CFO Bookshelf Blog

Curiosity drives much of the content on this podcast, and when Erik Hanberg’s book, The Little Book of Boards, showed up in my email, I felt compelled to buy it for several reasons. Of the six or seven boards I’ve served on, some have been boring experiences, others have been exceptional. I was curious if this book would have been valuable to me during my first board experience, which wasn’t great–it definitely would have been.

[Read more…] about The Little Book of Boards

Not only is Neil Dahlstrom the author of the business historical narrative Tractor Wars, but he’s also the Branded Properties and Heritage Manager at John Deere. Before that, he was Deere’s Corporate History and Archives Manager. Neil admits he wanted to be Indiana Jones when he grew up and even worked in a museum in high school. During this conversation, we learn what a corporate archivist does and how to start a company archive.

[Read more…] about The Indiana Jones of Business Archives

Consumers are familiar with the cola wars, the PC wars, the FedEx/UPS wars, and the fast-food wars. But the tractor wars? Neil Dahlstrom is a historian and archivist for John Deere, and he’s the author of Tractor Wars, a historical narrative of the race to be the top manufacturer of power farming at the turn of the twentieth century. Will it be International Harvester, Ford, or the much smaller player, John Deere?

[Read more…] about Tractor Wars

Derek Sivers was an accidental business founder. He only wanted to sell his music online, which happened to be during the pre-PayPal era. His peers pushed him into the business because they wanted their music online too. This short story of ups and downs ends with a pitch-perfect score when he sells the business for $22 million. In this episode, I’m joined by Hannah Munro, the host of the CFO 4.0 podcast, to unpack Derek’s book, Anything You Like.

[Read more…] about The Story of CD Baby

Dame Stephanie ‘Steve’ Shirley has repeatedly stated, “I want to live a life worth saving.” Those who adore her will quickly say she has lived multiple lives worth saving after being saved from the Holocaust and transported by her mother from Austria to her newly-adopted country in England. Steve later became a visionary entrepreneur and a passionate and ardent philanthropist giving away millions to noble causes. Our topic is her 5-star book, Let It Go.

[Read more…] about A Life Worth Saving

We learned many linear frameworks in college to help us solve simple to complex problems. Yet, systems thinking was probably missing from that curriculum. The Fifth Discipline (Senge) and Systems Thinking (Meadows) are typical starting points for learning systems thinking. However, those books are not written from a business person’s perspective. Simple_Complexity, by Dr. William ‘Willy’ Donaldson, provides a very readable and practical overview of systems thinking, the topic of this podcast episode.

[Read more…] about The Systems Thinking Mindset

A 2009 survey revealed that a fifth of British teens believed Churchill was a fictional character. More than a quarter thought Florence Nightengale was a mythical figure. But two-thirds thought King Arthur was a real person. We need a similar survey showing what management systems are mythical and which provide valuable and enduring benefits in any organization. David Axson is the perfect person to provide feedback; he’s the author of The Management Mythbuster.

[Read more…] about The Management Mythbuster

Behind his back, I call him a Peter Drucker. He’s the co-host of one of my favorite podcasts, 2Bobs. He’s also the author of six business books. His name is David C. Baker, and I could listen to him all day with his pearls of wisdom on accumulating and sharing expertise with others. David’s newest book is Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors. Even W-2 knowledge workers can gain insights from this book geared toward third-party experts.

[Read more…] about The Logic and Magic of Expertise and Tradecraft

In the CFO Bookshelf archives, an old audio file was found collecting dust, and it was an interview between Oracle Netsuite and Mark Gandy, the host of this show. The audio is from a pre-recorded webinar for their audience, and the title was called, The Books CFOs Read, and it was hosted by Ranga Bodla, NetSuite’s Head of Industry Marketing. The show also featured opinions on the evolving role of today’s CFO.

[Read more…] about A Podcast for Financial Leaders

Some of my favorite books by business founders include Boss Life by Paul Downs, Anything You Want by Derek Sivers, and Wild Company by the Zieglers. What it Takes by Raegan Moya-Jones, the gritty and successful co-founder of aden + anais is also high on my list. Her book includes many of the typical hurdles we’d expect in a startup story. But very few tackle the weighty subject of pioneering women building a global brand in a male-dominated space as Raegan did.

[Read more…] about Building a $100 Million Brand Against Formidable Odds