Mark Gandy

What is your and? That is, what do you do outside work? That’s the topic of this episode of CFO Bookshelf. Our guest is a former PwC internal auditor turned stand-up comedian. John Garrett is now preaching a message of better corporate cultures through speaking and consulting, and he is the author of What’s Your And?

Once upon a time, I was all business. I was overly analytical and a bit too direct on every project I worked on. I was never mean-spirited, at least I didn’t think I was. I just thought everyone should be like me when working on critical projects. Four years into my career, some people who cared about me said, “Mark, you’re smart, but you need to go to charm school.” That was a transformational experience.

From serving a term as a Missouri Senator, he went on to serve one year and a day at a federal correctional institution in Clay County, Kentucky, a county once named the unhealthiest in the country. I first heard Jeff Smith in a radio interview with Mark Reardon on KMOX in 2015. The book they were talking about was Mr. Smith Goes to Prison. I wound up purchasing the book and read it in nearly one sitting. In this conversation, we talk about this book, and the docuseries, College Behind Bars.

I have read many investment books over the past 30 years, and one of the titles easily in my Top 5 is The Education of a Value Investor by Guy Spier. In the world of value investing, Guy needs no introduction. He’s been interviewed hundreds of times and he’s also been a Talks at Google presenter. With thanks to another author, Guy gladly said he’d join the show, and he certainly delivered.

As my consulting practice started taking off about twenty years ago, I started reading everything I could by Fred Nickols, who blogged regularly for the software vendor, SmartDraw. Fred’s articles were concise, to the point, and consistently included a straightforward visual framework that was easy to understand. Fred is a long-time consultant who refers to himself as a solutions engineer. In this conversation, we talk about his favorite frameworks and the origins of those mental models.

We live in a business era where the fractional chief executive officer is becoming indispensable. Before considering hiring a fractional CMO or CFO, I’d always start with a Fractional Chief People Officer, such as Susannah Robinson. She has worked in big-company HR for more than twenty years and has written a simple and pragmatic guide on organizational design for small businesses. In this conversation, we discuss her new book, Beyond the Boxes and Lines.

When I read a book on Buffett, and there are many, I want to know if this book has been written before—the ones where the narratives state the same thing about Buffett’s investing style. In the case of Brett Gardner’s new book on Buffett, he checks all the boxes of a fascinating investment book. It’s informative, inspiring, and even entertaining. More importantly, the book Buffett’s Early Investments is not a rehash of Buffett material you’ve read before.