The Tao of Warren Buffett: Warren Buffett’s Words of Wisdom: Quotations and Interpretations to Help Guide You to Billionaire Wealth and Enlightened Business Management
by Mary Buffett and David Clark

Here’s another of those novel “mini-books” (172 pages) that seem so popular in this day and age of readers pressed for time. This one, however, is a bit unique in a number of ways. For instance, note that the subtitle alone is longer than many of today’s “mini-books.” In addition, that lengthy title might be a bit misleading. While it is indeed factual, I think it’s more accurate to say this is a book of 125 insightful quotations from one of the most colorful Americans on the financial scene today.

Warren Buffett is a famed American businessman, investor, and philanthropist as well as the largest shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He has consistently ranked as the #1 or #2 richest man in the world for as long as one can recall. Earlier in the year, we featured Buffett in our blog series Little-known Facts about Well-known Leaders. Click on this link to learn why this man is one of today’s most interesting American trailblazers.

Among Buffett’s observations in this book, you’ll find many enlightening truisms on investing, business management, choosing a career, and pursuing a successful life. Following each comment you’ll find additional remarks from the co-authors as they attempt to reveal the life philosophy and the investment strategies that have made Warren Buffett, and the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, so enormously wealthy.

Mary Buffett—ex-daughter-in-law and author of three books on Warren Buffett’s investment methods—joins noted Buffettologist and international lecturer David Clark in this ambitious task.

This edition makes a great gift as it reveals Warren Buffett’s worldly wisdom … which is deceptively simple and enormously powerful in application. For instance:

• “Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls-Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”
• “Never be afraid to ask for too much when selling or offer too little when buying.”
• “It is impossible to unsign a contract, so do all your thinking before you sign.”
• “The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
• “Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.”
• “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

The Tao of Warren Buffett will inspire, entertain, sharpen your mind, and provide the kind of priceless investment savvy that made Warren Buffett one of today’s most respected American leaders. This “mini-book” is destined to become a classic.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 19.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Executive Warfare: 10 Rules of Engagement for Winning Your War for Success
by David F. D’Alessandro and Michele Owens

This book was recommended to me by a long-time colleague who knew I would enjoy it. He was indeed correct. However, he also voiced his opinion that I probably wouldn’t want to review it for our readers because it focuses exclusively on senior managers and executives only. However, after reading the book, I feel anyone who aspires to be an executive, works or lives with an executive, or is simply interested in the politics of the workplace would find the authors work not only intriguing and insightful but also very useful in many ways.

Books are written every day expounding the attributes of tips, tools and strategies to succeed in the workplace but very few address the need to be politically savvy, the relationships you build with people of influence, or survival tactics for your journey to success.

Note that both the title and subtitle suggest direct correlations between the battlefield and the business world. The first few lines of the book give you an idea of the on-going focus and direction of the content.

Legendary bluesman B.B. King begins one of his many famous songs with the lyric: “Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin’ too.”

Much of the content I discovered with the 266 pages of Executive Warfare could easily qualify for the category of “what you’ll never learn in business school although you’d be much better off if you did.” Not a catchy category title but very descriptive and precisely on point.

I worked many years with an associate who despised corporate politics and, as a result, refused to participate. He chose, instead, to focus on his career. Little did he know that the choice was not his. We’re all in the game whether we choose to participate or not.

Note the obvious: The single greatest reason why otherwise talented people get stuck in mid-career is because they believe that the same rules that applied for the first part of their careers still apply. They don’t. (That reminds me of another great book title: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There!) You have to master a much subtler set of rules. The same skill sets, aptitudes, and mind sets must now be replaced and re-trained toward the new goal.

By the time you reach the executive level, it’s no longer enough to be smart, hard-working and able to show results. Most of your peers can do that very well at this stage. What really sets you apart is the relationships you build with people of influence. These people can include your peers, your employees, your organization’s directors, reporters, vendors, and regulators, as well as the people directly above you in the organizational hierarchy.

To truly attain the success you seek you must now learn how to acquire the global perspective your peers lack, when and how to deliver bad news, when to take a shot at your rivals and when to be gracious, and, most important, how to handle the many new influences on your career trajectory.

The authors offer concrete advice for handling all of them, including:

• YOUR PEERS: They are the most valuable of allies or the most dangerous of enemies.
• THE CEO: His/Her office is often where the real fairy dust is kept. Make sure you have a good relationship here.
• THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS: They won’t judge you fairly if all they see of you is your PowerPoints.
• YOUR DIRECT REPORTS: They are your vital organs, so treat them accordingly. And if you find a blood clot among them—excise that person before he kills you.
• YOUR RIVALS: It’s not always wise to shoot at them, but if you do, do not shoot to wound.

The way to the top is filled with pitfalls and dangerous routes, and this book teaches us to avoid or survive them to fight another day. It teaches us which battles are worth fighting and winning to ensure that we win the war.

The authors offer sound advice that will allow the reader to balance impeccable integrity with essential “street smarts.” Alessandro seems to capture all the key issues of avoiding corporate exile and the slow death of a manager.

I especially appreciated the one or two “nuggets of knowledge” which appear on every single page of the book in a special illustrated graphic box.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 19.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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The Management Gurus: Lessons from the Best Management Books of All Time
by Chris Lauer and the Editors at Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Let’s face it. Today we’re living in the age of information overload.

In this chaotic world of growing challenges and diminishing leisure time, it’s becoming more and more difficult to read as many books as we’d like to.

There should be a simple solution. And there is.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries provides you with an easy way to familiarize yourself with the key points of today’s top business books without investing an enormous chunk of your invaluable time.

Thirty years ago, the founders of Soundview Executive Book Summaries pioneered the concept of outlining the key points and ideas of full-length business books into quick and easy-to-read print summaries.

Throughout the years, Soundview has worked closely with the leading business book publishers of the world to offer print summaries of the 30 best business books of the year to its more than 50,000 worldwide subscribers. These summaries distill thousands of pages about leadership, strategy, crisis management, organizational behavior, and more—perfect for busy executives and students.

As time challenges increased so too did the creative options offered by this organization. Soundview went online with the summary.com web site in 1995. In 2000, Soundview began offering audio-cassette and CD versions of its summaries as well as an electronic version of its book summaries.

Following its successful first collection, The Marketing Gurus, Soundview shifted its focus to The Managing Gurus. While I thoroughly enjoyed these summaries and readily admit that each is a reputable publication, I’m not certain I can agree that these are the “best management books of all time.” I’d feel more comfortable saying they are “among the best,” but I guess that wouldn’t suffice as a subtitle that reaches off the shelf and grabs potential readers by the throat. I make this observation based on the fact that there are a good number of management gurus, old and new, who are not mentioned here (Jack Welch, Jim Collins, Peter Drucker, and Warren Buffett to name a few). However, based on the success of this book, I’m certain there will be future additions to follow.

Senior Editor Chris Lauer and his collaborators have done a fine job of creating a reader-friendly standard format that offers options based on how much information you may require or desire:

1. They begin each review with a brief introduction to the author or authors …
2. followed by a short but thorough table of contents …
3. a short “Summary in Brief” is offered which includes …
4. “What You’ll Learn in this Summary” presented in a short, bullet-point format and …
5. more in-depth information is then offered in “The Complete Summary.”

The authors have done a fine job of providing key concepts in a way that can be clearly understood and easily adopted and adapted for practical use by any reader from any business environment.

The 15 books summarized in this edition include many highly respected authors and reflect a representative range of important topics. The books included are:

• Winning with People: Discover the People Principles that Work for You Every Time by John C. Maxwell
• Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People by Bradford D. Smart, Ph.D.
• Jack Welch and the 4 E’s of Leadership: How to Put GE’s Leadership Formula to Work in Your Organization by Jeffrey A. Krames
• The Leadership Challenge: The Most Trusted Source on Becoming a Better Leader by James Kouzes and Barry Posner
• Gods of Management: Managing the Battle of Organizational Cultures by Charles Handy
• Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan and Switzler
• True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership by Bill George and Peter E. Sims
• What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Goldsmith and Reiter
• Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls by Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis
• Small Giants: Companies That Choose to be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham
• Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of their Evolution by Geoffrey A. Moore
• Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Tapscott and Williams
• Managing Crises Before They Happen: What Every Executive Needs to Know About Crisis Management by Mitroff and Anagnos
• The Leader of the Future: New Visions, Strategies, and Practices for the Next Era by Hesselbein, Goldsmith, and Beckhard
• The Next Global Stage: Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World by Kenichi Ohmae

Focused, insightful and practical, this edition deserves a spot on your “must read” list in today’s challenging, competitive and chaotic environment.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 19.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything
by Stephen M. R. Covey

I want to take a moment here to attempt to clarify a few things that tweaked my curiosity right off the bat when I first discovered this book.

This author is NOT the man who authored The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This is his son. I must admit that my first thought dealt with Jr.’s authenticity and, to be honest, whether this new author was simply cashing in on the family name.

Well, after a little research, I discovered that Stephen M.R. Covey may not be his father but was certainly his own man and has obviously established his own list of credits. He is the former CEO of Covey Leadership Center, which, under his stewardship, became the largest leadership development company in the world. A Harvard MBA, he joined Covey Leadership Center as a client developer and later became national sales manager and then President and CEO.

In that position, he nearly doubled revenues to more than $110 million while increasing profits by 12 times. The company rapidly expanded throughout the world into more than 40 countries. The company was valued at $2.4 million when he took over the helm and, within three years, he grew shareholder value to $160 million in a merger he orchestrated with then Franklin Quest to form Franklin Covey. Stephen Jr. is indisputably his own man.

I know this is trite to most, but I was also intrigued by the fact that the author has two middle initials as I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who could make that claim. Again I did some research but couldn’t find a single reference to his middle name. Again, trite but curious.

Now to the book. You don’t see many books on the subject of trust in today’s bookstores, and I find that quite odd when you consider the subject lies at the forefront of most every news story emerging these days. Lack of trust appears very apparent as today’s political scene is riddled with scandal on every front. Add to that list the financial industry, the auto industry, religion, energy, news, and sports … it’s almost easier to name those segments of society which haven’t been impacted by events resulting in the lack of trust. And yet, no one seems to want to discuss the topic of trust.

Trust is vitally crucial in getting anything done in today’s environment. The continuing decline is a major issue not just in business, but socially, politically and in the family. Covey declares that trust is the very basis of the new global economy, and he shows how trust is the essential ingredient for any high–performance, successful organization.

The author does a very insightful job of investigating the components of trust, and exploring and explaining the dynamics of how trust can be built and destroyed in families, in teams, and in institutions.

Covey believes that we must navigate what he calls the “5 Waves of Trust” … derived from the “ripple effect” metaphor that graphically illustrates the interdependent nature of trust and how it flows from the inside out. The “5 Waves of Trust” includes:

• The First Wave: SELF TRUST (based on the principle of credibility)
• The Second Wave: RELATIONSHIP TRUST (based on the principle of proper behavior)
• The Third Wave: ORGANIZATIONAL TRUST (based on the principle of alignment)
• The Fourth Wave: MARKET TRUST (based on the principle of reputation)
• The Fifth Wave: SOCIETAL TRUST (based on the principle of contribution)

Covey also outlines 13 behaviors of trust-inspiring leaders which work together to create balance. As he describes each behavior he notes the principles upon which each is based. He also gives the opposite and the counterfeit for each behavior. At the end of his behavior description, Covey suggests a few “Trust Tips” and a few specific suggestions for ways to apply that particular behavior. The behaviors include:

1. Talk Straight
2. Demonstrate Respect
3. Create Transparency
4. Right Wrongs
5. Show Loyalty
6. Deliver Results
7. Get Better
8. Confront Reality
9. Clarify Expectations
10. Practice Accountability
11. Listen First
12. Keep Commitments
13. Extend Trust

Most of the book is taken up with examining those five waves and their underlying principles that establish trust.

You’ll enjoy the touching foreword by the author’s father, Stephen R. Covey, as well as Covey’s down-to-earth approach and disarming personal stories which go a long way to establish rapport with his reader. However, I did feel that the content could have been successfully conveyed in far less than the 354 pages utilized by the author.

Restoring trust within an organization may seem difficult; however, the fact that high-trust organizations outperform low-trust organizations by three times provides a strong incentive to make the effort, and I think this book couldn’t have been written at a more appropriate time. Let’s just hope the right people read it and then take the necessary actions to remedy their current dire straights.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 19.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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What Made jack welch JACK WELCH: How Ordinary People Become Extraordinary Leaders
by Steven H. Baum with Dave Conti

Don’t pass on this one because you’re not familiar with Jack Welch or have no interest in him as a leader or businessman. The author has successfully utilized one of my five keys for choosing a book (Tips for Choosing a Great Book) … a catchy title.

You see, Jack Welch isn’t the focus of this book. The author was clever in his creation of his title. Note that the first use of the name jack welch is represented in lowercase letters while the second use of the same name is shown in UPPERCASE LETTERS. Add that nuance to the subtitle, How Ordinary People Become Extraordinary Leaders, and you’ll understand what the author is trying to convey.

The author focuses on the fact that many great leaders start life as a lower case person but go on to enjoy the great success of an uppercase person. These leaders are smart and talented, but there are countless people even smarter and more talented in the marketplace. However, for one reason or another, these people stall out on their journey to the top. This book explains the inner workings of this phenomenon and how we can all benefit from it.

While the title suggests a focus on the famous General Electric CEO, the book actually draws on the experiences of many other leaders, including General Tommy Franks, as well as Jim Broadhead, the executive who turned around Florida Power & Light; David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue; New York mayor Rudy Giuliani; Shelly Lazarus and Cathleen Black and former Nebraska senator Bob Kerry.

Using an old Welch quote … apparently, it’s not rocket science. Anyone can be a leader. Really. That’s not to say the average Joe could manage billions in assets or command a workforce the size of GE or Walmart, but if you’ve got the right mixture of traits, all it takes is the experience and desire to reach that point.

Stephen Baum, a leadership coach who works behind the scenes guiding CEOs and senior management through times of challenge and change, reveals that true success is not about education, pedigree or even native smarts. Many of today’s greatest leaders are much like jack welch who started life as a lowercase guy. He was the son of a simple railroad conductor who become one of the most celebrated and successful executive leaders of our time.

Leadership boils down to some very simple ideas: character, confidence, critical thinking and the ability to engage other people, Baum said. It’s all about know-how and learning what works and what doesn’t.

Baum shares not only the business secrets of many prominent CEOs but also their inner stories as well. He reveals the real people behind the public personas we hear and read about every day. He shares many life-shaping experiences they all have in common and explains how these experiences become part of the foundation for true success in career and in life. We learn of their fears, emotions and lessons learned during moments of challenge and doubt.

The stories in this book, successes and failures, are of real people dealing with real situations. It was surprising to discover many common threads among these leaders that might never have been considered:

• They come from quite ordinary backgrounds.
• They were not necessarily the smartest kids in class.
• They weren’t necessarily destined to enter the corporate sphere.
• Few came from wealthy families.
• Few went to Ivy League schools.
• Few earned MBAs.

However, they do share a pattern of life-shaping experiences that caused them to develop exceptional personal growth which led to strong character and the confidence to seek challenges, take on risk, act when necessary, and engage and inspire others.

Baum constantly refers to the “school of experience” and how critical it is to the success of anyone who hopes to reach that level of success we all respect. Baum uses the term “shaping experiences” and offers a brief definition of each of the ten along with explanatory quotes from the leaders he interviewed for this book.

1. Swim in the water over your head.
2. Make the tough choices.
3. Solve the key puzzle.
4. Parent at work.
5. Sell something/get others to buy in.
6. Connect with others.
7. Build a team.
8. Get good on your feet.
9. Develop your crap detector.
10. Look in the mirror.

These character-building moments engender an inner core of toughness and confidence that is the real key to leadership in any business or endeavor—they are what made jack welch … JACK WELCH.

Note: Baum even brings the book to life with CEO videos and articles on his website (www.stephenhbaumleadership.com) and blog.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 19.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Billion-Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years
by Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui

I find it rather ironic that there are so many well-written best sellers on the shelves today (Built to Last, Good to Great, etc.) that expound on examples of successful organizations and how they reached that level of achievement. This is a good thing. However, the irony emerges in the fact that there are so few books sharing the very valuable lessons to be learned from those organizations that have failed.

MBA programs and benchmarking guidelines follow suit … study the “best of the best” and sweep the worst case scenarios under the rug.

Here’s another sliver of irony for you. This book emerges in 2008 … the year the world economy commenced its greatest meltdown since the Great Depression. There will certainly have to be a follow-up book to cover the disintegration of the investment banking industry, the day-by-day soap opera within the auto industry, and the disappearance of so many of our retail establishments. Of course, the title will have to be updated to Quadrillion Dollar Lessons.

Isn’t it sad but interesting that our grandchildren will not only have to know the following words but also use them in their day-to-day vocabulary? … Billion, trillion, quadrillion and quintillion.

This book unfolds in three lessons. In Lesson One, the authors share their in-depth research revealing that between 1981 and 2006, 423 major companies with combined assets totaling 1.5 trillion filed for bankruptcy! Hundreds more took huge write-offs, discontinued major operations, or were acquired under duress. Billion Dollar Lessons reveals seven major strategies that led to many of the largest business failures documented in the book.

These strategies are defined and examined in Lesson Two:

1. Synergy
2. Financial engineering
3. Rollups
4. Staying the course
5. Adjacencies
6. Riding technology
7. Consolidation

The authors make it very clear that these seven strategies aren’t doomed to failure. Each of these strategies can succeed splendidly. They simply point out that each of these strategies are danger zones and anyone pursuing them should be extremely alert as to what can go wrong as they are flirting with potential disaster.

Lesson Three focuses on providing proven methods that managers, boards, and even investors can adopt to avoid making the same mistakes. It draws on vivid, off-the-beaten-track examples to help you thoroughly assess potential disastrous strategies before they result in catastrophe.

There is much to be learned from the many interesting case studies you’ll find in this book. The authors do a very good job in revealing the root-causes for these business failures. From their thorough database of 2,500 corporate failures over the last 25 years, they identify many organizations you’ll immediately recognize (Adelphia, Enron, Montgomery Ward), many that will surprise you (Barnes & Noble, Kroger, Avon), and even more you’ve never heard of.

The “Tough Questions” and the “Red Flags” at the end of each chapter will certainly provide fodder for reflection. Business executives would benefit greatly from these valuable tools alone.

Carroll, a former writer for the Wall Street Journal, and Mui, a fellow at Diamond Management and Technology Consultants, have provided a great service to those who require a Significant Emotional Event to learn a lesson—those who have to “SEE it to believe it.” Better to learn from someone else’s experience rather your own.

While this book is the opposite of Good to Great, it may very well keep you from going from good to gone!

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 19.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Toy Box Leadership: Leadership Lessons from the Toys You Loved as a Child
by Ron Hunter, Jr. and Michael E. Waddell

I first came across this book several months ago during a flight delay in the Atlanta airport. I was so impressed with the content that I wrote an article for our blog. It wasn’t a book review—it was more focused on the lesson it taught me as I almost passed up this most enjoyable book by making an inaccurate assumption based on the title.

While the article was NOT a book review, it did contain a great deal of background material which I feel you’d find enlightening about both the content and the authors. Click on Toys as Mentors to view that article.

If you could revisit your childhood, you would discover that you were exposed to many leadership principles while playing with your favorite toys. You may not have realized it at the time, but the co-authors of Toy Box Leadership will assist you in recapturing those principles in ten short but delightful chapters.

Each chapter is devoted to a particular childhood toy we all loved and enjoyed as we were growing up. The subtitle of each chapter then identifies the leadership trait that is so clearly represented by each toy. For instance:

• Lego Bricks: Relationships—Building Begins with Connecting
• Slinky Dog: Vision—Pull—Then Be Patient
• Play-Doh: Mentoring—The Mold Makes the Man
• Yo-Yo: Creativity—It Only Happens When You Let Go
• Mr. Potato Head: Mentoring—The Right Face for the Right Place
• Rubik’s Cube: Ethics—Making the Right Turn
• Rocking Horse: Efficiency—All Show and No Go
• Little Green Army Men: Strategy—Success Is in the Set-Up
• Lite-Brite: Message—Illuminate to Communicate
• Weebles: Endurance—Staying Down Is Not an Option

In support of these solid principles, this book also offers some very uplifting quotes from 55 of the greatest names in history. These notables include great leaders from the world of sports, politics (including Presidents), music, entertainment, military, literature, and religion.

Between the blog article and this review, I’ve probably given away too much content. You’ll want to read every page of this book. Let me close by saying this: Toy Box Leadership can be read and discussed productively by any senior leadership team in any industry. At the same time, there is much to be learned by sharing its content with your own children or grandchildren.

Read, learn, smile, enjoy, and share.

(This book review was originally published in 2009 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 19.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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The One Minute Entrepreneur: The Secret to Creating and Sustaining a Successful Business
by Ken Blanchard, Don Hutson, and Ethan Willis

We just added a new feature to our blog spotlighting distinguished authors. The first author I chose to introduce was Ken Blanchard. Before the ink was dry on that article, Blanchard placed another title on national bookstore shelves which is sure to be another best-seller.

This time he joins Don Hutson and Ethan Willis to produce another quick-read business fable mixing practicality with entertainment. If you really need three creative minds to produce such a thin book, you can’t go wrong with these three.

Blanchard is an internationally best-selling author and motivational speaker whose books have sold more than 18 million copies in 30 languages. Hutson is the CEO of U.S. Learning, a training firm, an active speaker, and was on the founding board of the National Speakers Association and served as its third president. Willis is the CEO of Prosper Learning, Inc., a winner of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award and an entrepreneurial coach, with more than 150,000 students in 76 countries.

Those who have read any number of the One Minute series seem to fall into one of two distinct groups. They devour, absorb and utilize every word from cover to cover, or they feel the content is basic, obvious and redundant. Both groups will feel the same about this new addition to the series.

Here the authors share the inspiring story of one man’s challenges in creating his own business. The hero of this tale has a dream and learns early on that the best source of information about success is given to us through quality relationships, which is so true in our daily reality. Jud and his wife Terri start their dream business and feel that all their dreams have come true. Then everything begins to fall apart, and they must rely on what they hope is good advice from a number of helpful mentors. The learning, of course, lies in this on-the-mark advice and our charming couple finally achieves success beyond their wildest dreams.

You’ll appreciate the invaluable advice delivered through One Minute Insights at the end of each chapter from such proven mentors as Sheldon Bowles, Peter Drucker, Michael Gerber, and Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. One observation that stuck with me was: “You are the average of the five people you most associate with.” Look around and then pause to ponder that thought.

While the message is not a new one, it’s certainly one worth hearing again in a business-fable format that makes these winning principles come to life. Based on the fact that each year thousands of small businesses start up for the first time and most of them end in failure, I think it’s safe to assume that many didn’t listen the first time or simply were never exposed to these principles. For those, this book will be invaluable.

If you are looking for a quick and powerful set of standards for your career and your business, you’ll find it here, written in such a way that both adults and teens will benefit greatly.

(This book review was originally published in 2008 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 18.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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