The one topic in business that I could talk for hours about is financial transparency for any organization of any size. And that’s because there are so many layers and potential outcomes when such transparency is valued by the owners or directors in the organization. I’ve been teaching the principles of financial transparency for years, and one CEO has become my favorite for the embodiment of everything this concept represents. But what is it?
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The Rise and Fall of a Retail Fraudster
I’ve read numerous books on financial fraud and business failure over the years. Oddly, such books can serve as great primers on the recipe for ‘legitimate’ business success. However, I’m not sure I’ve ever read a story where the owners were as brazen in their financial improprieties as the family members and managers of the consumer electronics store chain, Crazy Eddie. No, Retail Gangster by Gary Weiss is not dark comedy or satire, but it seemed like it.
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Interest, The Price of Time
“The emergence of interest to incentivize lending is the most significant of all innovations in the history of finance,” according to the financial historian William Goetzmann. Edward Chancellor is also a financial historian who included that quote in his captivating book, The Price of Time. Chancellor reveals the origin story of interest, how rates were set in different civilizations, and the negative consequences of ultra-low interest rates for extended periods of time.
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The Soul of Startups
Sophie Theen is the author of The Soul of Startups. Sophie reveals the misconception that a company’s people make its culture. Instead, that culture starts at the top and works its way down into other teams which is consistently changing. That can lead to unplanned and unforeseen consequences for the staff working in these startups. In the chaotic world of startups, we learn how founders can overcome the lack of emotional maturity in building teams.
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The Flaw of Averages
Why did the statistician who couldn’t swim drown as he attempted to cross the river? He had been told that the average depth of the river was just three feet. Yet, he perished. That’s because the middle part of the river was nine feet deep. Dr. Sam Savage reminds us of that humorous story in his books and online tutorials. Nevertheless, many of us still succumb to the flaw of averages in our personal and professional lives. Sam teaches us a new skill — the arithmetic of uncertainty.
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Surrounded by Idiots
Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson could possibly be the simplest book I’ve read on the simplification of four basic personality types that we can all understand. Thomas is an expert in the DISC profile systems, but he’s converted the assessment results into a digestible four-color system along a two-by-two matrix. In this conversation, we will gain an understanding of the purpose of such assessments. We also learn what can cause decision inertia in any senior leadership team.
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The Best Book for Professional Services Firms
When I think of books geared toward professional services firms, only one author comes to mind. His name is David Maister and some of his titles include Managing the Professional Services Firm, The Trusted Advisor, and Strategy and the Fat Smoker (my favorite). The newest title in this genre is now my favorite, and it’s entitled The Boutique: How to Start, Scale, and Sell a Professional Services Firm by Greg Alexander.
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Gerber is Partly Right, Partly Wrong
If you’ve read Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited, you are familiar with his mantra of working on the business instead of in the business. Even financial leaders should be working on their departments, not just in them. But is that the right or full message?
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The Rise and Fall of BlackBerry
If you think the fall of BlackBerry could have been prevented because it failed to act quickly on new technologies and fend off Apple’s, iPhone, it’s time to turn back the clock and look closer at its fast rise to $20 billion in annual revenues along with the issues the two brilliant founders of RIM faced as its business model started showing cracks in its foundation. The best place to start is the book, Losing The Signal.
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Is Trust by Hernan Diaz a 3-Star Book?
As a long-time financial professional and a neverending lifelong learner, reading fiction has its place for any student of business. Most of the best novels are about anything but business. That means fiction lovers are relegated to works like The Goal, Lencioni’s fables, or The Phoenix Project. Finally, Hernan Diaz has released a novel in which a wealthy financier is a central character. But is it any good?
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