Busy, busy month…. While I may have not been able to blog each week, I have still been reading a book every week. In this blog, I have decided to cover three books, ….great for anyone wanting to improve productivity and habits. 

“Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager” by Ken Blanchard

Ken Blanchard uses a fictional story telling format in this book to make his points and to make the content more palatable to a broader audience that might like a fictional story, loosely hiding its educational points. The story begins with its main character pitching an important client and failing in this task. Immediately afterward, he questions his managing abilities. About the time he believes all his lost, he sees a children’s magician—and ultimately, the two start a mentor/mentee relationship, in which she brings him back from the brink. She takes him through tasks that force him to discover ,for himself, how to become a better manager.

This book is an enjoyable quick read, and ideally suited for managers of any size organization.   I don’t know that it is essential for a start-up entrepreneur, but as any organization grows, those that manage others will benefit from the lessons of this book. I think my favorite part of the book is the “discovery” of the “development continuum” which “is simply a model of four stages people usually experience when they are learning to master something.”   The magician and manager relationship reminded me of the Jedi/Student relationship in the Star Wars movies.

“Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” by David Allen

David Allen opens his book with an ambitious offer: “Welcome to a gold mine of insights into strategies for how to have more energy, be more relaxed, and get a lot more accomplished with much less effort.” He also states his reason for this book: “Teaching you how to be maximally efficient and relaxed, whenever you need or want to be.”

I believe he delivers on his promise, and for the most part he is not dependent (or dare I say an advocate) of overly technical solutions to project/life management. An example is the following: “If I had to set up an emergency workstation in just a few minutes, I would buy a door, put It on two two-drawer filing cabinets (one at each end), place three stack-baskets on it and add a legal pad and pen. That would be my home base (if I had time to sit down, I’d also buy a stool!). Believe it or not, I’ve been in several executive offices that wouldn’t be as functional.” 

Ultimately, everyone, everyday is bombarded with numerous tasks, jobs, distractions, and/or action items, and his ideas create methods to bring order to chaos—and to organize “stuff” (see definition in his book) in the most efficient and practical way. 

Warning: He acknowledges that his first step of the “collection process” can take six hours or more. For many entrepreneurs, it probably could take easily, two full days. 

Initially I thought this book might be about comprehensive to-do lists, and interestingly enough, Mr. Allen does not really advocate to-do lists per se (I had the same thought about the book I read a few weeks ago, Checklist Manifesto, which is not about to-do list either).  

I highly recommend this book and will be reading it again (hopefully, my wife will read also). As a family, we can then fully implement all of its strategies in our business and personal lives.

“The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business” by Charles Duhigg.

 After reading the book, I definitely have a better understanding of how habits work, and as the author believes: “simply understanding how habits work—learning the structure of the habit loop—makes them easier to control. Once you break a habit into its components, you can fiddle with the gears.”

This book provides many interesting insights into habits. For example, “Habits never really disappear. They’re encoded into the structure of our brain.” In fact, this truth inspires the author to state the following: “The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You Can’t Extinguish a Bad Habit, You can Only Change It.”

As controlling as habits are, the structure of the “habit loop” is relatively simple: you have a cue, followed by a routine, and then a reward. It is a loop because when the cue occurs again, it will then trigger the same routine and reward.  The book goes over many different examples of these habit loops, and while the activities involved can be complex, the basic structure of the habit loop is, as stated, relatively simple.

I think the book would be well served to include some expanded chapters on how to deal with (or change) specific habits (maybe smoking, overeating, etc)—which would provide insight into all types of ways to change habits. But, maybe that will be the next edition. 

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I give “Quiet” a loud recommendation as a Must-Read for parents of an introvert

The full title of this week’s book by author Susan Cain is: “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking.” This book delves deeply into the various traits, characteristics, behaviors, successes and anything else you can imagine about introverts, and introversion more generally. The author proclaims: "today introversion and extroversion are two of the most exhaustively researched subjects in personality psychology, arousing the curiosity of hundreds of scientists.” 

Reading this book reminded me of my undergraduate classes in social psychology at UC Berkeley, and I thoroughly enjoyed how Susan Cain has brought the academics of introversion/extroversion to real-life experiences focusing her attention on many of the ways introverts succeed in all walks of life (even when extroversion became the “cultural ideal” of modern America).

The author relates how Dale Carnegie, the author of the book “Public Speaking: How to Win Friends and Influence Others” had a “metamorphosis from farmboy to salesman to public-speaking icon is also the story of the rise of the Extrovert Ideal.” Essentially, the industrial revolution that started in the early 1900’s and continued through much of the century created this American culture of the “Extrovert Ideal,” whereby “Americans responded to these pressures by trying to become salesman who could sell not only their company’s latest gizmo but also themselves.” 

The author found that at Harvard Business School, extroversion is almost at the base or foundation of the institution. Where one Harvard Business School Grad terms the school the “Spiritual Capital of Extroversion” and another student saying to the author: “Good luck finding an introvert around here…” and yet another saying “This school is predicated on extroversion…Your grades and social status depends on it. It’s just the norm here.”

Without spending too much time on this part of the book, suffice it to say that “Contrary to the Harvard Business School model of vocal leadership, the ranks of effective CEOs turn out to be filled with introverts: including Charles Schwab; Brenda Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee; and James Copeland, former CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.” She continues on this theme by discussing Jim Collin’s “Level 5 Leaders” from the book “Good to Great”—another book I highly recommend and plan to read again later this year.

Without giving away everything, I will just say that I was intrigued at why “introverts are uniquely good at leading initiative takers” whereas extroverted leaders may need to adopt a style that is more reserved—to achieve the best results with employees that are initiative takers.

There are so many great stories in this book, and I believe it is especially good for parents, regardless of whether they believe their child/children may be introverted or extroverted—and I would say a MUST READ for parents that know they have a child (or children) that are introverted. Some researchers have an “Orchid Child” hypothesis whereby they believe introvert children may require a somewhat more complex and supportive family environment (think the delicate nature of the orchid), but the results of this upbringing may create a caring, compassionate and “Thinking” person (and sometimes more immune to colds and respiratory illnesses) that is nothing short of an amazing person (think the exotic beauty that is the orchid).

Initially I was a bit skeptical when I downloaded this book. I didn’t know anything about it—I thought I could be in for a real boring read—introverts and “Quiet”! However I found this book to be a fascinating read. Now a quick disclaimer: I don’t know if extroverts will really enjoy it as much as an introvert (remember that introversion/extroversion is really just a spectrum of behavior on a single continuum), but given its broad range of topics (including the ability of Introverts to “act” like Extroverts under the terminology of “Free Trait” behavior)—I believe that anyone, regardless of where they are on the introvert/extrovert spectrum, will learn something from this book, and hopefully truly enjoy reading it, too.

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Graphic, compelling story-telling format of the “The Checklist Manifesto” will make you pause and reflect on how you can use the power of checklists in your business and professional life. At least, that is the effect this book had on me: examine and pause.

Given Atul Gawande, the author of “The Checklist Manifesto,” is a surgeon, I should have been better prepared for some of the medical “war stories” that he covers in his book. His stories involving patients whose hearts have stopped will leave you a little breathless (and for me, squeamish), unless you are not affected by graphic operating room stories.

(Pictured below: Dr. Atul Gawande; Photo by: Fred Field).

However, this vivid and compelling story-telling format makes the reader stand-up and think about the point of “The Checklist Manifesto,” which for me is this, the use of checklists can improve patient survivability rates, improve business performance, airplane safety, and even improve outcomes in legal matters. For example the statistics related to medical issues are quite dramatic, he states that in 2006 it was less than a 50 percent chance that heart attack patients would receive the appropriate testing, diagnosis and medical plan within 90 minutes of arriving at the hospital (a timeframe that would increase the survivability of such patients). He also states that “Studies have found that at least 30 percent of patients with stroke receive incomplete or inappropriate care from their doctors, as do 45 percent of patients with pneumonia. Getting the steps right is proving brutally hard even if you know them.” He believes—and implementation has proved—that checklists provide shortcuts to solve complex problems (and in the realm of air travel safety—emergency problems) in an abbreviated time frame.

One of the industries that has long used checklists and continues to use checklists as an everyday practice is air travel. In the book, he discusses the inaugural flight of the B-17 Bomber (in 1935) that was flown by one of the best pilots of that time period. The flight was tragic in that shortly after lift-off, as the plane approached 300 feet in the air, an engine stalled and the plane turned on its side and crashed. The plane was the most complex for its time period. The investigation showed that the accident was caused because of one “pilot error”; one simple step had been skipped among many actions a pilot had to do before and during the take-off. The fix was to use a checklist, and since then, the airplane pilots have a checklist for almost every possible scenario and routine checklists play a role in every single flight. I told the story about the B-17 bomber to a client (he was a pilot) and he was pretty shocked that I heard of it as he thought of it as an industry specific one, and he only met pilots that knew about that story. 

Gawande gives additional examples of modern-day checklists in flight safety with the famous “Miracle on the Hudson” landing by Sully and how pilots deal with fuel icing that causes engines to stall (an accident just in the past few years that allowed the creation of yet another checklist).  

Another industry that uses checklists to solve complex problems is the building industry, for example in the building of skyscrapers—a process that involves all sorts of complicated building processes that have to work together in a coordinated effort, even when there are numerous "change orders." 

Throughout the book he goes back to his native profession of surgery and how checklists improve the performance within the medical industry. He provides a strong argument that checklists can be useful in almost any field or industry where there are complex problems with numerous steps, and where the misstep of a single simple step can have dire consequences.

I would have to think that anyone can benefit from reading this book.  After reading the book, one would be well advised to begin dissecting their own tasks, or business protocols to see how checklists can create better outcomes and provide efficiency in one’s daily routines—or to be used when a random problem comes at you, and you need a systematic way to solve it.

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I was very excited to read Richard Branson’s “Screw Business As Usual” as it examines how entrepreneurs can be successful while still helping out causes for the greater good of mankind. Branson says: “I constantly meet a growing army of entrepreneurs around the world, and when they ask me if I have one single message which will help them, I tell them it’s this: doing good can help improve your prospects, your profits and your business; and it can change the world.” Throughout the book, Branson discusses a wide range of types of causes, such as environmental issues, human rights, poverty, cancer, and many more.

 Photo Credit: Victoria Dawe

 Branson believes that by the 1970's business were focused on maximizing profits, at any expense.   He states that he has:

“belief that people are basically good and, if you can only give them the opportunity to do the right thing they will. This applies to businesses as well. One of the more devastating theories of the 1970s was that no matter what it took to achieve it, the primary purpose of business was to maximize value for its shareholders. This principle has led to a variety of social ills where businesses discard employees (at the drop of a hat), pollute our air and waters, or create short-term gains that are unsustainable. It is important for people in business to recognize that long-term shareholder value is more likely to be created by companies that value their employees, act as good environmental stewards and think long term in general.” 

The above quote probably best sums up the underlying argument of the entire book, and the bulk of the book contains various examples of businesses that are doing well by doing good. 

It is great if large organizations (such as the hundreds of companies that Branson manages) can operate in ways that value employees, and look at ways the business can help the environment or proactively how they may help out charitable organizations.
He references certain companies that are built around positive principles, and have done very well financially, such as companies that make organic food products. 

He notes that GE and Walmart are proactively taking steps that will both be financially rewarding and help out the environment.

It is definitely a worthy goal for businesses to improve mankind, and at the same time generate enough profits to put food on the table for their families, and the families of their employees.  However, given the economic situation that so many of American businesses are experiencing right now—especially small businesses, I don’t know to what extent many of Branson’s larger than life projects/examples are relevant to small business owners. 

I would say the most important takeaway, and believe Branson would agree, no matter how big or small, it is important to make the attempt to “do better.” For my law office, my wife and I attempt to participate in local community events and charities, such as offering a scholarship to a local senior (the law office donated to a Palm Desert High School senior). We attend fundraising events and in general attempt to assist a handful of charities that we feel strongest to support.  I believe business owners can find ways to participate in their own communities-assisting with their time, money or knowledge.

Branson’s book provides an optimistic point of view of the future of entrepreneurship—mainly that businesses will naturally operate in ways that are more environmentally friendly, employee friendly, and in cooperation or benefit to communities.  However, being in California, I also recognize that sometimes the regulatory environment (in this state) can be stifling to businesses, and in the current economic climate that is not the best situation either.

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Thinkertoys: How to See Something Everything Differently

This week I read Thinkertoys, all 665 iBook pages of it, and in a fairly small print. In the past several years, it has been extremely rare for me to buy a book and not end up reading it within a short period of time; however, this is what happened to this book. I purchased the hard copy version at least a couple of years ago, and always looked forward to reading it—believing it was a book that had practical knowledge in it. The reason I never read the hard copy book was its size, it is more of a text book than one you can simply hold in your hand to read.

Now that I have finally read it, I recognize that my gut feelings were correct, namely that this book had many nuggets of information that I believe are useful to me in both my personal and professional life. According to the author, “Thinkertoys train you how to get ideas. They are specific hands-on techniques that enable the reader to come up with big or small ideas, ideas that make you money, solve problems, beat the competition, and further your career; ideas for new products and new ways of doing things.” 

Ultimately, the book will help you achieve the following: “You will find yourself looking at the same information everyone else is looking at yet seeing something different. This new and different way of seeing things will lead you to new ideas and unique insights.”

This book is really more of a workbook for individuals that want to learn tips, strategies, and techniques to be more creative—by putting structure in, and to the creative thought process. He divides the book in two main types of creative thought processes: 1.) Linear Thinking and 2.)Intuitive Thinking. 

Although I forced myself to read the entire book in one week, this really should be used as a reference book as to how to perform Creative Inducing Activities—whether for a business owner that wants to individually think of more creative ideas, or for corporations that are looking to create brainstorming sessions, such as those used for sales teams at corporate retreats.

While most of the author’s examples are what I would term active strategies to induce creative thinking, he also discussed the benefits of “relaxation and meditation.” He has several techniques that “produce alpha brain waves that are slower and deeper than beta waves. Alpha waves quiet your mind so you can see the solutions that are already there.” Essentially, he says sometimes our brains are firing so much, that we don’t benefit from information and creativity that may be found in our alpha brain waves. 

A great analogy of this is as follows: “Stars cannot be seen during the day, because their faint points of light are overwhelmed by the sun. In a similar way, some ideas cannot be discovered because their faint points of light are overwhelmed by your brain’s active beta waves, which are as noisy as a goose eating dominoes.”

The book contains lots of interesting facts, stories, analogies and mental puzzles. For anyone that wants to read a book that offers some concrete strategies and tips on how to be more creative, I highly recommend this book. 

As a personal side note, I was convinced that if I read this book, it would have to make me smarter. After finishing the book, I don’t feel any smarter, but I do believe I now have new ways of viewing problems and attacking them in a more creative fashion.

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I was excited about this week’s book, “Founding Rivals”, because it was written by a Pepperdine Law School classmate of mine, Chris DeRose. I met Chris during the summer after the first year of law school, when we both attended a London “summer abroad” program. (Chris is on the left in the picture below taken during our trip to England)

Chris is a superb writer, and I was amazed at the great job he did of making the events leading up to the signing of the Constitution—and its ratification afterwards—interesting! 

I think Americans generally view the Constitution as the law of the land, and that its creation was based upon a solid agreement of the founding fathers. Chris’ book dispels that myth, in that the Constitution, its ratification and agreement by the states (at the time our country was founded), only occurred after critical elections, and after painstaking Constitutional conventions. It could have just as easily been decided to have the Constitution thrown out and something else put in its place—or even worse—having a confederacy of states without any uniform legal rules. I guess that would have made the U.S. something more like European countries.

The focus of Founding Rivals is on a single election involving James Madison and James Monroe (and important events that shaped the lives of the two men). As Chris states:

“But for the result of one election, the United States of America might well have died in infancy.”

“On the Federalist side stood James Madison, determined to defend the Constitution and the new government he had worked so hard to create. Against him stood James Monroe, Anti-Federalist, opponent of the Constitution as written, and erstwhile ally of Madison.”

Given the current state of politics, it was refreshing to read about the greatness of some politicians at the founding of the country, and the deep respect they had to that foundation. 

In summary, I am very impressed with Chris’ book, and it stands as an inspiration to others, in that, if you apply yourself,  you can do amazing things—such as get a book published. Chris has an ability to draft the human background stories in a way that brought the late 1700’s to life…

In the picture below: "Founding Rivals" book displayed in my office (Chris I still want my copy signed)

*Note this is not a business book, however, it provides a great discussion about the time period of the signing and ratification of the Constitution.  Also, besides being on display my second copy is on my IPAD.

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For my third book of the year, I chose "Onward" by Howard Schultz, after a client/friend highly recommended it. After somewhat scary revelations of my previous book “Boomerang”, I looked forward to reading “Onward” - an uplifting story of entrepreneurship. 

“Onward” proved to be just that (uplifting) and so much more. This book by Howard Schultz catalogs and follows his re-emergence as “ceo” of Starbucks in January 2008 (according to Schultz all leaders were lower case letters, and all the employees are termed “partners”). What makes this book particularly interesting is the timing of his re-emergence at Starbucks as the recession had officially begun in December 2007. 

After he came back, Starbucks had to deal with things that had never happened to the company before—the closing of hundreds of stores, the laying off of thousands of employees, negative earnings, and negative comps. In the book, you feel like you are there in the trenches fighting with him—as he states: “The crisis was forcing people all along the economic spectrum to come to terms with new realities and redefine how they lived in the world. Starbucks and I were hardly alone in our transformation.” 

By the end of the book Starbucks had turned the corner on the negative economic trends, and as Howard states, “I did welcome a shift from survival to growth mode” (emphasis added). You hear entrepreneurs that first start their business talk about being in “survival mode”, you hear seasoned business owners in the current economic climate speak of about being in “survival mode”—it was very intriguing to hear the ceo of Starbucks discuss the experience of the past two years as “survival.”

In fiscal 2010, Starbucks revenues increased to a record $10.7 billion. As Howard looks at how Starbucks got off-track, I think the following quote is on point: “Growth, we know all too well, is not a strategy. It is a tactic. And when undisciplined growth became a strategy for Starbucks, we lost our way. But no longer are we growing the company the way we did in the past. In short Starbucks today aims to be a very different type of company.”

After reading the book, and the Herculean work that Schultz did to transform his company, I believe this re-emergence as a ceo and leader of the company has been instrumental in Starbuck’s ability to be such a strong brand in the current economic climate. 

In addition to many useful nuggets of insights throughout the book, I also found it interesting and refreshing to read how Howard was influenced by the writings of a small merchant with one store in Italy. To me, it reflected how entrepreneurial mindset applies just as well to a small entrepreneurial company, as it does to this Mega-Company.

In that vein, I look “Onward” to my fourth book of the year—“Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe (The Bill of Rights and the Election that Save a Nation”). I am very excited to finally get the chance to read this book because the author is Chris DeRose, a fellow Pepperdine Law School graduate. Let’s see if he can make the politics of the founding of America interesting (I have already read the first 40 pages or so and am already engaged to read onward).

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My second book for the year is "Boomerang", and given the following article “US Debt Is Now Equal to Economy” on CNBC today, I couldn't have read it at a more appropriate time.  To anyone that is interested in learning more about the world economic debacle that has been going on for the past few years, I highly recommend it.

The book describes the economic events in Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany and finally the US, specifically in California.  The way Michael Lewis writes is colorful (aka profanity), humorous, and biting.  The events in Iceland, Greece and Ireland would be hysterically funny but given that Lewis just reports what he finds out, the truth seems at once both absurd and scary.  I found that when he got to the US, he left me wanting much more, but definitely believing that our economic system (and specifically governmental bodies--cities and municipalities) has some serious economic issues ahead—you only have to read the linked article to recognize this is proving to be true (and by other articles put out on a daily basis as to the economic status of the US and other nations). 

 After reading "Boomerang" I find it harder to believe statements from some economists that: “a better measure of the nation's debt is how much the government owes creditors, not counting $4.7 trillion owed to future Social Security recipients and other government beneficiaries. By that measure, the debt is roughly a third less: $10.5 trillion, or nearly 70% the size of the economy.” 

I am not an economist, but this is the type of thinking that underestimates the economic problems in the US (and other countries, too), an underestimation that is extremely dangerous—what are Social Security and Pensions off the Balance Sheet???   You just have to look at Vallejo, where Lewis states:  "Back in 2008, unable to come to terms with its many creditors, Vallejo had declared bankruptcy.  Eighty percent of the city's budget--and the lion's share of the claims that had thrown it into bankruptcy--were wrapped up in the pay and benefits of public safety workers."  I believe economists shouldn't be so quick to list Social Security and retirement plans as an unimportant factor of our debt.

Read the part of the book where Mr. Lewis discusses the financial situation with the mayor of San Jose and see if the following statement from today’s article appears a little scary—“Long-term projections suggest the debt will continue to grow faster than the economy, which would have to expand by at least 6% a year to keep pace.” 

Read this book and see if you have a different view of our economic issues.

Michael Lewis is one of those writers that amuses while he enlightens the reader (the humor, at times bordering being vulgar is appropriately placed).  Even though, some the characters are a bit one-dimensional as Forbes states in their review of the book,  I look forward to reading some of the other books that Michael Lewis wrote, including The Big Short.

Ultimately, our economic problem (yes it is OUR problem, not just America's but every citizen's problem) is as Lewis states it "a problem with the entire society" and all levels of society has played a role:  "from the top of society to the bottom."

Have you read this book? What are your thoughts?  Let me know here or on my Facebook page.

Boomerang, Week 2

I have already downloaded my book for next week (and begun reading it):  “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul” by Howard Schultz based on a recommendation of my friend. Even by decreasing the font size, my IPAD says I have 596 pages until I finish it—Ouch!!!

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One of my resolutions this year was to read more. One book per week, ideally on my iPad while working out (a bit ambitious, I know).  Books inspire ideas, provoke, educate, delight and motivate. I especially love reading biographies, books about innovation, business and entrepreneurship. 

I am starting the year, re-reading one my favorites “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill.  I was introduced to this book by chance, awhile back while studying for my real estate broker’s exam. One of the instructors mentioned it as one of his favorite books and I decided to check it out to add some variety to my medley of law and real estate books at that time. 

Published in 1937, “Think and Grow Rich” summarizes the teachings of Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and many others on achievement, success and breakthroughs. If you own your own business, or aspire to be an entrepreneur, innovator, self-starter, I think this book would make an excellent addition to your library. I have read this book many times, and every time I get some new nuggets of information that I somehow missed on a previous read.  I also find that reading it at the beginning of the Year can give you a little extra motivation to get some of those goals achieved… Afterall, I agree with Diana Scharf Hunt “Goals are dreams with deadlines”.

*To the left is the version of the book I have purchased many times and given as gifts to friends.

I was lucky enough to find a free version of this book on my iPad, check out iBooks to see if it is still available.

Have you read this book? What are your thoughts?  Let me know here or on my Facebook page.

Think and Grow Rich, Week 1

I have already downloaded my book for next week:  “Boomerang” by Michael Lewis--and I'm curious, if anyone has read it?

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