking for permission, not making waves, denying our career ambitions, doing as we are told, following the rules. These are not punishable offenses, but they do throw a roadblock across our path to power at work." Because, they explain, doing so gives the impression that women are deferring and not decision-makers. If you "Proceed Until Apprehended," you may instead be seen as someone who made things happen and is not afraid of a little push-back.

"It's Both-And" is another chapter that offers a surprising and somewhat reassuring conclusion. You know that perfectionism, that "in-it-to-win-it" attitude, that 'holding up the weight of the world' volunteerism that you have assumed for so long got you to where you are today? Well, that could actually be holding you back from advancing higher in your field. So the authors suggest "It's Both-And" as their new rule to eliminate extreme thinking and promote resilience.

While it is necessary for organizations to change how they treat and promote women in order to maximize the value and opportunities for a very important segment of employees, Flynn, Heath and Holt's book will show women how to make changes in how they think and behave in order to overcome the challenges of working within a restrictive system. After all, we can only control ourselves.

We're giving away 20 copies of Break Your Own Rules this week on inBubbleWrap!

18 Minutes

InBubbleWrap — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 10:24:00 -0500

I like this guy Peter Bregman. That's the first thing I think of when trying to synthesize my thoughts about his book, 18 Minutes, into a post. It's the first thing I tell a coworker who asks me about the book. No, it doesn't seem like the provocative place to start, but maybe it is the most important, because there is something about Bregman's tempered voice, the charming storytelling, and the logical progression of his thesis that makes you trust him. (And his vitae isn't bad either.) Because this is a book that lands smack-dab in the personal development (aka self help) category of business books, trust is imperative. With Bregman as your guide, you aren't being asked to buy-in to a new radical thought process or strategize behavioral changes that take so much preparation that you run out of will before you actually make a change in order to reap benefits. Instead, 18 Minutes is refreshingly free of such demands. Bregman just asks one thing from you to make his approach to time management and greater life satisfaction work: Decide to value your own time.

Once you do, once you decide that you've let too much time evaporate from your day, from your life, without so much as a nod of acknowledgement, 18 Minutes "provides a solution to these struggles and frustrations. It's a comprehensive approach to managing a year, a day, and a moment so that our lives move forward in a way that keeps us focused on, and doing, the things we decide are most important." Then by constructing a daily ritual--that takes but 18 minutes every day--, Bregman tells us we can stay focused and productive, on the big picture and in the day-to-day. To support his process, Bregman fills his book with a cavalcade of brief and relevant stories filled with anecdotes, some personal, some inspired by others, and he bookends each section with concrete action steps and helpful reminders.

18 Minutes is not a book that is about creating a more efficient filing system or getting crafty with some new software or intricate Post-It note strategy. It's also not about digging deep and finding your AWOL willpower. Instead, it "will help you make smart, thoughtful decisions about what's worth doing and what's not." And it places great importance on "follow-through: getting started, sticking to your areas of focus, ignoring nonpriorities, and avoiding the allure of unproductive busyness." In 18 minutes a day.

If you know you aren't making the most out of your day, or maybe suspect you're not even making the most out of your life because you have long since lost the fight over time, you will enjoy and appreciate Peter Bregman, a contributing blogger over at Harvard Business Review Blog Network, as your guide. You're just going to like this guy. And you're going to love this book, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done.

We're giving away 20 copies of 18 Minutes this week on inBubbleWrap!

It's Not About You

InBubbleWrap — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 12:00:00 -0500

It's Not About You:
A Little Story About What Matters Most in Business.

In any business parable, readers can usually expect to meet a seeker and guru. Alex Rogo and Jonah in Goldratt & Cox's The Goal, and Steve Farber himself and Edg in Farber's The Radical Leap are two of the most memorable pairs. Bob Burg and John David Mann approach the popular business book sub-genre in a slightly different way. Like their bestselling parable, The Go-Giver, their new book, It's Not About You, is populated throughout with wise people. It seems everyone that our protagonist, in this case Ben, runs into has some wisdom to impart, some profound perspective to offer. And of course Ben, immersed in selling a merger to a floundering but prideful company, listens carefully, but skeptically, as he tries to synthesize all of the advice into some kind of useable action. It's Not About You introduces us to Aunt Elle, both Pindar (from a distance) and Claire from The Go-Giver, Allen, Augustine, Frank and Karen, all of whom have some wisdom to impart, but the whole picture does not come together for Ben until the very end when he makes a risky decision that truly surprises and pays off for everyone.

The Zen-kone-like quality of the book makes reading It's Not About You quite the mental challenge--but one of the very best kind. You too will be puzzling through the wise words as Ben does, kept in suspense as to just what he is going to do against insurmountable odds...and also wondering what you would do in this seemingly unwinnable situation. So, when you get your copy of It's Not About You--whether you win it here on inBubbleWrap or buy it on your own--find yourself a comfy chair (once you start reading, you'll discover a keen desire for a very good chair) and get ready to while away the next two hours. Read the book start to finish. Maybe have a sandwich or cup of tea close at hand (the true-to-life details of the book will make you want those too.) Then set aside another hour to go for a walk, maybe by a river as is done in the book, to mull over what you have learned. The book itself is a bit like a winding river, in fact. Relinquish yourself to the pace of the book and allow yourself to go with the flow. Meet the characters, listen closely to their wisdom, don't force absorption, let the right thing come to you.

Really the process of reading this book is very much in line with the message found in this book. Burg and Mann's story unties some of the knotty myths about what makes a good leader. Wisdom cannot be forced. People cannot be forced. Even if you think your way is the only way, intimidation and manipulation won't get you very far. Instead, the authors flush out a number of intriguing leadership factors that include a few lessons in linguistics (choose the right words and understand what they really mean matters), attention to detail (don't lead from above, experience what it is is to work below), what's important (your employees are people, and when you show your human side, those people respond), and so on. With the ultimate message being, as the title says, leading is "not about you."

Bob Burg and John David Mann once again succeed in breathing new energy into the business parable, and really, It's Not About You is a life lesson for everyone. Win your copy here on inBubbleWrap this week.

Creative Thinkering

InBubbleWrap — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:34:00 -0500

While readying The 100 Best for it's updated paperback release this fall, we spent some extra time with the books we featured more briefly in our Takeaway chapter of the book, expanding the reviews to include more detail. It was especially fun for us to revisit Thinkertoys not only because some of the content is reminiscent of those variety puzzle magazines found in drugstores that we all secretly and not-so-secretly love, but because of it's useability. Just as the subtitle--A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques--says, Thinkertoys can help those aforementioned folks who aren't the creative type learn how to be creative. That's the important word here: learn. No, not everyone is creative. But creativity, according to author Michael Michalko, can be self-taught, cultivated, discovered. You can choose to BE creative. And Michalko knows a thing or two about getting creativity-resistant organizations to change. His website bio explains:

As an officer in the United States Army, Michael organized a team of NATO intelligence specialists and international academics in Frankfurt, Germany, to research, collect, and categorize all known inventive-thinking methods. His international team applied those methods to various NATO military, political, and social problems and in doing so it produced a variety of breakthrough ideas and creative solutions to new and old problems. After leaving the military, Michael facilitated CIA think tanks using his creative thinking techniques.

Just a visit to his website yields an absolutely stunning assortment of articles, interviews, resources: a veritable practicum. You can also follow Michalko via his blog on Psychology Today. But perhaps his work is best appreciated in book form, where you can scribble in the margins, and bend the pages, and carry it over to your coworker's cubicle to test them on one of his thought experiments. Yes, make sure you have a pen when you are opening up one of Michalko's books, and we are all very lucky that he has a new one available for us to learn from, titled Creative Thinkering.

In Creative Thinkering, Michalko challenges us to put our imaginations to work and believes with a great passion that everyone is creative. Or should be. Or can be. It is as though we've unlearned creativity. "We've been educated to process information based on what has happened in the past, what past thinkers thought, what exists now. Once we think we know how to get the answer, based on what we have been taught, we stop thinking," he explains in the Introduction, and then immediately proceeds to challenge the way you think with some mind-bending games. In this new book, Michalko wants to teach us conceptual blending, "which is the act of combining, or relating, unrelated items in order to solve problems, create new ideas, and even rework old ideas....It is no coincidence that the most creative and innovative people throughout history have been experts at forcing new mental connections via the conceptual blending of unrelated objects."

Michalko's collection od exercises, games, and "thought experiments" can train even the most creatively-blind how to open his or her eyes to their own and others' creative ideas. Are you a salt shaker or a ketchup bottle, and why will thinking about that change your frame of reference? Have you ever imagined being a cardboard box and what can that teach you about solving problems? Can you actually turn a "frown upside down" using Velten's Mood Induction Statements? With Creative Thinkering, Michael Michalko presents a book overflowing with entertaining, challenging, but also so very do-able, (learn-able?) lessons that take some of the mystery out of being creative.

Win a copy of Michael Michalko's new book, Creative Thinkering, on inBubbleWrap this week!

Off Balance

InBubbleWrap — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:00:00 -0500

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog post on Matthew Kelly's new book, Off Balance: Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth to Personal and Professional Satisfaction, and this week I'm thrilled to have 20 copies to give away on inBubbleWrap!

Why am I so thrilled? Because it is a great book. But also because the on-sale date is 9/15, so the inBubbleWrap winners will be some of the first to get their hands on a book that will surely change the way you think about what's important in your life, and how you manage each aspect of that life.

First, Kelly says, you must realize that there is no such thing as work-life balance. "Most people don't want to hear this, and certainly our culture tells us incessantly that we can have it all, but the truth is, you can't. You cannot be in two places at one time, you cannot have it all, and so you must choose." Not only does Kelly think that work-life balance is unachievable, he thinks that balance isn't even what we want or need. Instead, you need to prioritize satisfaction. Your home life, your work life, and your personal life are all intertwined (“[Y]ou do not have two lives, one personal and one professional.”) and whatever equation brings you the most satisfaction is the right equation for you.

Some of us do our work from our houses, our children playing just outside the office door. Some of us hustle our kids off to school just before we hustle off to our jobs. Some of us work 60 hours a week in order to take that month-long trip to Italy each year. Some of us work as primary caregivers. Some of us punch in and punch out knowing we'd stay punched out if only we didn't have so many bills to pay and mouths to feed. The thing about any of these scenarios is that none of these options are indicative of balance. Each of these requires sacrifice at one time or another.

So in giving up the un-win-able struggle for balance, Kelly advises that you implement the system he presents in his book to help improve the level of satisfaction in your life. He believes that we can be more disciplined and deliberate in how we choose to live our lives. In fact, he encourages us to live our lives strategically, applying a systems approach that he outlines in the second half of the book. “A good system is the connection between good behaviors and good outcomes.” Written clearly and concisely, Kelly clearly has a passion for the topic, has put his theory into personal practice, and can help you achieve a more satisfying life.

Sign up to win a copy of Off Balance by Matthew Kelly this week on inBubbleWrap! And don't forget: if you don't win a copy, or are just one of those people who often says, "I never win anything!" you can hop on over to 800-CEO-READ and place an order.

Invaluable: The Secret to Becoming Irreplaceable

InBubbleWrap — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:44:00 -0500

We write about and sell lots of books about leadership, creativity. running a business, quitting the corporate grind and striking out on your own. All of those books gravitate to the decision-makers, the strategists, the creators. But there really aren't a lot of books out there that are about, quite simply, being good at being a good employee, being good at being told what to do and doing it, being good with going about your business in the hope that one day your hard work will pay off and you'll be given more experience and more money. It's almost like just doing your job well isn't a grand enough goal!

In our The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, we recommend the classic, How to Be a Star at Work by Robert E. Kelley for employees who want to shine. Kelly offers the research-backed assertion that "[s]tars are made, not born" and all employees can be escorted down that path by aware managers. But what if you don't have an aware manager? What if your manager is part of the problem?

That's the crisis the protagonist in Dave Crenshaw's business fable, Invaluable, is facing. Jason, a new marketing department hire for GreenGarb who knew what he was getting into since he'd previously been an intern for the company, is dissatisfied. A college grad with big plans, he is restless in the face of unending busy-work and unclear expectations. "He knew deep down it wasn't about the hours, even though he was spending more time than he liked at GreenGarb. It was about the feeling of being underappreciated and undervalued. Tracy treated him like a grunt. She barely acknowledged his effort, let alone that he was a human being."

Not exactly an aware manager. But then, it is also clear from the way Crenshaw is writing this material that Jason isn't the most aware guy and could use some guidance. He has definitely bought into some myths about working that need to be dissolved. So what should Jason do? Give up, quit his job, and look for something else? Or should he, as his John-Wayne-loving grandfather advises him, make himself invaluable?

As the rest of Jason's story unfolds, Crenshaw reveals the formula for becoming invaluable: "The amount of money you make will always be in direct proportion to: number one, the demand for what you do; number two, your ability to do it; and number three, the difficulty of replacing you."And while feedback from a manager is certainly useful to figuring out the measurements of these requirements--both Jason's manager, Tracy, and the owner of the company, Helen, become very invested and involved in his quest--, it is really up to the individual to work toward becoming invaluable. Crenshaw includes an appendix of charts and guidelines to help you do just that.

We are giving away 20 copies of Invaluable this week on inBubbleWrap. Sign up to win today!

Summer Grab Bag Special

InBubbleWrap — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 12:28:00 -0500

Unfortunately, the shipment of books I had scheduled to giveaway on InBubbleWrap this week didn't arrive. Fortunately, that gives me the opportunity to offer one of the ever-popular grab bag prizes. After all, we do have a lot of books around here and we need to get these books into the hands of readers!

So, log in, sign up, and cross your fingers, because 20 lucky winners will receive a surprise grab bag with two current business books this week on inBubbleWrap!

The Right Fight

InBubbleWrap — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:00:00 -0500

The most common metaphor for alignment within a company, it seems, refers to everyone needing to pull on the same oars. Authors Saj-Nicole Joni and Damon Beyer, in their book, The Right Fight, define this nautically-tinged tenet with a bit more specificity than I just did: "To accomplish anything, the logic goes, employees must agree about the mission, strategy, and goals of an organization." But they argue that while alignment is indeed critical, a successful company requires something much more complicated than harmony. "A well-aligned, smoothly functioning team can do a bad job well, or a job that shouldn't be done at all. The Titanic, by all accounts, was being run smoothly and well when it collided with an iceberg and sank. Because the team of sailors believed the ship was unsinkable, they ignored the initial signs of danger until it was too late."

So instead of putting all of a <mixed metaphor alert> companies' eggs into the alignment basket, Joni & Beyer implore us not to discount the power of tension. "In this book we argue that the path forward requires a healthy dose of dissent as well. Our most important ideas need to be refined in the fire of debate. It is a leader's job to work within the debate to find the best way forward." So tension should never reign supreme in an organization, but the passivity that comes from a too-happy company can be just as detrimental. The key is to strike a balance, to choose the right fight and fight it the right way.

The authors open the book with examples of real companies that fought three kinds of fights not worth fighting:

wrong fight fought wrong (GM)
right fight fought wrong (Carly Fiorina & Larry Summers)
wrong fight fought right (Dell)

Then she includes a story about a fictional leader who has created some tension between two high-performing employees for the betterment of a new project with high expectations. This parable-of-sorts illustrates her commandment "that a key aspect of a leader's job is to create the right battles and to make sure they are fought right." How that work is done makes up the meat of the book fleshes out the Six Right Fight Principles:

First, make it worth fighting about: make it material
Second, focus on creating the future
Third, pursue a noble purpose
Fourth, make it sport, not war
Fifth, structure formally, but work informally
Finally, turn pain into gain

The counter-intuitive nature of this book makes the material an intriguing read, and the content truly has the potential to bring change to the way companies, teams and partnerships set their goals. Joni and Beyer's writing is clear and instructive and airy without being light. Throughout, they include case studies of companies that created tension in their organization in order to create change, and did it in a way illustrating one of each six principles. The emphasis on case studies really helps elucidate what could be a touchy subject or at least one that makes people uncomfortable unless they really can see how it works in the real world. After all, who wants to create tension? Who wants to fight? Well, Joni and Beyer think you will once you learn how to choose the right fight.

Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits

InBubbleWrap — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:48:00 -0500

by Greg Crabtree

We (and many other smart people) tout Michael Gerber's The E-Myth Revisited as one of the very best books for small business owners. In our review of that book for The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, we wrote:

Gerber believes that a common cause of small-business failure lies within "The Fatal Assumption": if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does technical work. But baking pies is not the same as running a bakery. Gerber instead shows that to be a successful small-business owner, you need three separate skills: the technical, the managerial, and the entrepreneurial. He considers a lack of understanding in one or more of these areas to be the cause of most small-business failures. The reassuring news is that Gerber believes these skills can be learned.

But how do you go about learning fundamental skills that you, as an artist, a baker, an innovator, an importer, a craftsman, don't have the time or inclination to learn because you are overwhelmed (hopefully) with the demands of bending the metal, rolling the dough, testing the motor, filling the orders, carving the wood? By reading books like this week's inBubbleWrap giveaway: Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits by Greg Crabtree.

Crabtree's goal with this book is straight-forward. "I have laid out the basic principles that can help entrepreneurs create a realistic vision of their business from the beginning through many bountiful harvests." And his advice is equally straight-forward. Chapter 1 discusses the owner's (your) salary and why it's important to pay yourself a market-based wage so that your financials (and your ideas of success) aren't distorted. But what if you can't pay yourself an adequate and appropriate wage because you aren't seeing enough profit? He tackles this common question next in Chapter 2. That's the kind of book this is: functional in its progression, useful in its practicality.

Of course every business has its unique pitfalls, and Crabtree, an accountant by trade, handles those varying situations with clarity and specificity, without ever being dry and, well, sounding like an accountant. He accomplishes this by sectioning the book into two distinct parts. The first is all about building a foundation of knowledge. The second gets deeper into the tougher stuff--tax management, labor productivity, types of management, sources of capital, benchmarks and reporting, forecasting instead of budgeting--but keeps the material readable and clear by maintaining a nice balance between his expertise and his storytelling.

For example, in Chapter 4, "Taming the Tax Monster Under Your Bed," Crabtree writes:

Let's look at our favorite cow analogy and extend it to your personal life. If you don't keep your cow healthy so you can milk it every day, you're not going to have an economic engine to be able to distribute wealth to the personal side of your life. Many times people try to live off the profit distributions of the business, and then there's nothing left over for wealth creation. Here's where the tax side of that makes a big difference."

And once you know just how you'll benefit from having a more organized tax management plan as a result of his simply analogy, Crabtree proceeds to show you just how to make it happen with plenty of technical detail.

For small business owners who know they need to beef up their financial knowledge or risk falling prey to the E-Myth, or for anyone who dreams big and hopes someday to turn their talents into something lucrative, Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits is stocked full with value.

We are giving away 20 copies this week on inBubbleWrap.

Look at More: In Three Acts

InBubbleWrap — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:20:00 -0500

I spent much of the weekend at home with a sick kid and an underachieving air conditioner watching a lot of sports events. The Ironman. The World Cup. The British Open. A regular season Brewers baseball game. During this marathon of TV watching, I wrote the following comment on my Facebook page:

Sports. It's about maximizing your skills and keeping your cool under enormous pressure when the game is designed to keep you from succeeding. Such a microcosm of life.

This is nothing profound. (Facebook statuses rarely are.) Great writers and thinkers have forever pondered all the ways that sport imitates life. And goodness knows we've all heard enough sports analogies, in the board room and in business books, to last us a lifetime. Regardless, I've been thinking on this for a few days now--what sport teaches me and why I so gravitate to it--which might explain why I couldn't stop relating the teachings of this new book, Andy Stefanovich's Look at More, to sport.

So here we go. A glimpse into Look at More: A Proven Approach to Innovation, Growth, and Change in 3 Sports-themed Acts.

1.

I'm a tennis junkie, and during last year's U.S. Open (tennis, not golf) broadcast, I remember watching some obscure outer-court match in the first week and listening to a coach-turned-commentator expounding on something he called "shot tolerance." Shot tolerance is essentially how much patience you have. In other words, how many strokes are you willing to take before trying to put away a winner, or how many punches can you take from your opponent before she drives you crazy and you go for a shot with too much risk. It's all about mindset. Search the Internet and there are any number of drills you can practice to increase your shot tolerance. Watch WTA world #1 Caroline Wozniacki, nicknamed "the golden retriever," to see a player with an incredibly high level of shot tolerance. (Of course, the key to good tennis is to strike a balance: be patient, but be able to pull the trigger the moment when your patience pays off which Wozniacki's critics say is her Achilles' heel.)

Innovation specialist, Andy Stefanovich, in his book, Look at More, discusses something strangely similar in his chapter on Mindset: Confusion Tolerance. He says, "In general, people are uncomfortable with the ambiguity of not having an immediate idea or solution to a situation. To end this discomfort, we generate a quick idea and then apply it." The risk with that approach (that contradictorily often seems the safest option) is that when you try to solve a problem with the first thing that comes to mind, or with the most obvious thing, it's often been done before, is stale, is...well...obvious. Stefanovich encourages us to practice confusion tolerance with this sort of drill: "Take ninety minutes and generate five hundred ideas." Or, "…if the prospect of generating a specific number of ideas is too daunting, try setting aside a specific amount of time, say thirty minutes, or even ten….In the beginning, your search for ideas is all about quantity over quality." Speed of delivery, Stefanovich says, is often assumed as the most valuable trait in business, but to truly be creative, you must train yourself to be patient.

2.

This weekend, I watched Darren Clarke win the British Open. I was rooting for "Lefty" (Phil Mickelson)--in part because I like the story of his golf and in part because I like the story of his life. For me, he was always my anti-Tiger choice. But I was soon completely backing Clarke, again because of his story (lost his wife to cancer 5 years prior, has appeared at the British Open 20 times), but also because of how he played in that demanding weather. It was like he welcomed the disruption of the rain and wind. As Clarke was turning in his card and waiting to put his hands on the claret jug, the announcers recapped the events of the day, sharing with the audience some advice Clarke had gotten just that year, something to the effect of "Don't let your golf game determine your attitude; let your attitude determine your golf game."

Stefanovich talks about Mood in much the same way. "The words you use, the ways you present yourself--even the small details matter, because they all work together to ultimately define the context for creativity and the mood of your organization," he explains. Too often our work is uninspired because we are having the same old type of meeting in the same old conference room in the same old office…yet we expect ourselves to come up with new and inspired ideas. Stefanovich calls for purposeful disruptions as a solution to the same old, same old. He gives examples of taking Nike executives into the tourist area of Seattle and giving them Gerber daisies to hand out to strangers who are asked to explain something they did today to deserve the flower, moving a meeting with Disney creatives (who are already creative, right?) to a cemetery, nearly being seated at a table near the kitchen in an empty restaurant by a disapproving maitre d', but, instead, refusing the proffered seat and moving himself back out to the bar area in order to create his own mood. "To be clear, the point is not that you are demanding that people actually follow you. Rather, it's that you don't have to take what you are given when it comes to mood. Instead, take control of your own experience in life and business to create the right mood."

3.

I was watching the Brewers play the Diamondbacks and near the end of the game, the feisty Nyger Morgan got on base after being hit in the back by a pitch. Earlier in the game, Morgan had already been given first base after being hit in the knee. But this time, there was some good humored debate in the announcers' booth on whether Morgan had turned into the pitch, taking the hit in the back, rather than trying to avoid it. The local announcer chuckled that regardless Morgan's OBP (on base percentage) just keeps rising no matter how he goes about getting on base. It is hard to imagine watching a baseball game these days without hearing references to OBP, but there was indeed a time when that statistic was largely ignored. I won't retell that story here because, if you live a life devoid of baseball factoids, you need only to type Billy Beane or Bill James into your favorite search engine to get the full scoop, or, if you're a fan of Brad Pitt, check out his new movie coming out this fall that brings Michael Lewis' brilliant book, Moneyball, onto the big screen.

A brief history of baseball statistics is what opens Stefanovich's chapter on measurement as he illustrates the risks of the wrong kind of measurement. "The old adage 'what gets measured gets done' is exactly right….[T]he problem…is that people shape their games and build their careers and bank accounts by adjusting their behavior to fit the criteria they are judged by." But Stefanovich does advocate for measurement because "the type of measures that you put in place at an organizational level send a strong signal of what is important and where people should focus their passion and energy." The trick is to align your measurements to actually work to further your goals. He offers Zappos as an example. While many companies rate their call center employees by how many calls they take per hour, Zappos employees are encouraged to take as long as necessary on any call because it furthers the company's commitment to service. In very simplistic baseball terms, if the home run is valued above getting on base, then it stands to reason players will swing for the fences. But a home run is only 1 run, unless there are other players who have gotten on base before the team's slugger.

Epilogue

Stefanovich's office wall features the letters: LAMSTAIH, a sort of unique acronym pronounced "lamb's tie," that stands for Look at More Stuff; Think About It Harder. (Hence the title of this book.) In addition to the Mood, Mindset, and Measurement that I featured above, Stefanovich also includes Mechanisms and Momentum to his 5 drivers for enacting LAMSTAIH in your everyday work. Look at More is loaded good stuff that has widespread application, and you're definitely going to want a copy of this book. Good thing we're giving away 20 copies on inBubbleWrap this week!

The Mountain Within

InBubbleWrap — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:00:00 -0500

A general rule of thumb is to never send a reader away from your website during a post, but in this case, I think it is imperative that you click here and watch a quick minute-long trailer for the documentary, The Mountain Within. Don't worry; I'll wait...

***

You're back? Great.

Fantastic, right? But The Mountain Within isn't just a feel-good movie, one of those tales of gumption and focus and unforeseen human fortitude that help us when we are down or need the motivation to make a change or surmount steep odds. The Mountain Within is also a book, a book about leadership by the woman who first had the vision for this climb and led the expedition, Herta von Stiegel.

First, a little background:

"In July 2008, global business executive Herta von Stiegel led a group of 28 multinational climbers, including seven disabled people, to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. Against incredible odds, 60 percent of the group made it to the summit--a remarkable feat considering that typically only 35 percent of climbers achieve that goal."

Von Stiegel had to use all of her experience as a phenomenally successful business executive to bring this expedition to life. Planning, recruiting, fundraising, defending, executing, documenting, etc. That's not to say that von Stiegel breezed through this challenge; instead, the challenge was daunting (see, she had never successfully climbed the mountain herself), deemed impossible or at least a waste of funds by many both outside and inside the charity, and an actual physical danger to all of the participants, not just those differently-abled.

While the movie captures the struggles and the joys of the expedition and is bound to be appealing to all viewers, her book, The Mountain Within, is very deliberately a business book, a leadership book. Von Stiegel is the founder and CEO of a fund management firm and has previously held senior positions huge financial institutions. Each of the sixteen chapters is split into 3 sections: first, several pages about the planning and execution of the expedition itself; then, a leadership lesson (e.g. resilience, or criticism) derived from that leg of the adventure; and, finally, a closing conversation with a leader (e.g. Al Gore, or Sam Chisholm, an Australian media exec) who epitomizes that leadership quality. Constructing each chapter this way gives the book great page-turn-ability because von Stiegel reveals the adventure story in tantalizing drips and drabs while pondering the deeper meaning of each step closely.

At a time when such books as The No-Asshole Rule and The Psychopath Test may have us paranoid that all leaders are just wolves in sheep's clothing, this book will do the opposite. It will restore your faith that some leaders lead with their hearts in the right place. Von Stiegel wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. She wanted others to experience that same joy and sense of accomplishment alongside her. She wanted to show that that same joy and sense of accomplishment could be accessible to all people of multiple abilities. And in her book, she wants to show you how you can learn from her climb to the top, both physically and professionally.

"That's why I climb mountains. The reward is more than a view. It's the journey. It's the knowledge you gain that, in climbing the mountain, you have achieved something hard-fought and worthwhile. On the mountain, as in business and in life, the choice for me is not binary. Valley or peak? Winner or loser? Victory or defeat? It is much more nuanced than that. However, striving for excellence and aiming for the top, taking as many people with you as possible, is a worthy goal."

Sign up to win a copy of The Mountain Within this week on inBubbleWrap!

Likeable Social Media

InBubbleWrap — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 11:00:00 -0500

There is something "likeable" about this book from the get-go. It's bright yellow color; it's big thumbs up. It's a smack-in-the-face ray of sunshine on the corner of my desk every day.

And isn't that what we want our social media to be? A quick inspiration from our Twitter feed, a bite-sized update we we check Facebook, an easy networking connection made on LinkedIn?

But how do we balance the tendency to be frivolous or perpetually upbeat or maybe too drearily profunctory with actually being productive in our social media endeavors? How do we turn these brief encounters into successful business relationships?

Dave Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Media, says, well, you've gotta be likeable.

"Likeable Social Media helps you harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing to transform your business. Listen to your customers and prospects. Deliver value, excitement, and surprise. And most important, learn how to truly engage your customers and help them spread the word."

Check this video on the power of Likeable Social Media and then sign up to win one of 20 copies this week on inBubbleWrap!

TouchPoints: A Mega-Sized inBubbleWrap Giveaway!

InBubbleWrap — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:09:00 -0500

"Small interactions are the best-kept secret of leadership," writes Doug Conant, CEO of Campbell Soup Company, in his book, TouchPoints, written with Mette Norgaard. TouchPoints are those moments when a leader interacts with an employee, team member, or peer, and makes those moments matter...instead of regarding them as interruptions from the more serious work of balanced budgets and proposal presentations. For Conant, "those encounters were the work, and...how he handled them would ultimately define his success as a contributor and as a leader." What follows is some of the most instructive, applicable leadership advice I've read, creating usable language you can take with you once you close the covers of the book.

So let's say you are working on that VIP (very important presentation) and an employee stops by your desk to mention a computer glitch that is causing irritation as they go about their work day. Is this an interruption...or an opportunity for leadership? That seems a pretty easy answer: I think most leaders want to make time to help their employees or colleagues. But how to do it effectively and efficiently? Efficient decision-making plays a part. The authors instruct us first to determine if the issue is your direct responsibility (you need to ok an expenditure to upgrade the software); their responsibility (they need to research whether an upgrade is possible and bring it to the IT department); or it is a shared responsibility (they need to do the research and get IT's approval which you must first give the go-ahead for.) This is what I mean by applicable advice, a process that is easy to implement immediately and see immediate results.

But the book goes further than the practical day-to-day. "To succeed in the work of leadership, you need to be good at it. And to become really good at it, you have to prepare....That is the reason we encourage you to make the commitment to mastery." The pursuit of mastery, of course, requires curiosity, ambition, the motivation to improve a little bit every day. Conant and Norgaard advise: "If you aspire to mastery, you must use your head, use your heart, and use your hands." These are the three essentials--logic, authenticity, and competency--that create "touch' and the majority of the rest of the book shows you how to bring them together.

Despite its focus on leadership, TouchPoints is, for me, about communication on any rung of the corporate ladder. So it's a good thing we have 50 (!) copies to giveaway this week on inBubbleWrap!

Can Little Bets equal big payoffs?

InBubbleWrap — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:19:00 -0500

A couple weeks ago, I was walking through our warehouse and caught a glimpse of a book with a bright lime green cover and delicate origami bird taking flight from a pile of crumbled pieces of paper that one of my co-workers was customizing and packaging up for shipment. That day, I walked right past it, but found myself sneaking a glance at the stack of Little Bets each following day, charmed and curious. Closer examination led to excitement: the subtitle, How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, was so welcoming. Rather than a promise of earth-shaking, a-ha moments, rather than suggesting massive and intimidating change, small discoveries are a do-able thing. Even before reading the book, Little Bets by Peter Sims, I felt impassioned to put some copies of this book into your hands.

The first thing I came away with was this: like every other aspect of our lives, we often try to rush creativity. We want to hold only one meeting to flush out a new product, predict its success. We want to write out an outline for a novel already knowing the end. We want to quit our jobs to start our own businesses, instead of testing the market while still gainfully employed. We want to know the end before we even start at the very beginning. We want the guarantee before we put down the cash. Sims offers copious examples of success that proves this inclination to be quite wrong. He encourages instead "an experimental discovery mentality" that such powerhouses as Google and Amazon have employed to great effect. Being open to failure, being led by curiosity, can create fertile ground for incredible breakthroughs, one little bet at a time.

Throughout the book, Sims introduces "methods of experimental innovation" that he gleaned "from creative artists, to scrappy entrepreneurs, to military strategists, to agile software developers, to the rapidly growing field of design thinking." These methods include: Experiment; Play; Immerse; Define; Reorient; and Iterate. Perhaps the most difficult first step, however is that the methodology takes the abandonment of previously held assumptions: that it takes a creative genius to truly innovate; that facts are superior to flexibility; that predictions are even possible. You have to be willing to be proven wrong.

So what is an example of a little bet turning into a big success? Think Pixar. And those little short films they--then "a digitally animated TV advertising company"-- crafted, creating word of mouth and demand, before ever making a successful feature film like Toy Story. But does that mean Pixar (and Steve Jobs) had no grand scheme? Of course not. Crafting little bets does not mean sacrificing the big hairy idea. Instead, taking affordable risks, baby steps, will still get you where you are going.

So then, how to adopt this mindset? Sims talks constraints in the chapters, "Problems Are the New Solutions," and inquisitiveness in "Questions are the New Answers." He advocates "cumulative insight" in the chapter, "Learning a Little from a Lot," paraphrasing eBay's CEO John Donahoe who cautions that "people too often have a tendency to think that certain people, experts or mentors for example, have all the answers when in reality insight is far more dispersed." And to this point, Sims concludes his book with a solid amount of "Further Readings and Resources" to inspire readers to dig deeper.

There have been a good number of books released in the past year that focus on embracing failure, or cutting yourself some slack over making mistakes. What differentiates Little Bets is that it encourages experimentation and risk-taking in a way that is manageable for anyone, from the artist to the CEO, and such creativity leads to change. The positivity, that same feeling I got from just looking at the cover of the book, is motivating, infectious. Sims excellently sums up his philosophy thusly:

Invention and discovery emanate from being able to try seemingly wild possibilities and work in the unknown; to be comfortable being wrong before being right; to live in the world as a keen observer, with an openness to experiences and ideas; to play with ideas without censoring oneself or others; to persist through dark valleys with with a growth mind-set; to improvise ideas in collaboration and conversation with others; and, to have a willingness to be misunderstood, sometimes for long periods of time, despite conventional wisdom.

We are giving away 20 copies of Peter Sims' Little Bets this week on inBubbleWrap!

inBubbleMe

Just Got-Back Grab Bag

InBubbleWrap — Mon, 16 May 2011 11:01:00 -0500

I just got back from a short vacation in New York/New Jersey where, on Friday afternoon, I decided to take a leap (pun intended) and go to trapeze school. I'm generally pretty risk-averse, and have a healthy fear of heights (I am not sure I have actually ever climbed to the top of a 6-foot house ladder), so the challenge of climbing a narrow seemingly-unending ladder up to a thin, roughly-carpeted platform 25-feet from the ground, and then jumping, swinging, doing a somersault, and letting go to fall into the net below, numerous times was a pretty big deal for me. Sometimes you just have to confront your fears, right? So that maybe you can be a little less fearful the next time you are faced with a challenge.

And we all have challenges. Things that stop us in our tracks. That make us second guess our next move. But even if you don't have plans to try out trapeze school any time soon, or do whatever it is that you fear most, a good business book can help build your courage, introduce a new perspective, guide you down a new path, take a little of the unknown out of the unknown. And we've got plenty of them--business books, that is. And if you sign up this week on inBubbleWrap, we'll send you two mystery business books. They will be a surprise...but then, that's half the fun, right?

Leadership is Dead

InBubbleWrap — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:01:00 -0500

There is a pull-quote in the first chapter of Jeremie Kubicek's, Leadership is Dead, that plainly states the moral call of this book: "After decades of greed by corporate tycoons, financial moguls, and political egos, this generation is searching for authentic, selfless leadership that holds a mission higher than and outside of themselves."

It's a powerful entreaty, reminiscent of one of the best books on leadership, Warren Bennis' On Becoming a Leader. In that classic, Bennis challenged his readers: "Our quality of life depends on the quality of our leaders. And since no one else seems to be volunteering, it's up to you. If you've ever had dreams of leadership, now is the time, this is the place, and you're it. We need you." And Kubicek's book is the "how-to" if you are one of the people up to answering Bennis' call.

Kubicek opens his book with two in-your-face stories about death. Stories that put me back on my heels as I was not expecting death as an entry point to a theory of leadership, but the title of the book, Leadership is Dead, is quite literal for Kubicek. I won't divulge the details of his two stories as such a reveal would dilute the impact when you read them, but suffice it to say, these two run-ins with death prompted Kubicek to become a better leader.

Of course, Kubicek is not asserting that a near-miss by the Grim Reaper is the only way a person becomes a true leader; instead, he is illustrating how, in these moments, he "came to fully comprehend the influence I have on the lives of others, and the impact their lives have on me." That understanding changed him, so that instead of focusing on personal goals (i.e. make a six-digit salary, earn rights to the corner office, lead a global team), he "leads by example" and "invests in the success of others first." This is the primary message of the book. That leaders give themselves and of themselves.

The enemy of influence leadership is self-preservation. In fact, he posits, the instinctual need to protect the self is why leadership is dead. "Today's leaders....must be willing to sacrifice their own security to reach and inspire others. The amazing paradox is that the more you give away, the more everyone receives, including you: the more success, more significance, and more security." Life, and leadership, Kubicek says, strongly supported by his personal story, is about relationships. About the connections you make when you give yourself away.

Surprisingly, Kubicek ends the meat of the book with a chapter title, "Why You Probably Won't Do This" which acts as a challenge to readers who may be wondering why they should choose this path to leadership. The answer for Kubicek is simple: "The end goal of influence is to have positive impact in the lives of others as you, yourself, achieve fulfillment." This book is not just for founders and vice-presidents and mentors, but for everyone who wishes to have an impact on their peers, coworkers, friends.

Win your copy of Leadership is Dead: How Influence is Reviving It on inBubbleWrap this week!

The Idea Hunter

InBubbleWrap — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:17:00 -0500

Become an Idea Hunter

Andy Boynton and Bill Fischer will teach you how to hunt ideas using four principles that are easily remembered with the acronym I-D-E-A, which the authors explain more concisely than I ever could.

Principle 1: "Do I want to be interested, or merely interesting? All of us naturally want to be interesting, but in the Hunt for ideas, being Interested in the world around you is of equal or greater importance."

Principle 2 is all about diversification. "Idea Hunters are aware of the multitude of trails that can lead to worthwhile ideas. When setting out on a search, they always take along an assorted mix of idea sources, a collection as Diverse as any investment portfolio."

"The third principle says you need to exercise your idea muscles all the time, not just when you're in a brainstorming session at work. The most experienced Idea Hunters are Exercised, engaged in daily training, though it's hardly a chore for them because they take pleasure in the Hunt."

"The fourth principle is that you also need to be Agile in your handling of ideas. You can't expect to proceed in a straight line, snatching up a single idea and taking it to market."

Why hunt for ideas? Because, the authors rightly surmise that a lack of ideas is what holds us back as individuals. But when you train yourself to be an idea hunter, when you create habits that retrain your brain, when you allow yourself to indulge in curiosity, and you begin to think of yourself as someone who is committed to "capturing, organizing, sharing, and using (and reusing) ideas," the potential for innovating your work and your life is unlimited.

Win a copy of The Idea Hunter this week on inBubbleWrap!

Surviving Your Serengeti

InBubbleWrap — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:56:00 -0500

I am the elephant. The two customer service folks sitting to my right are giraffes. Perhaps you are a wildebeest, a lion, crocodile, cheetah, or mongoose. Perhaps you've never thought of yourself as any kind of animal, but Stefan Swanepoel, author of Surviving Your Serengeti, would encourage you to remedy that. Swanepoel, who has lived in Kenya, Hong Kong and South Africa, believes that people can learn a lot from the behavior of animals, particularly animals that survive the Serengeti Plains of East Africa where millions of animals make an annual run that tests their strength, endurance and survival instincts. "For me, this journey is a parable for success. It's a window into the very meaning of life that provides a simple way to understand, appreciate, and remember the basic skills that all living beings need to survive and thrive," writes Swanepoel.

And so, Swanepoel has crafted a parable of his own, featuring Sean Spenser, his wife Ashley, and Zachariah, the mystery man who plays the requisite part of the guru essential to all parables. Sean owns a renewable energy company that is struggling, and Ashley is a salesperson whose success has won them this trip to a camp in Africa, a place Sean was in no hurry to visit. Zachariah is described by other camp attendees as "neither a guest nor member of the crew. He leaves really early in the morning and returns long after sunset when the camp is closed down for the night. It all seems very secretive." It turns out that Sean is an acquaintance of Zachariah, the two of them having attended school together many years prior.

Zachariah's work with the African Wildlife Foundation (an organization, in real life, that will receive a percentage of each sale of this book) taught him "a deep appreciation for the vital role each animal has in the circle of life."And so, around the fire, Zachariah begins to introduce Sean, Ashley and the other folks, to the animals of the Serengeti and just how learning from these animals can and will help humans to know themselves. He tells them, "we all possess skills that we don't know we have, or never fully develop. What makes the Serengeti exceptional is that it isolates the core survival skills so unmistakably."

Zachariah's tales begin with the wildebeest that migrates continually due to their need for water, showing great endurance. With each subsequent chapter, Zachariah takes Sean and Ashley through the African plain, introducing them to the other animals common to the Serengeti: the lioness that is a strategic leader; the crocodile that must rely on stealth because it can't chase its prey; the cheetah who responds to opportunity with decisiveness and efficiency; the giraffe that, in its grace, epitomizes patience and balance; the mongoose that, despite its size, is brave in its constant search for food; and finally, (me!), the elephant that communicates effectively by both sight and sound.

At the end of each chapter, Swanepoel includes a few pages of instruction on how to maximize each of these skills and applying it to business (and human) life. And at the end of the book, we follow along as Sean discovers what kind of animal he is, and how he can use that knowledge to improve his struggling business. (Go to WhatAnimalAmI to find out what animal you are.)

As Ken Blanchard wrote on the back of Surviving Your Serengeti: "You'll actually know more about yourself after you read this book." And like all good business parables, you'll know more about the folks you work with as well.

Sign up to win a copy of Stefan Swanepoel's Surviving Your Serengeti on in BubbleWrap! We are giving away 20 copies this week!

Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail

InBubbleWrap — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:55:00 -0500

Thanks to our multi-talented accounting master, Shawn Quinn, for reviewing Malled by Caitlin Kelly for inBubbleWrap this week!

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In what seems a lifetime ago I worked in retail managing a store that was part of a national chain. I know that retail is hard work. It’s physically demanding and when dealing with the public (especially in a mall) it can take an emotional toll. I’m always interested in hearing others’ experiences in this industry. Their highs and lows; the good times and especially the horrible encounters. It’s like being a member of a club. So I was particularly interested when I came across an advanced reader’s copy of a book titled Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail.

Like others in her industry, Caitlin Kelly faced uncertainty back in 2007. As a journalist and freelance writer she knew her position was tenuous and ultimately decided to look for a part-time position that had a bit more security. So, where could a 50 year old with limited experience find a job fast? Well, there’s always retail. But surely she could find something else before that, right?

But after sending out 48 resumes for writing positions without receiving a single reply Kelly realized that retail was going to be her best chance for work. When she was finally offered an entry level position by a chain store selling outdoor clothing she was grateful. She was excited. She had a job.

And, being the writer that she is, Kelly decided to chronicle her experiences. The result is an eye-opening account of an industry that can be grueling. Low pay, poor hours, abusive customers and a corporate headquarters that shows an amazing lack of appreciation for your efforts. There’s a reason it has a 100% turnover rate. So why does she (and others) put up with it? Because sometimes you have to. When Kelly started back in 2007, her co-workers were young and for most of them it was their first job. Two year later in the midst of the recession, she found it was not uncommon for people previously earning close to six figures desperately looking for anything the retail world could offer.

Not only does Kelly describe the inner workings of how corporate retail works, but she also offers a unique take on another aspect of retail work: the camaraderie with her co-workers. She found genuine friendships with others in the store and realized they shared a common trait. That trait being pride in their efforts and knowing that there is dignity in hard work no matter what job you have.

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