Rich Dad Poor Dad By Robert Kiyosake

This is the true story of Kiyosake's two 'dads', one, his real father (his Poor Dad) and the other the father of his best friend (his Rich Dad). His real father earned a good salary and was successful in his field, but he was financially uneducated and ended up broke. His rich dad however, a high school dropout, became the wealthiest man on the island of Hawaii. The book is about the lessons Kiyosake learnt from both men.

The book laments the fact that traditional schooling does not teach people basic financial literacy, such as how to read a balance sheet and cash flow statement, or about the realities of assets and liabilities. It talks about passive income and that you need to make your money work for you, rather than spend your life working for it with nothing to show in retirement. Essentially the book argues that wealth creation is about educating yourself about money and common sense, and not guaranteed by achieving degrees or having a retirement policy. Although it tends to be a slightly disjointed read, there are a series of powerful lessons that are easy to follow and open the mind to a different way of thinking about money and wealth creation.
Posted: 16 February

FISH! By Stephen C. Lundin Ph.D, Harry Paul and John Christensen

“Work made fun gets done!”

Fish! is a wonderful tale about an extremely successful 'real life' fish company in Seattle called Pike Place Fish, where employees’ attitudes towards their jobs and their customers makes all the difference. They prove that although you cannot always do work that you love, there are steps you can take to help you love the work you do – essentially it is about focusing on what you can influence versus the concerns and issues you have or what you don’t like.

Imagine translating this into your organisation, where passion, energy and a positive attitude become the norm. In the book, a fictional manager is given the task of transforming an underperforming group into an effective team. By going down to Pike Place Fish and observing the fishmongers at work, the manager learns some extremely simple, yet effective techniques which she translates and incorporates into her workplace, effecting a powerful transformation. The bottom line is that it is often the simplest truth or wisdom that has the most powerful impact. Fish! brings to our awareness the point that some of the most pressing issues facing businesses and employees today can be easily resolved by following the 'easy to grasp, profound wisdom' shared in the book.

There is also a Fish! video accompanying the book. It is short and 'impactful' – perhaps just the thing to revitalise your team.

Posted: 01 august 2005 09:00 aM

100 Greatest Ideas for Effective Leadership and Management By John Adair

The manager-leader concept, the urgent-important concept in time management, action-centred leadership – these are often used and referred to as 'a given' when it comes to management and leadership development. However, it is not common knowledge that these concepts were pioneered by John Adair and they’ve had such an influence on management and leadership development that they are used synonymously with the very definition and understanding of what management and leadership are – the same as how relativity is undeniably linked with Einstein, or evolution with Darwin and the unconscious with Freud. This book distils all his greatest ideas into 100 practical, no nonsense actions that are applicable steps to help you function better as a manager and as a leader, that help you understand yourself and others better, and that help you get results through people.

The book has no frills, no lengthy prologues or introductions and no academic rhetoric. It launches straight into a countdown of the 100 actions that have been tried and tested to work. It is so simple and makes such common sense that they don’t have to go on the New York Best seller list as 'the management guru flavour of the month'. Instead they are being used and practiced without even thinking – that is the accolade of Adair’s work.

Posted: 01 august 2005 09:00 aM

Just About Everything a Manager Needs to Know in South Africa By Neil Flanagan & Jarvis Finger

Recently, 7i™ reviewed the 'Business Black Book' for its contribution to business literacy – a vital ingredient in successfully leveraging the wealth of experience available to us in the new millennium. 'Just About Everything a Manager Needs to Know in South Africa' is similar, but focuses on management literacy by providing day-to-day nuts and bolts management information, 'free from distraction of theories, concepts and research'.
The volume is divided into three sections: Managing Yourself, Managing Others, and Managing the Organisation. Each section is arranged into two page bite-sized topics of information – there are more than 70 topics per section. Random examples of such topics are: 'How to handle your critics constructively', 'How to manage diverse ethnic groups', and 'How to become a better writer'. One can dip in and out of the book as required, or approach it sequentially for a more indepth read.
It can be an excellent starting point for the journey into management, providing a transitioning tool for the newly graduated employee into the workforce, and a 'top up' tool for the more experienced manager.

Posted: 01 JULY 2005 01:43 PM

Jack – What I’ve Learned Leading a Great Company and Great People By Jack Welch, CEO, General Electric with John A. Byrne

Filled with anecdotes, Jack Welch brings his story to life. He shows how a man from average beginnings can achieve remarkable things – making the point that anyone can, provided you are hungry enough.

The value in the book is that he brings real life scenarios into the picture – discussing the processes he followed and the methods he employed to achieve his vision. Most of us struggle through business theory – how we would apply it in a real situation, never really knowing whether we are doing it correctly, or whether there is a better way. This comes with experience, making mistakes, and learning from them. Jack shows specific steps he took in rolling out his plan, touching on the theory behind why they were made in the first place, and then showing the outcomes – both good and bad. It’s almost like reality TV, but in a book.

At times the book gets a little 'longwinded', and one cannot help thinking that the man well and truly loved himself – who wouldn’t if you ran a multi billion dollar company for over twenty years, still one of the most valuable multinationals in the world? Further, there are methods Jack discusses that make you shiver at their ruthlessness and sheer single mindedness.

The book is a worthwhile read and the profits generated are being donated to charity.

Posted: 01 july 2005 10:34 AM

Take it Personally By Anita Roddick Globalisation is not a new concept, yet there seems to be an increased awareness of the potential snowball effects that it could have if left unchecked.

The call is getting louder for individual and corporate responsibility in ensuring the planet's survival by understanding the nature of a symbiotic relationship. One of the voices leading this call is that of Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop. In her book, a collection of contributions by various writers and international players, she sets out to challenge the 'myth of the global economy' and to stimulate 'conscious consumerism'. The book has five sections – 'Activism', 'People', 'Development', 'Environment' and 'Money'. It is written with an interesting and eclectic mix of anecdotes, statistical figures and quotes. It promotes thinking and dialogue – two important components for driving progress, innovation and reducing ignorance. All proceeds of the book go to various charities aimed at demystifying globalisation. Anita Roddick is an example of this new 'democratic' way of thinking, having created a successful multinational corporation on the principles espoused in this book – that achieving success does not have to be at the cost of the weak.

Posted: 10 MARCH 2005 09:47 AM

The Service Profit Chain By J. Heskett, W. Sasser & L. Schlesinger This is not the easiest book to get into due to its technical nature. However, it teaches very important principles around sustained profitability.

The premise is the challenge posed to the 'old thinking' of profitability, commonly believed to be the result of market share. The authors go about proving that sustainable profitability is more a result of customer loyalty and 'the lifetime value of the customer'. Market share is thus a result of customer loyalty: the predisposition a customer has to using the same company over and over again. The authors combine case studies with well-researched statistical evidence. A very simple yet profound equation is the relationship between employee satisfaction, customer loyalty and profitability. This book is useful for any organisation wanting to go beyond understanding good customer relationships to actually measuring levels of success and developing specific methods for achieving sustainable high performance. This is summed up by the fact that 'Between 1986 and 1995, the common stock prices of the companies studied by the authors increased 147%, nearly twice as fast as the price of the stocks of their closest competitors'.

Posted: 10 MARCH 2005 10:57 AM

X-Engineering the Corporation By James Champy

As business continues to reinvent and refine its methodologies, processes and value add, new voices proliferate. Some will fall by the wayside, but James Champy's 'X-Engineering the Corporation' is one voice that will leave a lasting legacy on the nature of business. He proposes re-engineering across company borders, the X (cross) in X-Engineering. The central proposition is that work needs to be designed around processes rather than tasks or departments, and these processes cut a swathe across whole industries, and hence, across company 'borders'. How to make these processes more efficient so that both end users and companies themselves benefit is the silver thread that weaves throughout this work. Topics such as transparency; standardization; and harmonization; and the 3 P’s: processes, proposition and participation; and driving all of this, technology, are explained clearly and succinctly, and fleshed out with practical examples. You will learn 'the art of using technology enabled processes to connect businesses with their customers and other businesses to achieve dramatic improvements in efficiency, creating value for everyone involved', and in a business environment that requires constant innovation.

Posted: 02 JUNE 2005 01:03 PM

Good to Great By Jim Collins

Business has turned a corner when the following statements are being echoed – 'being a team isn’t the goal, that’s a given – it’s having the right people with the right skills in the right jobs that’s paramount', 'having a good strategy is not enough to make you a great company, it’s understanding how you can be better than anyone else at one thing', 'and being good at something or focusing on your core competency doesn’t make you a great company'. This Book reads like a suspense novel – it boldly asks the questions that need to be asked, it makes hard statements, it gets down to the real differentiators of what greatness is, and it gives proof through research done over five years in over 1 000 Fortune 500 companies. It discusses the 'hedgehog concept', separating the 'foxes from the hedgehogs' – in essence, do only what you are passionate about and what you can master better than any other company, and define your profit or cash flow along one common denominator that that has the greatest and most sustainable impact. From great companies like Hewlett-Packard and Disney, to those that have reinvented themselves and the newer breed of great companies, the examples are there – it will make you rethink how you do your business and set you off for greatness.

Posted: 02 JUNE 2005 01:01 PM

Dealing with the Customer from Hell By Shaun Belding

Posted 10 March 2005 11:00 AM

Management Teams – Why they succeed or fail: 2nd edition By R. Meredith Belbin

To paraphrase Antony Jay in the foreword to this book, 'How many management research findings do you know that are completely original, that have intellectually rigorous and academically respectable development and testing, with results that are validated by successful prediction and applications that go to the very heart of management?' This combination hardly occurs, so when it does, you take note. So much of what constitutes management success and successful organisations has revolved around finding perfect individuals – although we all know too well that all the qualities of a perfect manager are, for one, too many, and for the most part, mutually exclusive. We cannot find the perfect individual and if we do find someone that comes close, 'their perfection doesn’t last' and organisations that rely too much on their 'star celebrities' eventually hit a brick wall. Dr Belbin’s research which is based on over nine years’ research in Henley Management College gives credence to the perfection of teams as the one thing that can sustain business success. Its unique contribution into the nature, structure and behaviour of teams, the contrasting but complimentary roles of individuals and the culture of organisations make for a compelling case to consult the Belbin®  methodology and tools in hiring individuals, putting teams together, managing performance, planning for strategy and managing change and diversity. No leader of an organisation can afford to run their business without it.

 The 7i™ Directors with Dr. Meredith Belbin
(Carol Koffman, Meredith Belbin, Natalie Robbs)

Posted: 16 may 2005 01:43 PM

Harvard Business Review on Corporate Strategy -Harvard Business Review This collection of essays carries the Harvard Business School pedigree with pride.

Although not the most recent text on corporate strategy (published in 1999) the insights are more relevant now, since many of the fundamental global trends that affect business today began in the 90s and are dealt with in a particularly visionary and fresh way. The authors, representing multicultural viewpoints and covering divergent specialities, analyse trends, dispute previously accepted theories and highlight strategic nuances in a profoundly clear way. Themes range from aligning global strategies to emerging markets (and the increased complexity implied in that), how to scout for acquisitions, how to use the trend in amplified environmental awareness for business advantage, and how to stimulate innovation. It will spark intelligent strategic thinking and help you exploit the best opportunities for growth and profitability. It gives credibility to the sprouting occurrence of new and rising young businesses redefining how business is done and succeeding, whilst changing corporate rules and agendas, taking strategy out of the boardroom and putting it to work.

Posted: 04 APRIL 2005 12:30 PM

BUSINESS: The Ultimate Resource A Bloomsbury Reference

This is an imposing looking and heavy all black tome. It contains précis of accumulated business intelligence, knowledge and wisdom in a literate and effective way for use by 'anyone in business'. It covers as near as possible, the entire spectrum of business management topics. As one of its authors note: 'Today's business world poses a paradox: the challenge of reconciling information overload with lightening fast decision making'. This book answers that precise challenge by employing a well thought out structure, a classic easy to read design, and first class content. 200 contributors pen more than two million words structured into over 400 focused and pithy articles. These articles are cross referenced, clear and are usefully apportioned into the following sections: Best Practice, Management Checklists and Action lists, Management Library, Business Thinkers and Management Giants, Dictionary and World Almanac. To illustrate further, just one section, Best Practice, is populated by more than 150 articles covering People/Culture, Strategy/Competition, Finance, IT, Systems, Structure, Leadership, Renewal/Growth, Productivity, and Personal Effectiveness.
This book’s encyclopaedic reach will benefit your business literacy and effectiveness, and its byline, 'Ultimate Resource', is more than well deserved.

Posted: 16 MAY 2005 01:34 PM

The 22 Immutable Laws of BRANDING -Al Ries & Laura Ries The book covers 22 "laws" that build an understanding and attitude towards branding that is indispensable to a business.

One of the core messages is to focus (i.e. contract) the brand: be wary of diluting it into 'subbrands, mega brands or flanker brands'. This is a useful warning as successful companies often extend their product ranges (diluting their brands as a consequence) in order to gain greater market share. This strategy often achieves the opposite, losing sales to more tightly branded products.
The book is usefully peppered with real world examples, and its insights are weighted by the authors' broad experience in blue chip companies. It has the 'bustle' and 'smell of success' of a busy cattle ranch – the authors know how to brand.
This is not just for marketing aficionados. So much of running a business, and getting products 'out there', is about branding and should be the concern of all employees, managers and executives, not just the marketing department. As the authors state: 'in the consumer's mind, there is no difference between a company or product name and a brand name'. Your company is a brand, and this book will pay rich dividends if you use the power of branding as your selling advantage.

Posted: 04 APRIL 2005 01:01 PM

First, Break All the Rules By Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman Every once in a while a book comes along that provides something more than technical advice. It is a book that we found ourselves returning to time and again.

To start with, there is nothing “wow” about the contents. They are largely based on common sense (yet how often have we heard how rare common sense can be?). This is not, however, to say that the book is lightweight; in fact, it documents findings from a Gallup survey conducted over a 25 year period using the results of more than one million interviews with employees and 80 000 managers.
The primary focus of the book is to capture the essence of what distinguishes ordinary managers from exceptional managers, putting the question into perspective. It introduces tangible and practical measures for improving managerial ability, as well as appropriate questions to ask employees. The bottom line is that effective managers need to follow two golden rules: firstly, convey to a prospective employee what you expect of them, and secondly, give them the tools to do their job. This may seem quite simplistic, but the authors unpack this to show the various components that come into play – in essence, recognising that strong individuals make strong teams.
This book is written with a wonderful balance of heart and head. The passion for people is very apparent and contagious. Isn’t this what is needed in business today?

Posted: 26 January 2005 10:00 AM