I like finding obscure business books, biographies, and well-written historical pieces that read like narratives. I’m also constantly watching upcoming releases that fit these criteria. The list below is in release date order.
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What CFO Bookshelf Is Reading Now
I’ve never been a person to share what I’m reading on social media. Yet, friends and acquaintances still ask me what I’m reading frequently.
Typically, I’m always reading one book and listening to another. I walk about 75 minutes an evening and longer on weekends. That allows me to consume 40-50 audiobooks annually. Accordingly, I’ll break my reading into two buckets: reading and listening.
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The 4 Best Books on Sales Management
I love working on cash flow management problems. I approach cash flow management through two different lenses. One lense is upstream cash flows and the second is downstream. Most articles on cash flow directed toward small business owners are downstream in nature such as improving AR collections and speeding up inventory turns. I prefer focusing on upstream cash flow–marketing and sales.
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The Best Accounting Books Ever Written
Where is Don Draper when you need him? I need an attention-grabbing title for top accounting books all of us should consider reading. I need his help because this is a topic where I need help on getting you past the headline.
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You Finished a Great Book, Now What?
What happens after you finish reading a great book? You know, the one you tell everyone about or the one you can’t quit thinking about. I know, you want a similar follow-up, right?
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Best Books about Financial Fraud
I guess I have a pea-sized brain. While working for KPMG, first-year accountants (aka grunts) were inundated with internal controls training (alums, remember SEADOC?). But I just didn’t get it. How did/do accountants learn how to steal? If only I had these two books at my fingertips nearly 30 years earlier.
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My 15% vs Ownership Thinking
Numerous CEO friends continually extol the employee virtues of ownership thinking. I’ve never jumped on that bandwagon. I’ve met my share of passive and disengaged, country club-like, and unsophisticated owners. With that jaded imagery in my mind, I don’t want employees thinking like owners, even if the bad ones represent a small minority of all entrepreneurs. Instead, I prefer a stewardship mentality.
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Ending the Negative Connotation of Planning
When you think of planning, what springs to mind? In your organization, is planning a positive experience or a negative one?
Many of us, including this writer, have suffered many tortuous planning exercises that never gained steam once they were finalized. Future planning events continue with similar results.
Perhaps we need a reminder of what planning is and its primary aim. I’ll keep this short by referencing a page from Peter Senge’s masterful business playbook, The Fifth Discipline.
The Essense of Planning
Senge calls planning a form of institutional learning. It’s through this continuous learning that the organization adapts and grows. Reading between the lines, planning is far more beneficial than the plan itself. Additionally …
… the process whereby management teams change their shared mental models of the company, their markets, and their competitors. For this reason we think of planning as learning and of corporate planning as institutional learning.
Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline
Based on the comments of Senge, is planning a learning and growth experience in your organization? If not, why? If so, how can you help to change this thinking about planning?
The Effective Executive – Read the Introduction
Every financial leader should be reading Drucker. If you have not read any of his books, I’d start with The Effective Executive. You’ll find he was way ahead of his time.
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How I Subscribe to the Wall Street Journal
There have only been two online publications I’ve subscribed to for years, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Harvard Business Review. I’m not including publications like Forbes, Inc., or Bloomberg’s Businessweek. That’s because I continually switch out those publications yearly for variety.
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